mob art links

art through locative/ mobile/ pervasive/ wearable/ wireless devices
http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/mob.htm

Video phones intereract with TV viewers

URL : http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2005/04/28/video_phones_in.html
Interactive TV - or "Participation TV" takes on a new meaning with video phones.
Monique Van Dusseldorp has written an interesting post for E-Media Tidbits on Italy's success with video phones and their high penetration rate in this country (almost 1 million people own a 3G mobile video phone). Monique gives somes examples of how they are being used:
"Telecom Italia's broadband portal, Rosso Alice, includes a 24-hour video chat community, with local heroes broadcasting their own shows, but also offers eight hours of live television per day.
In the programs, those with a video phone or webcam can interact with the TV hosts, sing songs, tell jokes, provide cinema reviews, etc. The caller's video image is visible on screen, next to or behind the hosts, who sit in a Flash-produced digital studio.
And the system is now making it to mainstream TV as well. From April 27 onward, public broadcaster RAI Uno's morning show, Mattina, is using it to invite the audience to call in and respond to the day's issues and studio guests".

URL : http://www.participationtv.com/
Format
- Italy: Video chat format goes mainstream
- France: CultTV show gains wider distribution
- Former Yugoslavia: Launch of Videoletters community
- US: Gore teams with Google to launch TV channel Current
- Russia/Netherlands: Worldmade Channel shows home videos
- Portugal: Sofiaís Diary announces worldwide sales
- UK: Live interactive reverse auction TV show Bid2Win on Sky
TV to Mobile
- Germany: Eurovision Playback Star
- Italy: Trophy soccer match on Live TV!
- Australia: Jong Zuid with Australian cast
- US: FOX News Channel on Sprint TV
- Japan: TV sports show on mobile in animation form
- UK: Grand National streamed live to 3 network
- Finland: Tilt.tv sales surge with mobile portal
- Sweden: Kamera launches WOW! TV
- Netherlands: Heineken's camera-phone treasure hunt
- Spain: TV3 succeeds with 3alacarta
- UK: TalkSPORT TV launches on William Hill Channel
- Hong Kong: Robert Chua launches ëThe Interactive Channel'
- Brunei and Malaysia: Local versions of Pop Idol
- Belgium/Finland/Germany: Valentine text to speech services
- Finland: Paris Lemons parody on SubTV
- Germany: TV greetings on SuperRTL

URL: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=81683
Video-Phone Feeds Getting Into Mainstream Media

The final story board : Watching TV all the time

7 story boards
http://a.parsons.edu/~jslee/interaction2005/final2005/all_story01.html

WALKING AS KNOWING AS MAKING

// A PERIPATETIC INVESTIGATION OF PLACE

http://www.walkinginplace.org/

Imaginary Futures

A presentation by Richard Barbrook
In the modern world, our understanding of the present is often shaped by sci-fi fantasies about what is to come.Ironically, the most influential of these visions of the future are already decades old. We are already living in the times when they were supposed to have come true. In his presentations, Richard Barbrook will analyze the origins and evolution of three imaginary futures: artificial intelligence; the information society; and the gift culture. By showing that the future is what it used to be, he will argue that it is time for us to invent new futures.
Dr. Richard Barbrook was educated at Cambridge, Essex and Kent universities. During the early-1980s, he was involved in pirate and community radio broadcasting. He helped to set up Spectrum Radio, a multi-lingual station operating in London, and published extensively on radio issues. In the late-1980s and early-1990s, Richard worked for a research institute at the University of Westminster on media regulation within the EU. Some of this research was later published in 'Media Freedom: the contradictions of communications in the age of modernity' (Pluto Press, London 1995). Richard is currently researcher-in-residence at the Institute for Distributed Creativity(http://distributedcreativity.org).
Since the mid-1990s, Richard has been coordinator of the Hypermedia Research Centre at the University of Westminster and is course leader of its MA in Hypermedia Studies. In collaboration with Andy Cameron, he wrote 'The Californian Ideology' which was a pioneering critique of the neo-liberal politics of 'Wired' magazine. In the last few years, Richard has written a series of articles exploring the impact of the sharing of information over the Net, including 'The Hi-Tech Gift Economy' and 'Cyber-communism'. He is presently working on a book - 'Imaginary Futures' - which is about how ideas from the 1960s and 1970s shape our contemporary conception of the information society. A selection of Richard's writings are available on the Hypermedia Research Center's website. (http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/)

The final project : Story Board 03

Story Board - Selecting channels and sharing the video data
http://a.parsons.edu/~jslee/interaction2005/final2005/sb_tv_dmb.html

Solutions about the storyboard02

Sun,
Getting closer. The question I have now is more about your motivation, problem definition. How do you make this comparison specific enough that you escape the criticism that you are relying too much on stereotypes to make your argument? On one side you have the stereotype of a couch potato, literally eating snacks and watching TV. On the other side you have the stereotype of the "early adopter", the person who has to be the first to buy the new gadget available. It seems like an unfair or inaccurate comparison. It is too easy to claim future video use when you make unfair comparisons.
[Solution] The actor of each screen will be the same person.

