Creativity and New Media

Since I'm a graphic design minor, I was required to take an animation course this semester and only because of this requirement I got the chance to explore the world of animation. From my childhood days, I've been a cartoon-addict and being able to create one is something really interesting to me. For my first ever self-portrait animation (embedded above), I used adobe after effects which is available in all mac and windows devices. In earlier days, artists had to hand-draw 24 frames of drawings in order to make 1 second of an animated film. This was, of course, quite time consuming and was only limited to those people who could draw well. However, with the advancement in technology, anyone can now make an animation with or without knowing to draw well. For instance, I'm not good at drawing but yet I was able to create this simple, clear animation by using adobe after effects cc and various vector graphics from online resources.

Also, technology has gone so far that animation is not only being used in cartoons and comic books but also in the medical field. With the ability to make 3D digital designs, doctors and nurses rely fully on medical animations to see the unseen anatomy in our bodies. Imagine if these 3D drawings were done by hand, would it be accurate? would it be visually clear? would it be reliable for our future doctors and nurses? I doubt it. Thanks to digitization for not only bringing out our creativeness but also creating a big impact in the field of biology. 

HW Creativity

The history of mashups started from the mid-1990s where songs had to be sampled, turned into hybrids with the extensive use of open source programs. Artists used to gather mashup programs from various programmers just to make one mashup. Then came, the process of publishing and distributing it (which used to be a whole lot of work). Basically, creating mashups was not only time consuming for mashup artists but also a lot harder compared to now.  In the article, The New Math of Mashups by Sasha Frere-jones, Mark Vidler, professionally affiliated with the Go Home Productions, shared his thoughts on recent digitization as ““You don’t need a distributor, because your distribution is the Internet. You don’t need a record label, because it’s your bedroom, and you don’t need a recording studio, because that’s your computer. You do it all yourself.” Today, behind-the-scenes work of a mashup has become so less that with the right software and enough time, one can not only listen to mashups but can also create it by himself. This proves, digitization enhances creativity and boosts intelligence.

Sources:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/01/10/1-1-1-1

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

The words which we hear quite frequently these days is Virtual Reality. The simple meaning of these two words basically means near-reality. From taking breaths away to generating awe, Virtual reality has taken itself to new heights. Apart from heightened leisure activity experiences like gaming or traveling new places with the help of VR, wall street journal says that VR helps nurses to get better training by making them take quick decisions in emergency cases, through the use of simulation games (Simon, 2010). Similarly, according to reporter newspaper, classrooms are turning towards VR in order to give students more perspective. From courses like science, history and even current social issues, VR helps students to see things more clearing and experience what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes (Earle, 2018).

However, with so many advantages, VR has its cons. The fact that it is quite expensive to experience keeping in mind that only updated devices comply with it, makes it difficult for anyone and everyone to use it. Some may also argue that even though VR cuts the costs of medical and military training, but the training is not ‘real’. To add on to the list, it makes people more addicted and dependent on technology.  With many on-going experiments with VR, that day is not far where we can virtually use all of our five senses and not just sight.

Sources:

https://www.reporternewspapers.net/2018/09/14/the-virtual-world-moves-into-the-classroom/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703909804575124470868041204

https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality/what-is-virtual-reality.html

Blog about Twitter

Twitter, Blackboard and in-class discussions have a common theme of encouraging people to actively share their thoughts and opinions. On Twitter, almost anyone with a twitter account can share their thoughts online simply by tweeting and then later get replies from both their followers and the general public which aids in creating knowledgeable conversation. Similarly, on Blackboards, students can share their opinions by creating a thread while others can respond to it. One of the biggest downside of sharing voices on twitter is that one is limited by the number of characters while posting a tweet. However, in Blackboard discussions, things are much different. Opinions can be as long as you want and as clear as possible. Of course, in-class participation is more conversation and understandable than online discussions on Twitter and Blackboard because for some of us, we cannot explicitly explain what our mind is trying to convey through the use of text on a screen. On the other hand, some of us love the use of words which eventually helps in thinking deep in our thoughts.

Nevertheless, the answer to the question of which platform serves best in terms of creating discussions lies on our individual perspective. Some of prefer to share our voice through screen while others prefer to communicate face to face. Hence, there is no definite way to clarify which platform serves best amongst Twitter, Blackboard and in-class discussion.