One of the hardest part for working on my portfolio is making decisions on exactly what I want and what I like! I like so many things. I like colour, but I have a tendency to pick things that have too many colours and things get distracting. If I had my way, I think I'd pick colours tha a thirteen year old would pick until I'm a very old woman. However, I might like those colours, but they don't say what I want them to say. I want to be thought of as bright and fun and has a great personality, not someone that's thirteen. I have to remember that even though I think colours could say one thing, they also could be saying another thing. I have to think about it from all angles. Red can mean passion, but it also can mean death or anger from another perspective. Changing what colours are against each other also changes what they say. Also, the amount of a certain colour and how it's positioned in the site changes how they are percieved. It's one of those things that take time, and often asking others what it says to them helps quite a lot. A website is something that's becomes very personal, and what it presents can change how people look at you and your work. I know that's important, but I never fully realised how much thinking and changing and looking all this takes. Sometimes it's just a bit of a shade change, and other times the whole colour itself needs to go. It's one of those things that one needs to just sit and take the time to do. Sometime have a beer and come back to it later. Eventually, the right thing will come up.
The whole idea of online performance kind of still baffles me. I think that I still think of performance as people sitting and watching without the use of a screen in between, yet, this is rather old fashioned for someone my age. As much as time as I spend on the screen in my own time, I think it's funny that I separate that from my chosen career. This view has changed this semester because of the work we've been doing, both in other units, and now in Web Presence. In this unit, however, it goes beyond using technology in performance to using it AS the performance. The interaction is virtual. Even though we didn't get a lot of traffic for our Second life performance, I think it interesting that even a few people came to interact with us. Also, it's interesting there were performance theatre groups that could've been potential hot spots for us. I think what we need in online performance is consistancy and time. Give people enough time to find us, and be consistantly great. But also there has to be change in order to keep the interest. Something new and different to explore.
We discussed Hot Tube Time Machine today. =)
Time is such a big topic isn't it? It actually starts to boggle my mind when I think about how time can work. Thinking of it as a line is a little easier. I can even think of it as a circle, but as something that's expanding with the universe? Whoa! I also know that measuring time is a social construct (thank you, Tommy), but things do change . . . we do move into entropy. We grow older, our hair turns grey, we get wrinkles. We change. Measuring that change helps us connect to our existance. It also keeps us organised for how we interact with each other. I know I have to come to class at 10 if the agreed time is 10 (and not 11), and then some sort of order can take place. It helps us create civilization. Yet, it can also control us if we're not careful.
This is the first post of this class.
It's all about communication. Isn't that what gets people in such a tizy about the internet, the web, social networking, and all the stuff that is related to it? People say there's something 'wrong' with all the time we're spending on online, and someone it's making us spend us time with each other. Is this true? Am I losing connection with people because I'm so connected online. I do stop and think about this often, because people are recognising this as a new phenomenon. But right now I'm taking a class in which I have to write a post, and talk about social networking. In fact, social networking does get the word out there for a lot of events. I invite my friends to parties through facebook, and they know to come. Does facebook get recognized for that? Or is it only criticised?We started talking about web design and how to start publishing our websites. What makes it look nice, what catches people's eye, how do we get the information across that we want to get across? Sometimes we think we're being cool and creative, when actually we're being distracting. I think that it's important to know what you're selling and what your audience is. It's not just about what color is your favourite, but what color is best saying what you are trying to say in the most effective way possible? The same goes for fonts. Often people think they are saying something really clever with a particular font, yet they are just taking away from the credibility of their document. Douglas (our tutor) gave an example of how a girl wrote a scholarly essay entirely in comic sans. We all empathised for her want to be funny, but we also understood that it distracted the reader, and probably lowered her grade.
We were talking about communication in Web Presence, and how that's what it's all about. I think communication is changing, yet I also find it interesting how people feel about that. They say that we communicate mostly through our body language, yet things like email take that away from us. Yet, email appearently is a very effective way of getting information from one place to another. Documents can now be sent in seconds when only a couple of years ago it used to take minutes. Even before that it used to take days or even years!
People criticise communication like emails and social networking because they claim there is a lack of intimacy, but why has it become so popular? Is it because there is no longer the risk of allowing our bodies to protray us, so-to-speak, because all we have is text and pictures that we (or our sneaky friends) choose? People claim they are addicted to social networking, and I'm interested in how that happens. It is as if we want to feel closer to people, yet we are actually separating ourselves from the people that are in our direct presence. I can't say for sure what is "good" or "bad" (it's all grey, isn't it?), and where exactly these "problems" lie. I just know that the web and internet are both BIG things in our lives, and we can either learn how to use it, or let it pass us by.