You need explain the difference in time. Are these both 2005?
[Solution] The left screen is in 2005, and the right screen is in 200X. Exactly I will not tell the year but the time will be soon or already exists.

You also don't accurately describe the difference in resolution, size of image, or acknowledge that many TV's now offer split screen or insert options. Also on certain digital cable networks there is a specific channel that let's you scroll very quickly through all the channels to see what is currently playing(it's all text however)...
[Solution] Actually, TV programs of our home television in the right screen and of a new convergence media in the right screen are the same resolution. However, the problem is that a display resolution is different. Even screen size of our home television, not HD TV, is more bigger the convergence media, the home television displays more bad resolution to compare with LCD screen on the convergence device. Therefore, the area of a home television is big and with bad resolution and people can’t recognize the text on the screen. Conversely, the area of a convergence media is 320X240 like the same of actual screen size and displays with high resolution with clear texts.

However, the video file of 1920X1080 (HD TV resolution) is too big to play in a computer. So, I choose small size like 800X480 for whole screen including the same ratio screen partition.


Lastly, I find it funny/odd that the couch potato is watching the news while the early adopter is watching MTV. How does this support your thesis? Are you saying people won't watch the news as much? You also need to consider the common technique that CNN uses of having all that scrolling text on the screen. How does that fit into your scenario?
[Solution] The TV content was not fixed. The couch potato will see sports games and fall a sleep watching a TV guide channel, which shows a fitness equipment advertisement. TV makes people be fat, but most common TV advertisement is about fitness and making good shape of body. That’s irony! Conversely, in right screen, the people will see the useful and favorite TV programs.

I think it's risky to put so much emphasis on the split screen feature because that is becoming a common feature of regular tv and it doesn't work well on small screens - esp phones!! You need to be realistic about resolution and image size. Emphasize the social conditions of use not the technology features...

[sgp]

New internet TV project

Hi Everyone,
I wanted to let everyone know about a new organization and project that the Downhill Battle crew has started. The project is to make a decentralized independent video platform that will let people broadcast and watch channels at virtually no cost. We're developing open source software as part of a new organization called the Participatory Culture Foundation. Take a look at our initial announcement:
http://www.participatoryculture.org/
There will be lots more news over the next few weeks as our publishing and viewing software gets closer to completion.
We are particularly interested in making sure that there is a good independent music video channel when we launch the software. If you are interested in organizing something like that and have some experience running a website or working with music videos, email Tiffiniy at tyc@ppolitics.org. It would actually be a fairly simple project but would require some consistent attention to add new videos.
Nicholas
---- downhillbattle.org

The final project : Story Board 02

Traditional TV Vs. Interactive Video media
http://a.parsons.edu/~jslee/interaction2005/final2005/sb_main.html

DMB phone monitor resolution

Samsung SCH-B100

LCD
- Main : 262K Color TFT LCD (320 × 240)
- 외장 : 65K Color STN LCD (128 × 128)
Korean URL : http://www.anycall.com/i_world/i_view/view_detail_2005.jsp?PFID=SCH-B100&page=1&real=feature&sar=

Analogue Television (NTSC)
screen resolution : 720X486
screen ratio : 4:3
Digital Television (ATSC, HDTV)
screen resolution : 1920X1080
screen ratio : 16:9

Project proposal 2 : The Future of Video Media

Major Studio2 - Interactivity / Ji Sun Lee (Sun) 04/07/2005
The Final project proposal:
The Future of Video Media

I am studying video media in convergent devices because I want to find out how the future media that each person would hold everywhere affects an influence in everyday life in order to understand the behavior of using video media in the past and predict the features of it in the future.

1) Motivation
When the video camcorder started to be sold to customers in the 1960’s, many artists and people were spoiled by huge possibility of video use, because it seemed like the camcorder could contribute media power to individuals, rather than one–way communication of television. However, the video has degraded and limited because it is used to keep and record personal memories such as birthday parties, weddings, and special events although few video artists and persons who engaged in a social movement have applied video media in their own work.

Recording videos using the camcorder was not easy jobs and the video equipment was not cheap. Furthermore, reviewing video tapes was such an annoying job because people had to find video tape in a book shelf and plug a line of from a VCR to a television. Television also became more complex than ever before. The people can’t avoid many advertisements which are inserted periodically into a program and they had to channel surf very long time to search for favorite programs out of more than 100 channels every day and every time.

