The Macbook Wheel: a revolutionary new addition to the Macbook family with a unconventional clicker touch wheel in place of a keyboard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA
My main reaction when I was first shown that very commercial was a complete exclamation, “YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!” I mean, come on, not a mix of the Macbook Air and an iPod! The commercial was produced by “The Onion News Network”: a production group of many whose purpose is to create false news broadcasts for amusement. It still took me a while to do a small amount of research online to verify that the Macbook Wheel was created purely out of parody. A side result of parody is, of course, to fool the viewers in a humorous way. After all, with Apple’s constant strive for simplicity as well as the easily recognizable symbol of the clicker-wheel, which is primarily associated with the iPod, they could honestly get away with making a laptop such as this had they really wanted. It’d be foolish, I think, to make a piece of technology so simple that it is unnecessarily complicated to use (hence why I freaked out when I first saw the commercial). Avid Mac fan though I am, some flaws just can’t be covered.
On a bit of background history, apparently The Onion News Network has been around since 1988; created by two college students from the University of Wisconsin. Here’s the link to their home page in case it would be of any interest.
http://www.theonion.com/content/index
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Delving Into the Realm of the Abstract
For years, abstract new media art has always been my personal favorite genre. The majority of traditional abstract art that I’ve viewed, no matter how magnificent, simply seems to fail at expressing a sense of individual life. The sense that the object or piece that the spectator is viewing truly is looking back through the screen.
As an example, I greatly admire the work of the new media artist Geoffrey; particularly that of his homepage, Oculart.
Each artwork is particularly unique with a sense of mystery that causes many viewers I have spoken to have spent more time being creeped out by it to the point where they refuse to try to understand and immerse themselves within the mindset of the artist.
In a room with no distractions; if you turn on your speakers and simply take a few minutes analyzing a piece or two, more and more small details come into play. Sometimes it seems impossible to shake the feeling that although each piece is a composition of dissonant sound and small loops of animation within a larger context, that the piece itself doesn’t have a mind of its own.
Looking in the left-hand column some particular pieces I’d like to note are ‘hey death’, ‘funeral garden’, ‘harp siesta’, and ‘la noye`e’. Each artwork has at least one element that fakes the mind into expecting more to happen. It’s as if the viewer’s mind secretly craves some sort of fright or connection with the world lying beyond their computer screen.
In one particular interview Geoffrey mentioned. “I think there are two types of animation, one which is narrative (traditional), and animation that is a still piece of work but uses motion to provoke a further fantasy and work engagement.” That being the case, I suppose it was his purpose all along to coax the viewer away from their own grasp of reality.
As an example, I greatly admire the work of the new media artist Geoffrey; particularly that of his homepage, Oculart.
Each artwork is particularly unique with a sense of mystery that causes many viewers I have spoken to have spent more time being creeped out by it to the point where they refuse to try to understand and immerse themselves within the mindset of the artist.
In a room with no distractions; if you turn on your speakers and simply take a few minutes analyzing a piece or two, more and more small details come into play. Sometimes it seems impossible to shake the feeling that although each piece is a composition of dissonant sound and small loops of animation within a larger context, that the piece itself doesn’t have a mind of its own.
Looking in the left-hand column some particular pieces I’d like to note are ‘hey death’, ‘funeral garden’, ‘harp siesta’, and ‘la noye`e’. Each artwork has at least one element that fakes the mind into expecting more to happen. It’s as if the viewer’s mind secretly craves some sort of fright or connection with the world lying beyond their computer screen.
In one particular interview Geoffrey mentioned. “I think there are two types of animation, one which is narrative (traditional), and animation that is a still piece of work but uses motion to provoke a further fantasy and work engagement.” That being the case, I suppose it was his purpose all along to coax the viewer away from their own grasp of reality.
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