Week 4 Benjamin Reading SHAME

Some caveats are necessary when considering this reading. Benjamin had not experienced the age of
the digital, where a digital artwork cannot be truly said to have an “original” from which copies are
derived. In this sense one cannot say that the “aura” of these works is devalued. Some artworks are also
produced with reproduction in mind; the aura of these artworks is tied to the concept of reproduction and
can therefore not be understood to be devalued by it either.

Benjamin’s socio-cultural analysis of mechanical reproduction is however interesting, and brings to light
the ways in which capitalism can have a diluting effect on the value of original works by reproducing them
to the point of banality. Another takeaway is that regardless of whether the copy is “better” or “worse” it
should be considered independently, because it is a new piece with its own qualities.

Understanding Media, the extension of Man - McLuhan & McFantastic Four

Key Question: To what extent do you agree with McLuhan's view of technology effect on human life and human's lack of effect on technology?

The first point is "merely to say" that a medium's impact on a person or a culture is the result of the scale and speed of its distribution. As we had seen before, the content of a medium is always tied to another medium. The distinction McLuhan makes is to say that a medium's effect is proper to the medium itself, and dependant on the culture in which it exists, and less related to the medium's contents or its applications. Speed of delivery and quantity delivered have more effect on society than the contents of messages. Like Mitchell, he talks of the importance of the "instant sensory awareness of the whole" ("firstness") to support his point of medium being more affective than content.

McLuhan tends to depict the arrival of new technologies romantically, like his image of the bedouin on his camel listening to the radio. At times it seems like McLuhan wants to say that technology descends from the heavens, like in the monkey scene from 2001, a Space Odyssey. I feel like that's closer to a biblical reference than it is to reality. Bedouins ride camels because building and maintaining roads in a desert is difficult and expensive. Nowadays they use cellphones.

Hot and Cold

Like his message about "medium over content", his concept of hot and cold media was well explained but I found that the connections he made at times seemed arbitrary.

Hot means lots of information is given by the medium and consequently not much involvement is asked of the human that interacts with or consumes it.
Cold means not much information is given by a medium thus the human brain needs to work to fill gaps of information.

That part is fine; but we found it difficult to handle the broadness of the statement, for not only communications media are hot and cold, but so are cultures, technologies, detective writing, Calvin Coolidge, the Cold War, etc. Movies can be both hot and cold apparently. So can print writing. Hot and cold media can either bring society closer to a tribal state or take it further away from it.

He does make an interesting point about the exhaustion of senses faced with an overload of media, supporting his initial point that personal change is caused by quantity and speed of delivery of media rather than its message. He adds that this exhaustion sets the stage for another media (opposed in hotness) to become more dominant. The internet may be that medium as it potentially the coldest.

Week 3 - S.H.A.M.E / Medium Is The Message

We found “Medium is the Message” to be excessively cryptic. However, it contained an interesting idea (which we think was taken too far into the land of absolutes): that the medium itself carries a large importance, beyond the level of one’s individual contact with art, at the level of the change it brings to society. The arrival of the printing press and the internet are excellent examples of this. However, discarding entirely the relevance of the content and the context behind art is obviously not necessary his argument.

“Media Hot and Cold” further explores some properties of media. McLuhan suggests medias have an inherent tendency to engage senses to a certain intensity; “cold” medias are discreet, while “hot” medias require much more attention. We found that this quality is not strictly given by the media; the content also contributes to this (one could say ambient electronic music is cold, while experimental IDM is hot, and similarly, a TV channel broadcasting a fireplace is cold, while prestige TV is hot). 

Week 3- Media by McLuhan The Visually Impaired

According to McLuhan, in the text “Medium is the Message”, the medium shapes and controls human action. To understand the meaning of the medium is the message, McLuhan says “the content of any medium is always another medium”, for example speech is the content of writing and writing is the content of print. For further explanation of the “medium”, the author is describing the electric light as a medium without a content but has a social effect because it allows to create light during nighttime. The content of a medium is the focus that delivers the important information. He gives another example about the media firearm because it is neither good or bad, it is only the message that it gives that determines its value. Also, McLuhan talks about Cubism art as “instant sensory awareness of the whole” which means Cubism a medium that has no message and it is illusionary but is complete as a medium.

In the text “Media Hot and Cold” Mashall McLuhan explains that hot media is a dense media with data such as radio or entertainment (TV). It has a low in participation and is a visual medium. They are hot because since they are visual data, they record the information with the eyes and store it in the mind to have further thoughts about the subject. These media can be found in England and America. It has the effect of hypnosis on the human senses. In the other hand cool media requires less data based but more participating such as the phone because the users must fill in the message. Cold media can be considered to have a lack of image and is not as easy to determine the message through the media.  It is considered as “low definition” in comparison to hot media as “high definition”. Cold media has an hallucination effect on the human senses.

