Transparency Series
January 18th, 2010 by Clare Butcher
By Clare Butcher
With the development of Web 2.0, and I’ve been told now, 3.0, culture there comes a need to reevaluate, or indeed, truly evaluate for the first time, how a museum of the 21st century might actually integrate the culture of the Online into its daily, and perhaps minute by minute affairs. We are holding a number of internal seminars, entitled the Transparency series, at the museum to unpack the issues of publicity, discretion and experimentalism in our hyper-reality. The first will be led by Angela Plohman, director of Baltan Laboratories, Eindhoven. Following are some links to a few relevant readings in connection with the content of the workshop.
Through the Looking Glass – Museums and Internet-based Transparency
Tags: Angela Plohman, Baltan Laboratories, transparency, Virtueel Platform
February 8th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Clare,
I don’t think it’s going to be web 3.0 (firstly, because that’s too predictable; secondly, because I think any linear progress from web 2.0 will take us in the wrong direction or rather a direction few people will buy…).
I think it may go in a different direction: towards augmented reality – which is still too technological and for the gadgetophiles. If augmented reality were to become more accessible, it would be more in the right direction: it’s not about the technology, not about the gadgets. Increasingly the question will be: what does a connection with the web / hyperreality offer as an extra functionality right here right now. My term for that is ‘ reality 1.5′ (more as a sidestep to the 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 track while pointing towards people’s lives than anything else).
What do you think about that route?
Good luck with the exploration!
CJ
February 9th, 2010 at 10:49 am
I like your thinking CeesJan and thank you for your feedback. I’m not so web-savvy myself and therefore am more partial to this idea of an enhanced sense of real connection to other people and ideas – not just fibre optic cables and digital signals. But within online parameters I wonder how real we can make our online usage without then repeating what we do through other communication and feedback models (such as face to face education, guided tours, workshops and PR) – we still need to use the web for what it can do that we can’t do in real, physical space. Am I correct? Or am I misreading your meaning of ‘augmented’?
Looking forward to hearing from you!
C
February 10th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Mmm… Good question.
Speaking as communication scientist (which I studied somewhere in my past), I think the first change to observe is that once in a while the media people use to communicate alter.
Egbert Jan Sol (now TNO) once told that story in terms of ‘mobility’: first horses & carts, then auto-mobiles & trains, then data over a phone line and now much more data faster over the internet.
Another way to think about it is in terms of ‘media grammar’: every generation grows up with its own (radio = audio; tv = audio/video; internet = speech-as-text and increasingly audio-video, especially with on-line games).
Both the ‘mobility’ and the ‘media grammar’ line of thinking do not imply that media necessarily go away. What does happen all the time though is that the mix changes. I think we’re about to witness another such change, which is from the internet use taking place outside of physical interaction (behind your screen) towards the internet becoming part of your real-time experience. (Something similar has already happened with videogames, where the internet connection introduces other players from somewhere else into your game at home).
In my opinion, what is important here is a fundamental shift of ‘broadcast’ media (a ‘sender’ distributes massively without actually caring for a sensible impact on the ‘receivers’) to some sort of ‘real connection’- or ‘playful contact’-approach, where ‘meaningful interaction’ is all that matters.
‘Augmented reality’ is sort of an alternative to ‘ambient intelligence’ (the environment knows who you are and can anticipate what you want) and ‘ubiquitous computing’ (computers everywhere). Sony is pursuing it for the Playstation3, have a look at the link I inserted. The US Army had a huge project on ‘Force XXI’: using what they call ‘network capability’ in the field of battle (people have ‘visors’ that project data provided through an internet connection onto what they really see). The iPhone now has an app where it puts mosquitos in your living room and you have to shoot them (on-screen). I think that type of functionality is coming to us, quite soon.
Am I still making sense? That was a bit of a long response…?