Blog 4

Hello hello! Welcome again to blog 4!
As usual I’ll be discussing the lecture, which this week was titled ‘Why I hate Wikipedia’, as well as the tutorial and the tutorial task.
Wikipedia is an online user generated information website that gives users access to an endless amount of information articles. The information provided on Wikipedia can be uploaded and edited by anybody who chooses to do so, resulting in information that can be truthful and well sourced or fictitious.

The site has been designed to allow anybody with knowledge on the topic to create or edit a page and add to the information, regardless of fact. This information could have been written and edited by someone that might be considered a credited source but Wikipedia makes no promises that it was. Because of that it has been repeatedly hammered into my brain by all of my teachers: Wikipedia is not to be used as a reference.

So then how do we know the truth? Well there are 4 theories that can be used; The Correspondence, The Coherence, The Performative and The Source Theory.
We also had a look at a couple of other websites that are considered reliable sources, Factiva and Informit.
The tute task this week was a few questions so I’ll tackle them first then get to my essay topic?

-How do the ideas from Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" apply to contemporary digital media?
Walter Benjamin says that mass production lets everyone view digital media and not just ones selected. Quality is applied to digital media rather than just quantity.

-There was a time when "Art" was made by artists who were skilled professionals. Now that anyone with a computer can create things digitally (music, images, videos, etc), what does that mean for "art"?
I think it is good thing for art. Art is continually evolving and exposing itself in new ways and with the evolvement of digital art there are more facets to ‘art’ then ever. To say that ‘anyone with a computer’ can create things implies that all those who never had a computer were particularly skilled or gifted and if you look at it that defiantly isn’t the case. There are those that will disagree with me, but, art is about many things and being skilled isn’t a necessity.

-Is a photoshopped image "authentic"?
I think it is tempting to say that no a photoshopped image isn’t authentic but it really depends on what is done to the image. Altering an image by say airbrushing it probably wouldn’t be considered as authentic but at the same time if you use Photoshop to combine or alter an image than you create an original and therefore authentic image or piece of art. Others might disagree but I’m a big fan of Photoshop and that’s how I see it.

-Do digital "things" have an "aura" (in Benjamin's terms)?
The “aura” refers to people’s sense of awe they have to these productions. These digital Medias provoke feelings and opinions, and so are considered to have an aura.

Now since this has gotten a bit long I’ll just brush over my essay topic. I’ve changed it from semiotics (way to broad) and now I’m looking at Second Life. I did some research and found that there had been an incident referred to as the ‘Wonderland Scandal’ where users were creating avatars that looked like children and engaging them in ‘sex’ with adult avatars. The media caught wind of this and Second Life again got some bad publicity but I found it really interesting. So, I’ll be looking at policing within world> whether this behaviour is illegal or just immoral> whether there is any real protection for children on the site> if this is even an issue because it’s all fake.

The exact angle hasn’t been decided but with some brainstorming I’ll get there, cya!