Week 3: TETRA - Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan

This introduction of McLuhan’s writing overall seems to bring on these main observations:

Firstly, that the key to a critical consideration of any media is to acknowledge that all media derives its content from other media. In this there is a suggestion of the importance of a sensitive approach to the study and understanding of medias considers anthropological aspects, because as it is said, "the latest approach to media study considers not only the "content" but the medium and the cultural matrix within which the particular medium operates." The point is again summarized well in the following comparison: "our conventional response to all media, namely that it is how they are used that counts, is the numb stance of the technological idiot. For the "content" of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. The effect of the medium is made strong and intense just because it is given another medium as "content."

Secondly it is examined how the "transforming powers of new media" has its observable impacts on human senses: an extension of our capacities turns out to trigger profound changes that need to be monitored, the closing quote on C.G. Jung’s observations about the Romans changing being a last reminder of the historical weight of the medium on human activities. The reading makes use of numerous similar historical references and aphorisms to demonstrate to the reader the tangible context of the given observations. Notably the example of Arnold Toynbee, who approached the transforming power of media in his concept of etherialization, which he holds to be the principle of progressive simplification and efficiency in any organization or technology.

Regarding the second part of the reading, Media Hot and Cold, it seems more obvious that the work is dating from 1964, the evident absence of modern medias indicating it, while nevertheless suggesting a coherent look at a modern way of separating mediums into metrical points of analysis. The involvement or interactions between humans and media being scaled as the main factor of identification between a hot media (approximately identifiable as one that doesn't give much chance to the audience to fill the gaps due to the content being clear and requiring less participation) to a cool media (that is in this logic a cool media can be one engaging several senses, where an audience has much more opportunity for interaction) being the main tool of distinction brought by this chapter.

Key Question: Is the Internet a Hot or Cold Media?

MC Lariviere, Miha Eftene, Etienne Bolduc, Madison Hunt, Miko Yassa

Week 3 - C+ Gang - McLuhan

Our group started the session by asking ourselves this question: "Is the study of Computation Arts a study of hot or cold media?"

We then looked at McLuhan's essay and tried to interpret his notions in regard to this question. We first identified some examples from the text, such as "Any hot medium allows of less participation than a cool one, as a lecture makes for less participation than a seminar, and a book for less than a dialogue." (24) From this quote, we surmised that since computation arts dives deeply into spectator involvement, it should be an example of a cool media. At the same time, computation arts can hardly be put under this one label as although it usually requires a lot of participation on the side of the user/participant, it can also be a treasure trove of information. For example, under computation arts, a book becomes an interactive story and thus, nothing is clearly hot or cold. Instead, it becomes a sort of spectrum.

So, at the end of the day, we decided that Computation Arts can be considered both a hot and a cold media because it involves both the involvement of participants and the mass of information within the work. On top of that, different arts within the field involve different levels of information and participation, thus blurring the boundaries even more. Also, according to McLuhan's notion of "the medium is the message", both the information and the spectator are the medium within which the message is born. Thus, we realized that this idea is very well encapsulated by Computation Arts because the creative process that goes into creating interactive media often comes from the notion of having an object or technology that can do certain things and pushing its limits of functionality in a way that generates a form of interactive art. And so, we felt that because it includes this spectrum of hot and cold media, Computation Arts is a very unique field in the way that it conveys messages through the various types of mediums it uses.

Week 3 : Confused Coffee Beans - "Understanding Media" by McLuhan

In “Medium is a Message”, McLuhan follows Peter Weibel’s suggestion on the close relationship between media and social structure. He argues that it is the structure of the medium itself, rather than than content (which is just another medium), that modifies human action and associations. McLuhan focuses on mechanization and its linear and and sequential structure. Those structures homogenize civilizations and allow for a central power. Examples such as the French and American revolution, with the advent of typography, are given. Electrical technologies, on the other hand, are qualified as configurational. Comparing it to Cubism, McLuhan mentions how electrical media brings the structure of media into awareness. Like cubism, it drops the illusion of perspective and allows for a simultaneous view of the whole man-made construction. The art talks for itself. The medium is the message. Additionally, McLuhan explains how the arrival of electric technologies into western “typographic cultures” (ones that base reason on literacy) confuse and numb the westerner due to their habituation to the linear and sequential. Thus, just like Alexis de Tocquerville, one should understand the message of media and stand aside from it in order to see its impact on human perception (not human opinion) and social patterns. The electric light, a medium with no content, is thus an invaluable example for that study.

Hot medium against cool medium is becoming more relevant with the incoming waves of technology demanding way more interaction from the user. Therefore, as McLuhan brings in the second text, hot mediums could take a step forward by being more inspiring and entertaining while keeping their information and productivity. For instance, Buzzfeed, a social platform acting like a journal, is posting quite productive articles ,that we could consider hot medium, with the use of cool mediums and techniques. This method of merging both hot and cool mediums together helps to keep the interest of the viewers and/or younger people. Slowly growing on the internet or even Facebook, pages like Vice are a good example of the intended impact. This Facebook page is dedicated to small informational videos about stuff we don't necessarily know but are still important to be aware or informed of. Maybe schools should rely on the way these medium present their information to give students a new feel of how cool learning can be ?