In the past, many experiments, including interactive television, which supplement the disadvantage of television combined video recording and telecommunication technologies. However, interactive television hasn’t been successful. Instead of that, the mobile and strong convergent media are taking the future role of television because people carry the devices all the time. Then, how will video media be advanced in convergence media? How will the future media apply the previous functions of television and video camcorder? How will people use functions and adapt them to their life?

2) Thesis
“The past is a window to see the future.”
We don’t know about the future, but we can assume the future, When we assume the future, people can find the better way of using the video media and how to use more effectively.
To compare the past with the future of video media, I will research how video media is used everyday life and what was the limitation of that. In addition, I’m going to collect information about current technology to overcome the weakness of past video media from books, articles, and related projects.

3) Implementation
Based on my personal experience about the video media, I will write the scenarios of using video media and compare the past and present with the future. Each scene will include a short essay to reflect future prediction in books, essays, articles and my opinions. Then, I will make movies about those scenarios.
The scenario about the past and present : scenes of channel surfing on the television

The scenario about the future : scenes showing interactive interface and communication


The movie about the past and present will be displayed on a traditional television and the movie about the future will be displayed on screen of convergence media such as a cell phone or PDA.

4) Reference
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 2001
- Phillip Swann, TV dot COM, 2000
- Steve Curran, Convergence Design, 2002
- Negro Ponte, Beyond Digital, http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired/WIRED6-12.html, 1998
- FT.com, Mobiles to ‘replace TV as prime ad medium’, http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9710c238-a6d6-11d9-a6df-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.html, 2005

Recent predictions by Vodafone

http://www.vodafone.com/flash/futures/index.jsp?action=hasFlash&lang=0&displayMode=normal&bandwidth=hi

Final project – Story Board

Major Studio2 - Interactivity / Ji Sun Lee (Sun) 04/11/2005
Final project – Story Board

#01 P
Rather than being a neutral medium of presenting information, the screen is aggressive. It functions to filter, to screen out, to take over, rendering nonexistent whatever is outside its frame.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 96p

#01 P & F
In this sense, the possibility of simultaneously observing a few images that coexist within one screen can be compared with the phenomenon of zapping-the quick switching of television channels that allows the view on longer concentrates on a single image.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 97p

#1 F
For example, digital media of liner-media machines such as Windows 98 media Player or RealPlayer emulate the interfaces of liner-media machines such as VCRs. They provide such commands as play, stop, eject, rewind, and fast forward. In this way, they make new media simulate old media, all the while hiding new properties such as random access.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 117-118p


#02 P & F
Today, coupled with the computer, the screen is rapidly becoming the main means of accessing any kind of information, be it still images, moving images, or text. We are already using it to read the daily newspapers; to watch movies; to communicate with co-workers, relatives, and friends; and, most important, to work. We may debate whether our society is a society of spectacle or of simulation, but undoubtedly, it is a society of the screen. What are the different stages of the screen’s history? What are the relationships between the physical space where the viewer is located, her body, and the screen space? What are the ways in which computer displays both continue and challenge the tradition of the screen?
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 94-95p


#1 F
New media objects are rarely created completely from scratch; usually they are assembled from ready-made pars. Put differently, in computer culture, authentic creation has been replaced by selection from a menu.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 124p

#03 F
New media is interactive. In contrast to old media where the order of presentation is fixed, the user can now interact with a media object. In the process of interaction the user can choose which elements to display or which paths to follow, thus generating a unique work. In this way the user becomes the coauthor of the work.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 55p

#03 F
First, the idea of temporality – the classical screen displays a static, permanent image; the dynamic screen displays a moving image of the past; and finally, the real-time screen shows the present. Second relationship between the space of the viewer and the space of representation.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 103p

#03 F
The producers define the basic structure of an object, and release a few examples as well as tools to allow consumers to build their own versions, to be shared with other consumers.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 245p


#04 F
New media does not radically break with the past; rather, it distributes weight differently between the categories that hold culture together, foregrounding what was in the background, and vice versa. As Fredrick Jameson writes in his analysis of another shift, that from modernism to postmodernism: “Radical breaks between periods do not generally involve complete changes but rather the restructuration of a certain number of elements already given: features that in an earlier period of system were subordinate become dominant, and features that had been dominant again become secondary.”
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 229-230p


