I found Johnathon Harris’ choice in portraying the timeline of the photos of his work “The Whale Hunt” to be very interesting. The pulse-like structure was certainly very misleading. When I first was on the site, I thought the the spikes in the timeline, similar to the spikes of a heart beating, represented exciting things happening in the series. This was enforced by the large amount of spiking at the end of the timeline, which I assumed coincided with the actual killing of a whale. However, I started to question this notion when I arrived at the large lone spike in the middle of the timeline.
Eventually, I realized that the spikes represented a larger amount of photos taken at the same time. In a way, this still did reflect my original thoughts, as a spike in photos would suggest an event worthy of lots of photos, more than likely more interesting than the events that were given only one photo. In this way, Harris’ timeline is a clever way of portraying the events, as the pulse line does in away suggest which events are more interesting then others, like the whale butchering vs the men standing around at camp.
Seeing this work made me think on what authors take into consideration when choosing a type of visual to represent something. Audience surely has to be the main factor- I thought back to how confusing the Kissinger visualizations were before I had a more thorough explanation. Those were meant for people more experienced in fields trying out different visualizations to gain new insights into something. Harris, as a photographer, was most likely looking at his work as art, and the pulse-like timeline added an extra element of creativity to his work.
In Joyce Walker’s article on narratives in the database, specifically focusing on memorializing September 11th on the Internet, she concludes by comparing how the process of mourning online and then through photographs she took when she visited the memorial site are similar and different, especially in regards to the passing of time. Her navigation of various websites allowed for the fluidity of time because of the sense of participation in viewing the expressions and thoughts of individuals and groups. A photograph, on the other hand, is a closed “emanation of past reality” that does not permit the viewer to experience an awareness of time passing.
Walker’s perception that looking through photographs while she was physically present and also viewing information and pictures online continuously shapes her memories of the experience reaffirms the belief in psychology that our memories are constantly changing. The very act of recalling a memory alters the memory itself, as over time we may emphasize certain scenes, forget details, or hindsight may create different perceptions. But, browsing online perhaps, to a greater extent, permits one to more accurately recollect the memory and recreate the narrative of the event because of the fluidity of time on the Internet. However, the Internet, more so than other modes of communication, enables people to only peruse sites and information that supports their points of view, and, as Walker explored in her article, wildly different viewpoints are accessible from Google searches from “Remembering 9/11 as a Queer Muslim” to U.S. government sources. Overall, mourning through physical presences and online mourning offer opportunities to explore the greater identity of web users today.
One issue Joyce Walker discusses in Narratives in the Database involves the constraints society places on the information available on the Internet. Walker states:
“In spite of the seemingly endless diversity of the elements contained within the network of the Internet, we are nevertheless constrained by the norms of our society as to what is created and what elements are recombined.”
Walker illustrates this using the powerful, but extreme, example of how the memorial photographs of the victims of 9/11 where contrasted against the ‘mugshots’ of the terrorists involved in the attacks on the legacy.com website. The pictures chosen to represent and juxtapose the two different groups illustrate how the author of the webpage has limited the narrative of 9/11 to our cultural experience of the attacks. Walker attempted to find similar memorial sites for the terrorists of the attacks, sites that could have easily been formed by any religious extremist with access to the Internet, but she could not find such a site. The Internet and its search methods have presented this story in a way that reflects the cultural norms of society.
This idea can be worrisome when considering other stories or narratives of the past that we create from our Internet sources. Are we building these narratives, or have they already been formed by the authors of webpages, culture, or even by the database-hyperlink structure of the Internet? It is interesting to consider how our knowledge of past experiences is formed by following the hyperlinks presented by others, especially when using a search engine such as Google.
Building off of previous observations from Drew Gill, I decided to track class participation based on outfit. I recorded what each person in class wore for their shirt and their pants. Shirts were divided into four categories: Short-sleeve/T-shirt, Polo, Button-Down, and Long-Sleeve/Sweatshirt. Pants were also divided into four categories: Shorts/Skirts, Khakis, Jeans/Other, and Sweatpants. These categories were designed to be a bit vague, mainly because men’s and women’s apparel can vary quite a bit in certain situations.
Proportions seem to align, more or less. The largest percentage disparities have been bolded and changed to red. On Thursday, March 26th, Jeans/Other underperformed when it came to participation in class, accounting for 25% of the number of people in class, but only 9% of the participation. There were other large disparities as well, but that specific one was the largest.
Joyce Walker examines the increasing inclination to incorporate “real world” interactions and events into the virtual world by studying the attempts to mourn the attacks of 9/11 in online communities and memorials. This idea of renegotiating physical connection by redefining the way we interact with time and space begs the question of: what constitutes a social connection or relationship? Walker would argue that, today, connection does not necessitate a face to face conversation. While I understand the social transition of community from the physical to the virtual, I would urge us to examine how this transition changes the way we percieve the purpose of human interaction and what this adds to (or takes away from) our collective memory and communities.
My first recollection of a physical custom’s transition to online was with Neopets. When I was in elementary and middle school, everyone had a Neopet. This was an online, fantastical breed of a pet which you could feed, pet, play with, send on play dates, build houses for and so much more. I loved Neopets, but I remember thinking even then: “This is a game, it isn’t like having a real pet.” It was meant, however, to constitute the relationship between a person and their pet.