Dana Ryashy, Sol Paul, Xavier Champoux, Rose-Marie Dion

Week 3 - Group #1 - Media and Messages -

We are really fascinated by the ideas that “the medium is the message,” the medium is the motivation of social development and it differentiates the different eras of human history. With the changing of mediums, the usage of different human senses to process information is also changing or equalizing. Artists are always the ones that are responsible to see the patterns of the medium. As artists, we need to stand outside the medium and consider the medium beyond what it does. Most importantly, as McLuhan mentioned in the article, we will be abandoned if we specialize in certain skills and stay in our comfort zones. We need to see the connection between different knowledge in different fields. Not only artists but people who run the society must also be aware of this change in medium and they must know how does it work. McLuhan's idea of hot and cold mediums allows us to better understand the essence of the medium. It suggests that the hot medium is one that filled with data and does not require much participation from the audience. However, the Internet nowadays falls outside of this theory, the Internet provides its audience with plenty of information, its audience is able to take part in the medium or further complete the information concurrently. The Internet is both hot and cold medium. The Internet is both hot and cold medium. We are not surprised as this article was written in the 1960s when the Internet did not yet exist. The cultural statements made by McLuhan seems to be racist, but it’s understandable for someone living in the 1960s to have these standpoints. Group member - Eugène Fournier, Michael Watts, Liu WenYue.

Week 3: Understanding media - V.A.P.C. (Group #2)

Discussion Questions: By trying to create a society with similar values, are we infringing on human's quest for knowledge? How far are we willing to develop technology if it means losing the power of interpretation and free thought?

“Medium is the message” by Marshall McLuhan is a well-known chapter from his work “Understanding Media(...)”. In fact, he talks about the effects of technology on society’s structure, and the population’s reaction based on the advancement of the industry. For example, following the relaying of written knowledge from Tocqueville to the population of France, passing on information through this medium allowed society to share similar values and moral decisions. On the other hand, in England, using oral conversation as a medium resulted in different views and ideas from society. This brings up the interpretation that the “medium is the message” signifies the importance of the way communication travels. The medium, aka the tool used for the message, is what will determine the ultimate meaning: interpretation has the power to completely inverse the initial statement. This leads us to question how we present our work and our thoughts to the world. Having a more homogeneous population results in less conflict, but do we lose part of our authenticity? If we invent more technology to facilitate our communication and share our values, are we really helping out society or just creating a plain robot-like train of thought that leaves no room for conversing and learning through other people?

The “Hot and Cold” chapter of Marshall McLuhan’s “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” explains the differences between the “hot” mediums and the “cold” ones, high definition versus low definition. Some of the main characteristics for the hot mediums would be their capacity to hold a great amount of data, therefore not needing audience participation to fill in the gaps, while cold medias are the opposite, such as the telephone or TV. These varying types of media will have different effects on the participating society. “Hot” countries develop boredom over time from getting used to these medias, creating anxiety over this fear of never encountering something new. On the other hand, the “cold” countries participate and play a role in the development of the technology. This brought up thoughts about our familiarization with technology, are we on an inevitable road to boredom? We keep innovating and get bored with our creations, technology becomes outdated in barely a year, so how will we ever be satisfied? To be happy with our creations, does it mean going back to our cold technology where we felt like we participated more? It seems like we are focused on getting our mediums more advanced, yet by aiming towards this we feel less and less complete.

Week 3 - Understanding Media - Ars-onist

By being an extension ourselves, how does the media determines its content?

We are not separate from the media, as much as the media isn’t separate from each other. No one thing acts or presents itself alone. In an age where viral videos can be easily misconstrued and acclaimed news sources are accused of spreading “fake news,” it must now be customary to look at a medium beyond its content, and see the cultural implications to how it came to be and its place in our modern world. In social media, we tend to isolate ourselves into echo chambers creating polarized spaces of thoughts. These spaces created by the means of Facebook’s social network medium are very segregated from others which lead to the questionable outcomes of the recent United States elections. The essence of media integration in our society doesn’t lie in what the convey (the content), but rather in how they alter our approach to that content. And even more than that, they touch the way we shape our thoughts!

Despite the nature of media being ingrained in us, the good coming from its hot and cold effects doesn’t necessarily mean it is applicable to all cultures. We all consume music, but not in the same way the top 40 dictates. We have even digested it differently throughout the years, from vinyl to cassette tapes to compact discs to digital downloads to streaming, and even then has vinyl and cassette tapes made their comebacks to a small, cool subculture. It is also worth questioning whether or not this distinction between hot and cold media is still relevant, as the emergence of Internet and smart devices strongly blurs the line. In an age where multiple media are merged into one single device, they are now capable of being communicative and in “high definition” as the same time.