#5 F
With new media, “malleability” becomes “variability”; that is, while the analog television set allowed the viewer to modify the signal in just a few dimensions such as brightness and hue, new media technologies give the user much more control. A new media object can be modified in numerous dimensions, and these modifications can be expressed numerically. … More radically, a number of completely different interfaces can be constructed form the same data, from a database to a virtual environment. In short, the new media object is something that can exist in numerous versions and numerous incarnations.
… Finally, the example of the DJ also makes it clear that selection is not an end in and of itself. The essence of the DJ’s art is the ability to mix selected elements in rich and sophisticated ways. In contrast to the “cut and paste” metaphor of modern GUI that suggests that selected elements can be simply, almost mechanically, combined, the practice of live electronic music demonstrates that true art lies in the “mix.”
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 134-135p

#5 F
Following art historian Ervin Panofsky’s analysis of linear perspective as a “symbolic form” of the modern age, we may even call database a new symbolic form of the computer age, a new way to structure our experience of ourselves and of the world.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 219p

Characteristically, many new media products, whether cultural objects or software use loops in their design, while treating them as temporary technological limitations. I, however, want to think about them as a source of new possibilities for new media.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 315p

Similarly, we may expect that when digital video appear on small displays in our cellar phones, personal managers such as Palm Pilot, or other wireless communication devices, they will once again be arranged in short loops because of bandwidth, storage, or CPU limitations.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 317p

As the narrative activates different parts of the screen, montage in time gives way to montage in space, Put differently, we can say that montage acquires a new spatial dimension. In addition to montage dimensions already explored by cinema (differences in images’ content, composition, and movement), we now have a new dimension – the position of images in space in relation to each other. In addition, as images do not replace each other (as in cinema) but remain on the screen throughout the movies, each new image is juxtaposed not just with the image that preceded it but with all the other images present on the screen.
The logic of replacement, characteristic of cinema, gives way to the logic of addition and coexistence. Time becomes spatialized, distributed over the surface of the screen. In spatial montage, nothing need be forgotten, nothing is erased. Just as we use computers to accumulate endless texts, messages, notes, and data, and just as a person, going through life, accumulates more and more memories, with the past slowly acquiring more weight than the future, spatial montage can accumulate events and images as it progresses through its narrative. In contrast to the cinema’s screen, which primarily functions as a record of perception, here the computer screen functions as a record of memory.
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 404-405p

Mr Robertson spoke as BBDO released a report that said consumers are now more willing to live without television than without mobile phones or home computers.
The agency asked nearly 3,000 typical consumers in 15 countries to choose the communications device they would most want to keep. Forty-five per cent said their home computers, 31 per cent their mobile phones and 12 per cent their televisions. In China, 61 per cent opted for mobile phones, compared with 30 per cent for home computers and 4 per cent for televisions.
The survey found that mobile phones users like to stay connected even while they are asleep. More than 60 per cent said they kept their phones on and within reach 21 to 24 hours a day, and 15 per cent said that figure was 16 to 20 hours a day.
- FT.com,
Mobiles to ‘replace TV as prime ad medium’, http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9710c238-a6d6-11d9-a6df-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.html

Update: Mobile Video

Update: Mobile Video

It seems the mobile video industry is evolving along these three lines:

1. Online video content is aggregated on the web, RSS-style and downloaded by consumers through PCs onto mobile devices.
2. Traditional TV content is PVRed and transferred onto a mobile video player for viewing on the go.
3. Video content is streamed directly to mobile devices - the current likely candidates are game consoles and cell phones - either through satellite or mobile networks.

So what, you'd ask. Mobile video means new channel(s) and new opportunities, and since the interaction patterns with this new medium will be different, it's a good time to start pondering.

The past two weeks were rich in news and comments on the subject, and below are some of the most interesting links:

"A successful mobile business idea comes from considerations of the mobile phone characteristics, not from an analysis of already available content. That's why "mobisodes" do make sense and full length movies don't; SMS proved to be the killer application while MMS are facing a slow adoption."
-- AdverBlog

"...A little teaser from Sony Computer Entertainment CEO and president Ken Kutaragi about how they might be adding a mobile phone function to the PSP in the near future."
-- Engadget

"MobaHo! -- a joint venture of 88 Japanese and Korean companies -- is gambling Big Money that Asians will want satellite TV and radio broadcasts beamed from the sky direct to their handheld receivers, cell phones and car-mounted tuners -- and maybe even iPods in the future."
--Wireless Watch

"Remember when we told you Nintendo would be adding video playback abilities via a $49 adapter for the DS? The company is now taking pre-orders for the device, called Play-Yan, and it is, in fact, selling for $49."
-- Engadget

"Sirius Satellite Radio will use Microsoft's Windows Media Video 9 software to help create and broadcast future video services, the companies said Wednesday." The mobile video service is scheduled for 2006 and will include children programming delivered to cars.
-- CNET

"According to DM Europe (via picturephoning), Norwegian TV viewers can now send in video clips from their mobile phones and have them shown on the national TV programme Svisj, an entertainment for youngsters."
-- Unmediated

"When I wrote my initial paper about videoblogging last summer I was looking for a number of technical solutions in order to make sharing and co-creation of video more feasible. A lot of people seem to be interested in videoblogging and a number of new services and ideas have emerged during the last six months."
-- Unmediated

Desktop video aggregator for OS X is released.

