Because I was unable to get soundflower to capture all channels of sound in SL (my voice input through the computer mic, your voices through SL), I brainstormed with Bianca, who came up with the ingenious solution to our audio recording problems: use Snapz to capture video, and then dump the video and save only the audio. Everything went smoothly until the very end, when, after having captured over 2 hours, my computer froze. The only way out was to restart, causing me to lose the capture. So, once again, I will summarize in text form the lecture and discussion of our class meeting.
The meeting began with a prank. I gave everyone teleport invites to a dead space high in the sky (there used to be a bar there). When students accepted the tp, they tumbled long and low to a flat fall on the grass in a residential neighborhood. I then invited everyone to the veranda of my home in Redspire.
Everyone present was able to hear, but Kristy was unable to speak from a New School campus computer without a mic. Karlo had a temporary obstacle, which he solved. I introduced the weeks’ readings by explaining what I mean by the term “media ecology.” In a Heideggerian sense, media technologies have “enframed” our everyday practices and experiences; they influence our being-in-the world. The metaphor implied in the use of the word ecology suggests the totality of media-inflected experience. To distinguish this quality from totalizing, I emphasized that the diffuse and omnipresent mediations characterizing this ecology is experienced differentially across cultural, geographic, socioeconomic, historical, etc. contexts, as we discussed in our last meeting. Our first meeting also helps us to keep in mind that we need to speak of media ecologies, as technological change and access across contexts (often socioeconomic and geographic) constrain and enable multiple media ecologies.
What are the sensibilities, desires and expectations that animate a particular new media ecology? We read excerpts from some of the most salient discussions, particularly surrounding remediation, hypermediacy, participatory culture, hacktivism, copyleft, the blurring of the play/work distinction and affective/experience economies. The question I invited students to think about is how can design account for these sensibilities, desires and expectations? How does such an accounting translate into design choices? What sort of research is necessary?
Daniela’s presentation focused on the issue of information, knowledge and education. Details of her thoughts can be found on her blog: spiritualmedia
Adam’s presentation focused, in part, on education and gaming. Details of his thoughts can be found on his blog: medium difficulty
Afterwards, we engaged in a long and interesting discussion. Here I invite the participants to add what they found most important:
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please post your input here
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At the end of the meeting, we attempted to listen to music samples that were evidently available for download via links to websites. My intention was to show an example of the new levels that the experience economy will possibly reach: from the 19th-century European urban arcades to the American shopping mall, and from the virtual commerce of Ebay to immersive experience of Second Life avatar shopping.
Some of us continued onwards to a holodeck, with which I intended to demonstrate our increased fascination with hypermediacy. This virtual-world-within-a-virtual-world typifies what Bolter claims is a dominant sensibility of contemporary media ecologies.
There were both outdoor and indoor spaces to rez.
And, in line with Bolter’s claim that our desire for hypermediacy is coupled with a seemingly contradictory desire for immediacy (the effacement of media), the holodeck contains the option to hide its control panel.
Despite the multiple mediations making this experience possible, there was indeed something immediate about the experience.