S.H.A.M.E. - Week 2 / Image

In our second group discussion, we first talked about the concept of the mental image since we thought it was a bit confusing how Mitchell approached it in the text. It lead us to discuss imagination and how not everybody is necessarily capable of imagining a concept or an idea in a visual matter. It made us question ourselves about our senses, how we depend so much on our sight to navigate through the world. How about blind people? Not the ones who lose sight during a certain event in their life, but people that are born that way. Can they have mental images? And if so, are they even close to reality since they don’t have any visual representation of it? How does this come into play when interacting with media images?

We also discuss biases; how people rely on their biases to create their own physical (i.e.: photography and film) and mental images and how, in creating images, even AI learning machines are biased by their creator’s biases. Is it even possible to make sense of the world / be self-aware / conscious (for a machine or a human) without being biased? If a computer knows all possible information about a color, what digital value it is, all the shades it can have, etc., does the information and the knowledge translate into a true experience of it?

The C+ Gang - Week 2 - Image

"Is the image different to one who views it?"

Once we got into the discussion, we found this question coming up more frequently than the others. In the first place, as we found out, images never had a single origin and as Mitchell states in his text, images emerged from within various large bodies of people, including religion and politics. Moreover, looking at the image's different possible connotations, it is clear that its meaning is not the same across different people. In the text, for example, Mitchell makes reference to Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein, saying that although the resemblance may not be clear at first glance due to differences in perception, in the end it IS a portrait of her and this the resemblance will eventually become apparent.

At the same time, it is evident that people will have different first impressions of an image because of the concept of "firstness" brought forth in the text. According to Peirce, an image cannot "merely represent something", it also has this concept which includes the colors, texture and etc. that first stimulate our senses when viewing an image. We found that this played a large part in answering our question, as it explains why immediate reactions can be so contrasting at times. Furthermore, this concept of "firstness" is important as it plays off of the image being a construct of the viewer's perception, as it can be modified or taken from different angles to illustrate different views on a given subject. This, in our opinion, would cause images to be based on perception moreso than facts. This idea is illustrated in the text by the idea that we often can't speak of the mind without using media, particularly imagery, to give form to our imagination.


W.J.T. Mitchell, “Image,” in Critical Terms for Media Studies, Ed. W.J.T. Mitchell and Mark Hansen. Chicago: U Chicago Press, 2010, pp. 35-48.

Week 2 - TETRA - Image

Key Question: What else is self-contradictory in digital media?
After our discussion we were inspired by the idea: image is all up for the interpretation of a given viewer rather than bearing an intrinsic sense of it’s own. In other words, everyone projects their own interpretation onto images rather than having a set definition. All forms of image may be influential from a political and or social platform, leaving way for the observer to make their own kind of meaning. With the right signs and sensitive stimuli in place, our brain will try to link the story together.
The author talks about religion at the beginning of the text, but omits to point out that Eve is the first reproduction of God’s image that is Adam and that Adam’s first endeavour was to name all that he could see in the Garden of Eden, the flawless realm. More generally, Eve’s own birth and her task to reproduce is in fact the central mechanism of life: images are reproduced and their meaning takes a life of their own, evolving through hybridized iterations; in this way, an image thus loses its proximity to the ultimate truth (the “real”) one layer a the time. The process of human creation and manipulation of any medium follows a paradoxical pattern that can be observed in the meaning of the images themselves.
MC Lariviere, Miha Eftene, Etienne Bolduc, Madison Hunt, Miko Yassa

Week 2 - Image - 2SDAYS

As a team, we were intrigued by the question of image and representation, especially in relation to the old prohibition on images and to religious imagery. We bounced theological ideas in which Gods reproduced / represented themselves in us, and we in turn represented them in our icons. In this case, the prohibition may be interpreted as a monopoly on images for the Gods and we humans are playing God by representing ourselves, and even more so in our attempts to digitally recreate the human.

Other members of the team viewed the prohibition of images differently, positing an inherent danger in the image. Images grant ideas with credibility: they make them feel more real. However, images are not quite true: they are representations. Here, the prohibition stems from a fear that the representation will overshadow the real; that the imitation will be held as the truth. We were able to relate this idea with contemporary issues, like the use of the icon of Jesus by far-right Christians, or how photoshopped photographs of models have invaded our ideas of how humans should look.

We also advanced that we represent ourselves to understand ourselves better. Images are a powerful form of communication that connect us to our unconscious and allow us to communicate without words. The creation of images is a means to communicate with the parts of us we cannot access. With this we returned to theological interrogations: did Gods create us to understand themselves better? Did we humans create Gods to understand ourselves?

Week 2: Image and the Media - V.A.P.C. (Group #2)

Discussion Question: What would it take for a respected image (i.e. an image placed in a gallery or museum) to lose its “untouchable” status? Would there be a way for said image to regain its prestige?

W.J.T. Mitchell’s text is about the grand flexibility of the image itself. The image is seen by many as both a good and bad thing, as well as something that is on one hand taboo, but also widespread on the other. With the invention of technologies such as photography, television and the internet, the world has seen a massive proliferation of images. Because of the rapid availability and reproduction of images, many critics fear that said images could be easily doctored. Despite this, these same critics might turn a blind eye to the problem if the image were to be displayed in an art gallery or museum.