URL : http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2005/01/update-mobile-video.html

Commentary: The Future of TV

BusinessWeek.com is running a series of articles discussing the future of TV, mostly focusing on HDTV . Three major trends to keep an eye on, Business Week says, are:
1. The super-high-tech TV will become as easy to set up as a low-tech appliance.
2. Because the TVs will communicate over a home network, you'll be able to access digital content anywhere.
3. With this Internet connectivity, TV won't come from just one provider anymore.

URL : http://www.businessweek.com/technology/tc_special/tc_04hdtv.htm

Social Software for Set-Top boxes...

"Imagine a buddy-list on your television that you could bring onto your screen with the merest tap of a 'friends' key on your remote control. [...] The interface that would let you add and remove friends, and see what your friends are watching in real-time - whether they be watching live television or something stored on their PVRs. Adding friends would be simple - you could enter letters on screen using your remote, or browse your existing friends' contact lists."

URL : http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2005/03/social_software_for_settop_boxes.shtml

The Future of the 30-Second Spot

URL : http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/business/yourmoney/27dvr.html?ex=1269579600&en=9502125e77789279&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

"43 million Americans time-shift, using either their VCR's or the digital video recorders."

Only you can save television

March 27, 2005

Only you can save television

It would be easy to make this blog a running chronicle of all media and entertainment in the throes of radical change. If nothing else it would be a breeze to update daily with a selection from the overwhelming number of examples out there. And as it happens, the radical change theme also plays strongly to the Long Tail. As the business models of traditional media and entertainment crumble, so will the hit-machine distribution bottlenecks that stand between us and a million niches.

I'm going to resist being such a chronicle, however, mostly on the grounds that you can get that elsewhere and I've got a book to write. But every now and then the tide of evidence will compel me to make an exception to note the obvious: that we're ending one era and entering another where the rules are sure to be different.

The best example of that is television, which is in the sweet spot of all Long Tail forces. So today, let me make one of those exceptions by explaining why TV is the first place to look for Long Tail opportunities. Here's why:

• TV produces more content than any other media and entertainment industry. There are an estimated 31 million hours of original television content produced each year. Although that isn't as much as radio, most radio is either chat or recorded music that is available elsewhere, so it's not in the same league. In addition, 115m digital video tapes are sold each year for personal camcorders.
• Only a tiny fraction of it is available to you. First, the average American household now gets 100 channels of TV. While that sounds like a lot--it's 876,000 hours of video broadcast to the average home each year--that's still less than 3% of the commercial video that's produced for broadcast.
• Making matters much worse, unless that home has a DVR (and only 4-5% of US households do) and someone is spending a good chunk of their free time scouring listings to program it, they're going to miss virtually all of that TV. Once TV is missed, it's usually gone. Only a tiny fraction of shows are syndicated, and an even smaller fraction makes it to DVD.
• Thus the ratio of produced content to available content is the highest of any industry I've looked at. Other industries may produce more content--print, for instance--but it's far more available (see Google). Only television treats its premium content as disposable. True, a lot of it actually is. But not all, and not as much as is effectively thrown away after a brief moment in the sun.
• Other industries with great Long Tail potential either know it, are already feeling the pressure, and are well on their way to doing something about it (music, print media, books, radio) or they are doing so well that they have little incentive to shake things up (film, games). TV, on the other hand, is just about to hit its crisis, whether its executives are willing to admit it or not. That crisis includes: ad-skipping, the disappearing 18-34 male, rising ad rates despite chronically falling ratings, and the death of the 30-second spot (see also Sunday's NYT piece). My friends in the biz suggest that this year's upfront will be the first in memory to go negative. If so, that would be a real wake-up call.

There is no shortage of smart people thinking about how TV can find its way out of its corner. But it's not easy. For starters, most of the networks are content renters, not content owners. (NBC, which bought Universal ten months ago, is now an exception). This means that the archives are often not theirs to monetize.

Rights also continue to be a total hairball, made even more complicated by exclusive geographic distribution deals (which conflict with the Internet's global nature) and syndication options. And then there's music, which is a nightmare. Want to know why you can't watch old WKRP in Cincinnati episodes? It's too hard to license the music that was used in the show.

Bottom line: TV is begging to be reinvented. Fortunately, there are a lot of new companies that have emerged to try to do just that. One of them is Brightcove (formerly Vidmark), whose CEO, Jeremy Allaire, gave me a briefing last week at PC Forum. They've got an open-access video publishing platform that could make it as easy to be a video publisher tomorrow as it is to be a bookseller today. Impressive.

Finally, I'll finish this post with additional links for those who still have an appetite for more:

* Berlesmann is launching a P2P platform for video and games downloading.
* The director of the Blair Witch Project is releasing his new video episodes on BitTorrent.
* Fox is releasing some of its shows as $10 DVD "starter sets".
* PSFK provides a good roundup of other IP TV news and stats.

Posted by Chris Anderson in On-topic | Permalink

URL: http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2005/03/more_long_tail_.html

The Future of Television

http://cms.mit.edu/mit3/subs/plenary1.html#summary

IAN CONDRY: What lessons do you draw from peer-to-peer music sharing? Will that kind of chaos in file sharing and threat to intellectual property come to TV? Is there something in the regulatory history, VCRs for example, which can offer a lesson for the current climate?

..................

U.S. television is a bank. If you turn to news today, the tendency is to engage in "financialization," or to value in monetary terms of all kinds of activities. This was seen after September 11th in how there was a great deal of time devoted to discussing the economic impact of terrorism. Today, basic economic knowledge is required for all current affairs reporters. On channels such as CNBC and MSNBC, the value of public activities is understood in fiscal terms. Cultural perspectives are subordinated to the monetary.

Television has also become a couch, an environment for the emotionalization of discourse. There is an increasing domestic emphasis in mainstream news. This is part of a wider tendency to ask people how they feel about things. For example, in interviews with NBA players, you might learn that they felt God was with them during a game, but you won't learn anything about tactics or actual performance. This trivialization of mainstream coverage is problematic.

Finally, television has become a landfill. By this metaphor, Miller wishes to call attention to the way in which the physical object of the TV set is made and used: where and how it is manufactured, where it travels, and what happens to it in its afterlife as a cast-off relic, part of a landfill.

Mobiles to ‘replace TV as prime ad medium’

Mobiles to ‘replace TV as prime ad medium’
>By Gary Silverman in London
>Published: April 6 2005 21:49 | Last updated: April 6 2005 21:49
>>

Mobile telephones and other wireless communication devices will soon become the most important medium for advertisers to reach technology-savvy consumers, one of the world's leading advertising executives said on Wednesday.

The forecast by Andrew Robertson, chief executive of Omnicom's BBDO advertising agency, the world's third-biggest, underscores the uncertainties facing advertisers in developed markets as they shift from their traditional dependence on television.

The problem for advertisers is that technological developments such as the spread of digital video recorders are giving consumers the ability to avoid TV commercials.

Mr Robertson said he believed the way forward for advertisers to reach consumers would be to use wireless devices such as mobile phones, laptop computers and the BlackBerry e-mail devices favoured by travelling corporate executives on the go.

“We are rapidly getting to the point where the single most important medium that people have is their wireless device,” he said. “It's with them every single moment of the day. It's genuinely the convergence box that everyone has been talking about for so many years.”

Mr Robertson, a 44-year-old native of Zimbabwe with experience of the London advertising industry, was named chief executive of BBDO last year in what was seen as an attempt to shake up an agency known for its TV commercials.

While stressing the importance of reaching consumers on wireless devices, Mr Robertson was open about the difficulties this will create for advertising agencies.

Unlike television viewers, mobile phone users are unaccustomed to commercial interruptions. To reach them, agencies will have to develop content so engaging that mobile phone users will it seek out - a tall order.

“You have no way to interrupt because they can choose what they can do,” Mr Robertson said. “The opportunity is if you can create some content that they want to engage with, they can do that all of the time from anywhere.”

Mr Robertson spoke as BBDO released a report that said consumers are now more willing to live without television than without mobile phones or home computers.

The agency asked nearly 3,000 typical consumers in 15 countries to choose the communications device they would most want to keep. Forty-five per cent said their home computers, 31 per cent their mobile phones and 12 per cent their televisions. In China, 61 per cent opted for mobile phones, compared with 30 per cent for home computers and 4 per cent for televisions.

The survey found that mobile phones users like to stay connected even while they are asleep. More than 60 per cent said they kept their phones on and within reach 21 to 24 hours a day, and 15 per cent said that figure was 16 to 20 hours a day.

URL: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9710c238-a6d6-11d9-a6df-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.html

5 Questions about Nam June Park

5 Questions about the artist

1. Paik has explored many types of new technologies in his works. How does Paik see the relationship between humans, the media and technology?