The image appeals to most of the senses, such as touch, smell, taste and sight. Should someone experience any sort of sense, their mind would deliver a visual metaphor. In addition, the image is both metaphysical and temporal; it can be, for example, either a canvas with a date and time imprinted on the back (seen as is) or a landscape depicting a scene of people dancing (the actual content of the canvas). Indeed, as Mitchell says, images will always be reactive and ambiguous, no matter how thoroughly controlled and analyzed they are. They truly are “everything and nothing”.

Week 2 - Image - Ars-onist

Has the digitalization of the image produced a necessary evil outcome?

It seems that our relationship with images was already complex even before the arrival of advertisements, television, and now most notoriously, the internet. As a result of the global reach and the amount of images the internet can produce there is now, as Mitchell put it, an “imagestic production equivalent of junk food.” However, the kind of imagery that we produce is all that not surprising. As images are in the likeness of things, we have created what is reflected from us, good and bad. The different technological mediums at our disposal is not far from its manipulation that makes us question its truth and essence. The reading then has us beg a philosophical question. Mitchell asks us why images receive both adoration and scorn, but a simple look at human character suggests a believable trajectory towards the treatment of the image.

The current attitude toward digital image seems to share some similarities with the resentment toward traditional image in its ancient days. In the last section “The Digital Image”, Mitchell suggests that the digital image should not be separated from traditional processes, as human perception treats them no differently than the analog. Combined with the previous two articles  from Kittler and Weibel, the common agreement is that traditional and digital media are mixing together into new forms of “images” that are much more accessible and reproducible. All in all, rather than breaking the link between media and image, we should reconsider our understanding of them as a whole, as Mitchell suggested: “The persistence of these qualities is what ensures that, no matter how calculable or measurable images become, they will maintain the uncanny, ambiguous character that has from the first made them objects of fascination and anxiety.” [1]

[1] W.J.T. Mitchell, “Image,” in Critical Terms for Media Studies, Ed. W.J.T. Mitchell and

Mark Hansen. Chicago: U Chicago Press, 2010, p. 47

W.T.J Mitchell's "Image" by The Visually Impaired. Percy Dragon, Sabrina Larouche, Amani Malti, Maggie Papadima and Tran Pham (Emma)

W.T.J. Mitchell's essay "Image" discusses the power of the image, as well as image semiotics. The text jumps back and forth a few times between these topics, but continues to convey a few core notions. Images are illusionary, images are influences,  images can evoke emotions and our relationship with new image technology.

A few important points are consistently brought up within "Image". The most important point, that I believe was under discussed, was the notion of image manipulation. It briefly mentions photoshop, and with these new image manipulation softwares, it becomes difficult to verify images as real, and not real. However, even before digital imaging, and image manipulation softwares such as Photoshop, image manipulation was practiced. A notable example of this would be Stalin's pictures, where, when an individual betrayed him, they were completely removed from his pictures as though they had never existed. Another example is during the Canadian election, where, for Prime Minister King's re-election images, he painted out King George to make it seem as though he had power of Queen Elizabeth, and by extension, England.

More than just image manipulation is discussed in Mitchell's essay. Within "Image", the practice of mass-media is often pointed out, where the news constantly depicts acts of violence to elicit sadness from us, while commercial attempt to pray in said sadness and give us hope with their new products. In essence, it's sort of the circular nature that is discusses later on within the essay. We consume we produce images, when than consume said images, and finally we recreate said images to begin the process anew.

While the essence of image practices have changed over time (from ancient murals painted on walls, to free circulating digital images), the power of the image has not changed in the slightest. Despite the idea that, with each technological improvement, the pictorial turn has begun, it is simply not the case. An image will continue to remain semiotic in nature, in the abstract or literal forms. An image can be purely simplified geometric shapes, or a crystal cut of reality, and the nature of the image shall not change, because the power of the image is within the eye of the beholder.

Week 2 : Confused Coffee Beans - "Image" by Mitchell

Cellphone against Digital Camera picture ? What is the meaning of a picture taken with a phone camera compared to a film camera? What is the relation of images and media ?

According to Edgar Dale, professor at the University of Ohio and the creator of the Dale’s Cone of learning, we retain 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear and 30% of what we see. Images that are retained build on what we perceive of that image. As this is part of the basis of advertisement, it is understandable that images and medias are closely connected. It started with the invention of the printing machine of Gutenberg. This innovation changed the importance of information. People from everywhere and any social class was now able to access information. The most common printed information was about religion. Stating that “human beings are created in the image of God”. That human beings should not makes images, because “human-made images are vain, illusory things”. In this perspective, we can see how mass-media use the same principle. Companies bombard the general public with promises, “If you buy this, you would be more confident” or “ by using this product, you will be more happy”. This increases our dependencies on mass-media as they have decided what our reactions to their products are before, us the consumer.

Trust in images has become more and more superficial. We each interpret images differently which means every interpretation we make is “fake”. On top of this, media creates illusions, of image and of trust. As we can see in people’s privacy and faith. Therefore, with the arrival of contemporary gadgets and technological innovation, our approach with our environment tends to disturb our “real” connections between what we see and what we trust. The definition of an “image” is no more of a simple concept of looking with the eyes and touching, it’s a whole new world of interaction and sharing over the digitization of its process and the ambiguity of its context. This has caused many problems for famous people or companies concerning their actions and thoughts on the web. Mainly affected by idolatry, maybe we should review our concept of idolism ? Has images affected our daily life?

Dana Ryashy, Sol Paul, Xavier Champoux, Rose-Marie Dion

The Fantastic Four Image by W.J.T Mitchell

Mitchell doesn't talk about image in the strict sense of it being a photographic image, he looks at image from the broader standpoint of the sensory; images of the mind that artists want to transmit to the people who consume content.

He starts with an alarmist argument, presenting religious bans on the creation of images and by extension the worshipping of false idols in the second commandment, which affected a wide range of cultures. He follows by bringing in different chaotic historical events and figures where imagery was used to exert power and oppress. He writes of the idea that news is all bad news which serves as a dark backdrop for the crushing positivity of commercials. Ironically, he kind of uses the same method to introduce his point about human relationship with media.

Mitchell argues we have a primal relationship with images and, in contrast with Kittler and Weibel, spins a positive perspective on human relationship with media which excludes dehumanization through digitization, and emphasizes the idea that humans had a pre existing link to media forms before new media, and a pre existing stigma against images and new forms of media which stretches back to biblical times. He talks of the closeness of images to human nature; "all images are mental things".

Mitchell brings up that people criticise digital images for not being "real". If there aren't images of something dramatic to show by the media then they fill time with image of celebrities and gossip/drama. Importance of context in the setting in which images are presented, advertisting is seen as negative and we don't trust it but if introduced to a gallery setting it changes the perception.

People had a faithfulness of reality, if there was an image of something it was considered immediately of being real.

He argues that the contemporary view of the legitimacy of images is often related to their aesthetic status, which has a redeeming effect on the degraded currency of images.

Mitchell also adds a grain of salt to the concept of the monopoly of writing in saying that the true monopoly is of visual media which includes writing.

The Fantastic Four Post-Media Condition & the Gramophone

In our first class discussion we discussed the difference between Episteme and Techne. Weibel suggests this relationship has evolved over time and tends to be defined by the class. Weibel views this ever-changing relationship through a historic lense. The Greeks created theatre, the theatre by extension creates a forum for discussion and a sense of community creating one of the first forms of democracy. The importance of the arts can be seen also in Plato's and Aristotles discussion of Epistame and Techne, the arts liberales and the arts mechanics with the Epistame being for the free citizens or the upper class. The relationship between labour and enlightened thinking is that labour in according to Aristotle had an effect on your body depleting the resources needed for enlightened thinking. This establishes a clear hierarchy of the arts, wherein Epistame was ranked above the Techne because Techne was the practises undertaken by the working class such as woodworking and crafts.

Weibel takes this viewpoint and applies it to other periods of history such as the Renaissance, the French Revolution and 19th century self expressionism in order to emphases the shift in paradigm between old media and what he calls the "Post-media condition".

Kittler also makes the point that digitization erases the distinction between media in his own frantic way of writing. Kittler looks more and different mediums and their evolution over time. He talks about the monopoly of writing to support his point that in todays post-media world, the digital medium has it's own monopoly on media in general.

(We are still traumatized by Kittler's obsession with communicating with the dead)

Week 1: Media & Machines - V.A.P.C. (group #2)

Discussion Question: How does technology affect our identity? Are we making our machines more human or are we adopting computerized traits? Consider the concept of the quantified self: can human existence be defined in discrete terms and what are the dangers in attempting to do so?

Weibel deals mainly with issues of epistemology (indeed literally beginning with an investigation into the division between epistemé and techné). He seems to view the convergence and mixing of previously disparate media as a relatively positive, equalizing force that emancipates knowledge and art from 'private control zones'. On the other hand Kittler is concerned with the deeper ontological questions that arise when human existence is heavily mediated by technology. He is wary of a perceived process of homogenization by which humans are transformed into discrete, programmable objects. According to Kittler, technology not only mediates our perception of reality, but increasingly defines it through a relationship of control in which we are rendered subservient.

In both articles a process is described in which new forms of layered multi-media reflect back to us seemingly more perfect versions of ourselves. Digital simulations of analog art forms appear more true, more real, to our senses than the original object of representation. In other words, we are left with representations of representations, seemingly more perfect in each layered iteration. We considered the way this process becomes enacted on human beings in increasingly efficient and direct ways: for example the popularity of digital image manipulation to 'erase' perceived physical imperfections. What are the ultimate implications of digitization for our individual and collective sense of self? Does the apparent convergence of man and machine bring us closer to or further from concepts of metaphysical truth?