“MTV's videoclips have already shown that there is great intimacy between sound and image. People are used to these electronic collages. If you compare them to the underground films of the '60s, you will find lots of common traits, such as abrupt cuts and unusual angles, among other characteristics. MTV is not the only approach to the issue of sound-and-image, but it is an interesting solution, which has contributed a lot to the development of a "visual music", and to video art. I believe that Laurie Anderson's work, for example, is very important, because she bridges the gap between "low culture" and "high culture". The standards of "low art" are being raised dramatically. When Elvis Presley appeared in the '50s, fine artists did not appreciate his work. But when the Beatles appeared, in the '60s, fine artists admired and respected them.

I see a major change under way. As opposed to Presley, who was a driver, musicians like David Bowie or David Byrne are educated, well-informed people, with solid backgrounds. They admire Marcel Duchamp and other important artists. A visual artist can talk to them at the same intellectual level because they were visual artists before turning professional musicians. But there is no reason for them to create high art, anyway. There are always artists focused on this kind of work, like Ray Johnson and the members of Fluxus, among so many others.”

- Nam June Paik, Eduardo Kac interview

2. Paik has a strong musical background and he produced several telecommunication events. How does Paik related music and video?

The same answer about question of artist background, question No.2

3. Conversely the media become already become a monopolistic industry, Paik made the several artworks, such as "Magnet TV " that audience directly distort and control the media. How to different video art and television? How audience can take and control television?

Along with Participation TV (1963), Magnet TV (1965) was an attempt by pioneering video artist Nam June Paik to "gain audience participation through his TV experiments" (Decker-Phillips, 1998: 63).

In this piece, Paik made use of powerful, externally mounted electromagnets to manipulate electrons within the television set. In doing so, the process produced a continuously morphing display of abstract lines and shapes on the television screen.

This work was created during an era where television was only just beginning to become a fixture of day to day life, and was easily accepted by audiences and art critics alike. It referenced "the viewer's own familiar and private association with the medium, draws him in, thus implicating an involving him in Paik's recontextualization of art, technology and pop-culture" (Nankivell, 2004).

Paik further reinforced this reading stating that "Magnet TV was his first successful work because art critics could understand it by merely looking at it" (Decker-Phillips, 1998: 64).

4. Why does Paik choose video to express artistic concept? What is the meaning of "Video realism"? Does video allow people to possess and produce the media?

Conceptualism and minimalism together proclaimed the death of art in early 1970. The present was ridiculed; people were rambling on the death of realism. At the other end of the line, Nam June Paik had already been toying with his television sets for ten years. He was nicknamed the “George Washington of art-video” by experimental artist Frank Gillette.

In1960's, he used to break violins during openings and compose music scores for bathtubs. He used to say in a prophetic way: “The cathode-ray tube will replace the canvas, video art is to painting what Monet was to Ingres.”

Nam June Paik created the first images of the electronic age. He distorted Nixon’s face. A magnet above the cathode-ray tube was enough to make the television universe go astray. The Korean was mocking and did not repeat himself, he burnt everything that was moving: technology, Fluxus happenings, hippie movement and rock-and-roll, with a bit of Zen irony. It seemed easy, within reach of any television tinkerer. It was a rush. The monitors started to gurgle their soporific messages like electronic rubbish over the whole planet art.

5. Paik has reflected humanism and Eastern ideas through "TV Garden" and "TV Buddha". Is it possible "humanizing technology"? How does Paik depict that people live with new technology?

TV Garden, a sculpture piece from 1974, consists of dozens of video monitors situated amid many live plants. The TV's have a surrealistic combination of various images and sounds. Other sculptures created from installations of TV monitors include live fish swimming in tanks and in the old TV's themselves - floating serenely amid cacophonous noise and images of Rudolph Nureyev and jumbo jets. Some sculptures represented various animals, constructed from piles of television and video monitors; others contained references to eastern culture, such as Buddha, and references to influential scientists Galileo, Newton and Darwin.

TV Buddha is an enigmatic work by prolific video artist Nam June Paik which consists of a Buddha statue gazing at his own image on a video screen, being projected there by a closed circuit video camera.

According to Hanzal, "The historical/religious significance of the Buddha figure makes it an apt metaphor for contemplation, yet there seems to be conflict between the desires to look away from and into the self" (2001).

As such, Paik has managed to create an infinite loop. It becomes more interesting to the viewer as he/she realises that while the discourse of technology can be distanced from the conflict taking place, i.e. that the struggle is ultimately between the self and perception of the self, it also can be said to be a catalyst for the interaction which forces the interaction between the two.

Superstar Smackdown Topics - Nam June Paik

Major Studio2 - Interactivity / Ji Sun Lee (Sun) 04/03/2005

Superstar Smackdown Topics

NAM JUNE PAIK

1) How does material/medium/technology choice affect distance between audience and artist/designer’s work?