Confused Coffee Beans - Week 1 - Post Media Condition + Gramophone

After discussion, we think that the digitizations of data allows for a better “storing of time” or storing experiences / history / creative work since it is more malleable due to the abstract nature of its storage (0 and 1s), thus allowing it to take multiple forms (image,sound,text). Kittler’s text mentions that the past means of storing data did not allow to capture the entirety of the intended information. Writing, for example, was biased towards the author of the text or left a significant amount of interpretation to the reader. Furthermore, Kittler’s text denotes a certain cyclicality with the notion of media. First, there was a non-necessity of the notion of media when writing was considered the only notable medium to store information. Today, Kittler and Weibel explain the erasure of the notion of media today, since all the ones that used to be autonomous (text/picture/sound) converge into a single one (the binary flow). Despite this, writing and the digital flow are vastly different.

Kittler also argues that the progressive standardization of information removes the author’s “soul” from the media content they’ve created, while Weibel explains that it seems to remove an artist’s “intellect” from their work. Finally, both Kittler’s and Weibel discuss the increasing accessibility of media channels. Kittler mentions that writing was first reserved for the very few, but became more homogenized. Weibel explains how digital media lead to a liberation of expression to all people, resembling what was seen during the Renaissance period. However, our discussion lead to us noticing that the distribution of content and of information on the Internet is becoming centralized. The masses turn towards growing online corporations for publication and consumption of content. We discussed how it makes the data flow more susceptible to censorship, and thus a reduction to its accessibility.

Dana Riachi, Xavier Champoux, Sol Pau, Rose-Marie Dion

SHAME blog entry week 1

While it is true that our definitions of art, media and our categorizations thereof have changed, Weibel fails to recognize that, firstly, these class-based value judgements on various disciplines and mediums are still unmistakably present. While media art may have been elevated to the status of fine arts in some domains, it is undeniable that certain types of art are devalued and considered “lesser”, and this distinction is, as with Aristotle’s contempt for labourers, usually motivated by class, gender, or race (which Weibel fails to state explicitly). Secondly, Weibel does not seem to recognize that art (or any specific discipline within it) has no inherent moral slant. This type of bias is dangerous, because it leads to unwarranted optimism about new forms of media; Weibel believes the internet is a newly democratic space, stating that it has “no guardians” and therefore ignoring the very real power wielded by owners of online spaces over the content that is or isn’t seen (consider here recent Facebook controversies over fake news, invasive advertising, and blocked content). We must remain vigilant about both the positive and negative potential of new media.

Similarly, Kittler’s conception of a future where individual mediums no longer exist and everything is subsumed by the digital reflects early fears that the photograph would render painting irrelevant, which as we know, and as described by Weibel, failed to account for the growth and change of painting in response to the photograph. A digital image of a painting will always remain distinct from the painting itself, in the same way a photograph retains different properties than a painting of the same scene; we will never truly lose these distinctions, and, after all, all this data is converted to the common language of electrical signals in the brain.

TETRA - Post Media Condition + Gramophone, Film, Typewritter

Our group came to the conclusion that Gramophone, Film, Typewriter by Friedrich Kittler and The Post-Media Condition by Peter Weibel were not written appropriately as they are both unnecessarily hard to read. Both texts were jumping from one point to another without creating logical bridges between their ideas. An example would be in the introduction of Gramophone, Film, Typewriter text: he talks about media, but then suddenly jumps to Alan Turing.

As a consequence, we had to read between the lines of their own writing. The very word “writing” held different meaning through the ages: from a direct link to the author’s scribbling hands, to writing on a keyboard with pre-selected keys and formulas for simple standard communication - a medium. The need for a computable network made of formulas brought humanity to a digital uniformisation, a way to compile all information and write it on a universal storage/network. Writing as historically been used to symbolize enlightenment, something sacred to learn. Now, gods can be stored on chips and man puts his memories out of his mind and into a machine he made to his image: computing.

Key Question:
What is the difference between computer-generated art and art created by humans nowadays?

MC Lariviere, Miha Eftene, Etienne Bolduc, Madison Hunt

The C+ Gang - Week 1 - Post Media Condition and etc.

Our discussion this week began with the question of how the distinction between "sophisticated arts" and "technical practices" of ancient times gave birth to media arts as we know them today. To start things off, we looked at Peter Weibel's Post Media Condition and how he summarized the changes to and perceptions of art from Ancient Greece to today. We explored how Aristotle's hierarchy of knowledge, "techne" and "episteme", changed to a distinction between the arts themselves in the roman era. From then on, the arts became artes liberales and artes mechanicae. As we understand, artes liberales became what is the sciences of today and formed the curriculum of free citizens back then, while artes mechanicae was still technical knowhow reserved for slaves or wage laborers. After that, we came to an agreement that artes mechanicae was removed from that umbrella by people like Diderot in his Encyclopedie and that the lines became blurred. We thought that there were arguments made about which art forms were superior and that no one came to an agreement until media arts completely removed the distinctions between art forms. At that point, all art forms became "old media". We then discussed how media, as the text puts it, was all encompassing and that the first phase in "the post media condition" involved the dissolution of boundaries between art forms. Following that, we finished off this reading by looking at examples of the second phase of the "post media condition", which involves the mixing and mashing of arts. For instance, we brought forth the idea of a digital collage, which would include sound, video, photography, painting and other art forms. So, in conclusion, media arts tried to break out of the stigma of being looked down upon as mechanical arts.