“… the most intimate belonging of human being, we will demonstrate the human use of technology, and also stimulate viewers NOT for something mean but stimulate their phantasy to look for the new, imaginative and humanistic ways of using our technology." --Nam June Paik (1969)

Nam June Paik endeavors to humanize technology to express his art concept to his audience. An object which conflates the use value of technology with the exchange value of fashion, Paik saw his TV Bra as a way of humanizing the technological by forcing it into a hybrid relationship with the body as well as other artistic media such as performance.

2) How does the artist/designer’s figure in their own work, either via autobiography, form, religion, background or otherwise? Does the work have to be representational in order to give insights on reality?

The historical background of Nam June Paik affected the way he produces his art. He found interest with music when he received his first piano at age fourteen. From there he went into music and art history in University. In his classes two teachers, John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen inspired him. This was the turning point of his life where he mixed and experimented with music and art. The post neo-dada (Fluxus) movement came through Germany where he studied and he joined this era of art form. Fluxus is a concert based style, where different elements are used, including sound, objects, and objects that produce sound. He then found interest in new technology when he was in Japan. By studying and experimenting with technology, he used it as another ingredient in his art. The way technology has advanced in the world and the issues that arise from the technology inspire him to create most of his work.

3) Is the work site specific? If not, why? What is the function of the work? What role does it play?

Nam June Paik (pronounced pake) is known mostly as a pioneer in the field of video art in the 1960's, a new medium at that time. Since then, many younger artists have worked with video, including Bill Viola and Tony Oursler. Trained in music, Paik became interested in electronic music in Germany in the 1950's, as well as working with multiple media, including visual art. As a child he was fascinated first with the then new medium of radio, and with the medium of television that followed it. Combining his art and music interests with his interest in technology, he first produced video sculptures, installations and performances. He has since explored other technologies, such as sound, computers and lasers.

4) What is the relationship to time in the work of your superstar? Timeless, ephemeral, ‘contemporary’, etc?

Paik’s understanding of the functioning of television and his ability to alter its properties enabled him to produce compelling, non-narrative segments of video. His extensive knowledge of other time-based art forms put him in a unique position to develop the artistic use of video. Commenting on how his particular training assisted his understanding of the opportunities presented by video, Paik observed, “I think I understand time better than the video artist who came from painting-sculpture. Music is the manipulation of time. All music forms have different structures and buildup. As painters understand abstract space, I understand abstract time.”

The collection of eighteen televisions is called "TV Clock". Paik used the eighteen television sets to show the hours of the day. Each television has hands that show the division of the clock face into twelve daytime hours and twelve nighttime hours. Paik's message is the fact of measuring time with a static measurement tool. The ability to measure time is a great accomplishment because time is a natural phenomenon. By using the televisions to show time, it shows the worlds changing ways of measuring this phenomenon.

5) How does the artist/designer communicate with their audience? Is their work more opaque or transparent? More interactive, passive or assertive? References to nature, culture, metaphor, etc?

His works always consider to participate and understanding audience. In Participation TV, he induced audience to participate his performance to stimulate communication with audience.

In many his works, he always shows the consistent attitude to practice humanized art which consider audience’s understanding and respect the privilege of observers.

6) Do artists/designers have a social responsibility because they act in public? Can these works change society or at least have an influence on it? How?

Various real-time interactive communication projects using broadcasting satellites were produced based on his media concept. "Good morning, Mr. Orwell," the first of such projects, was broadcasted in 1984. In this project, Mr. Paik demonstrated the possibility of using media as a new communication means, in contrast with the prospect of George Orwell, who depicted media-controlled future society in his novel "1984."

In 1986, Mr. Paik produced another TV project that linked New York, Tokyo and Seoul. This program, titled "Bye Bye Kipling," was his reply to Kipling, who wrote in his work that the East and West could never understand each other. In this program, Mr. Paik refuted the Eastern view of "incompatible West" and the Western view of "incomprehensible East," and attempted to build a global communication network. His project created a sensation. Mr. Paik focused on a computer's most important function as a means of communication,before even scientists could properly handle this strategic role of a computer. He attempted to materialize McLuhan's concept of environmental art by means of the various functions of computers, greatly affecting the world of modern art, as well as traditional philosophy and sociology, which had been unable to cope with the computer age. In other words, he prepared a perfect model of the internet.

Mr. Paik's lifelong ambitions include building global communication networks that involve people worldwide, and seeking mutual understanding among peoples of different cultures. Underlying his pursuit of these themes are his difficult time under severe political situations in his home country, Korea, and his identity as an Asian. Through his efforts in pursuit of his ambitions, he has contributed to the diversification of artistic forms, and helped restore the fundamental function of art, thereby imparting new philosophical objectives to science and technology.