Following the first part of the discussion, we came to the conclusion that the first reading discusses the role of media arts in the comparison between arts liberales and arts mechanicae and that, in short, media arts are shunned and not appreciated as a form of art. However, we thought that the second reading, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter by Friedrich Kittler, was more about how media arts has rendered writing and literature obsolete as it took its place as a better method for keeping track of history and its events. For example, the writer Balzac was fearful of the rise of photography as, according to him, "photo albums establish an infinitely more precise realm of the dead" (11) than what he could accomplish with his literature. On top of that, we saw that the rise of the phonograph and cinematography put another nail in the coffin because of their ability to record "time" in a way that writing never could. According to the text, "time is what determines the limit of all arts" (5). Furthermore, we explored the part of how handwriting, while possibly leaving the writer exposed, fails to capture the perfect essence of the moment in ways that other medias like cinema can. This makes the writing medium less than ideal. However, we didn't quite come around to fully understanding how machines and media arts came to rob poetry and literature of their romantic meanings, but we acknowledge that it has something to do with machinery being able to replicate everything precisely and removing interpretation, as well as their "hallucinatory powers" (11) Overall, we felt like this text was quite unclear and convoluted in its examples and what exactly it wanted to cover, but we did our best to try and understand it.

2SDAYS Blog Entry

POST MEDIA CONDITION + GRAMOPHONE, FILM, TYPEWRITER

Our discussion came to a realisation that despite the dilution between mediums today, writing and reading remain the blood system of society. Throughout time each medium has had to lean on other mediums to continue its relevance and growth. Meanwhile digital media technology impregnated itself into every facet of living. Kittler seemed to think that audio and visual technology would win out. We saw that writing and reading, whether it is words or zeros (0) and ones (1), came out as the dominant medium. All other forms continue to be dependant on the ability to be literate and communicate thought, ideas, and feelings.

WenYue Liu, Eugène Fournier, Michael Watts

Week 1 - Post Media Condition - Ars-onist

“The Post-Media Condition” by Peter Weibel offers a historical and political explanation of art in the era where New Media gains significant influence on varied practices of art. The distinction between knowledges established in ancient Greece, in a world where the perception of what constitutes the arts began through a hierarchical form of knowledge between the human mind and body. Aristotle argued of the sciences (epistemé) – ranging from arithmetic to rhetoric – reserved for free citizens, and the arts (techné) – from agriculture to sculpture – for the undignified labourers. The hierarchical distinction continued as the artes liberales – from grammar to arithmetic to music theory – formed the curriculum of our schools and universities, so they sought little competition in between themselves unlike the artes mechanicae. This then began ‘paragone,’ starting with painting and sculpting. They each argued on the merits and the ‘intellectual achievement’ of each, defending the technological medium of the art despite it being seen as unliberated crafts or trades work by the slave. Even centuries later, as we now have a different perception on the arts, we find that we continue this kind of thinking with media arts, as we still ‘devalue’ the artist as it depends on the technology and the machine, and now see the art preceding it as the esteemed ‘basis’ of it.

In the second reading “Gramophone, Film, Typewriter”, Friedrich Kittler explores the impact of the digitalization on traditional media and their influence to the current one. He states that the new media reinvents the traditional painting & sculpture by absorbing its essence into itself: “compact disc digitalizes the gramophone, the video camera the cinema” [1]. The typewriter creates an homogeneous and standardized representation of the writer’s words by removing the interpretation found in hand written language. Kittler argues that this digital transformation makes the hallucinatory power of reading and writing obsolete by removing the author out of the equation. By the means of the binary representation of the digital data, his main arguments converge into the post-media condition creating a uniformity and interchangeability between various mediums of representation. Thus, merging the different mediums such as film, gramophone & typewriter into one central medium of knowledge giving life to the long gone authors through its channels. The latter aligns with Weibel's second phase of the post-media condition, "mixing of the media". The first phase of the post-media condition in Weibel's article is about the New Media gaining equality amongst traditional arts, but in Kittler's arguments there is a sense of superiority, or rather, devaluation of the traditional media by the homogenous and immense capacity of the new record devices.

[1] Kittler, Friedrich, Dorothea Von Mücke, and Philippe L. Similon. "Gramophone, Film, Typewriter." October 41 (1987): p.118. doi:10.2307/778332.

CART 210 - New Media Theory