What I questioned about Neopets then reflects my questions about Walker’s analysis of 9/11 online mourning and Jonathan Harris’s The Whale Hunt. As I interacted with the The Whale Hunt, I discovered the customizability of the experience using the various filters and the heartbeat monitor. This concept of conveying memory is fascinating, however, what would it be without our preconcieved understanding of the physical? Without having pet our own dogs, we would not understand the concept of petting our neopets. Without grasping what it feels like to have our heartbeat speed up, we would not be able to effectively interact with Harris’s interface. Our virtual interactions are fundamentally build upon our understanding of the physical. The question society must now wrestle with is: In our negotiation of relationships and memory, can we move past the physical or will it always form the basis for our concept of connection? If we can indeed move past it, what comes next? What is the step of human interaction that is beyond the virtual?
For my observations this week, I decided to record the amount of attention given directly to Dr. Sample based on his movement. For those who are constantly in class, we see that Dr. Sample has a preferred area of movement and does not venture out far from this area and its surroundings. I noticed particularly that his movements were varied in our Tuesday class. I sat on the far end left side, and he came over to my side and began writing on the white board, something which is not very common. When the class began, about 16 people were looking directly at him when he spoke from his usual speaking location. Once he ventured out farther from this circle of speaking, more students began to actively look at him. Granted some people still looked at their laptops wile Dr. Sample spoke, but there was a wider range of students paying attention when he moved. From what I could see, his number jumped from 16 to 21 once he began to move around the classroom. I later compared these numbers to the eye contact people gave him at the end of class when most of the class, except for 1 or 2 people, were looking at him. The numbers fluctuated according to Dr. Sample’s position throughout the class. When he stayed in his area, the numbers ranged from 15-19 at one time to 21-24 when he moved. From these observations, one can tell that the movement Dr. Sample employed was effective in gathering mass student attention. This also leads one to wonder why more people pay attention when there is greater movement than usual. Perhaps we as humans are so accustomed to having objects stay in place (due to technology such as phones and televisions), that we are more alerted by moving images. This observation definitely raises points about actions Dr. Sample could take if he wants to maximize the amount of student eyes on him.
Since the weather has been warming up, and all other observation options that I could think of had been exhausted, I decided to use the same set of observations I used last time. I.e. What people were wearing, laptops out, etc.…The fact that I was sick on Thursday and could not get all of the data didn’t help much either. Anyway, the things that I found were what I figured. There was a spike in the amount of shorts that were worn on Tuesday and the number of boat shoes such as Sperry’s increased from 0 to a little over a third of the class. These findings were what were expected, but like I said there weren’t many options for observations that have not been used. The full list of observations that I made can be found below.
For my observations post this week, I decided to track the frequency of yawns throughout Tuesday’s and Thursday’s class. Everyone has heard at one point or another that yawning is contagious, and my aim was to see if this held true for our class. While I am certain that I missed a few yawns here and there, I counted 31 yawns during Tuesday’s class and 16 yawns on Thursday. Going into the week, I thought that I would record more yawns during Thursday’s class because people may be generally more tired in the latter half of the week. This hypothesis proved to be wrong, suggesting that maybe students are more fatigued in the first part of the week, as they transition from a relaxed weekend setting back to the daily grind of classes, homework, and extra-curricular activities.
Another reason for choosing to examine in-class yawning was to attempt to see how one person’s yawning influenced their peers. Throughout the two classes, however, I didn’t observe many instances of one individual’s yawning directly causing another person to yawn. What I did notice, however, was that based on my data collection, I was the class’s most frequent yawner. On Tuesday, I was responsible for 8 of the class’s 32 yawns (25%) and on Thursday I accounted for 4 of the 16 total yawns (25%). Additionally, on both days, the table I sat at had the highest total number of yawns. I believe these two observations support the idea that yawning is contagious. First of all, I was the most frequent yawner because I was actively thinking about yawning for the entirety of both class periods. Additionally, because of my high yawning instances, the people nearest to me also yawned more than any other table in the class. While I don’t have enough evidence to conclude this with absolute certainty, I will say that scavenging the room for yawns is a more tiring process than I originally thought. Finally, to accurately gauge in-class yawning, one would need to enlist the help of an independent recorder who was far enough away from the class so as not to skew the data collection.
In class on March 24th, we discussed what John Foreman calls the “destruction of mysterious humanity.” He claims that data tracking dehumanizes us by analyzing our every move, and companies use the information to “squeeze us dry”. It’s true. Corporations want our money, but will their tactics really rob of us of our individuality? I don’t think so. When was the last time, for example, you became interested in something because you saw an ad for it on your computer? Will personalized advertisements really spell the end of experiencing new things? Of course not; inspiration comes from everywhere and anywhere, and to be honest, I would rather see ads for concerts and electronics than for tampons. We discussed how these ads also, in a way, show us disrespect by treating us like cattle. Maybe we can turn this around, though. These companies respect us enough to realize that we are all different and therefore do not need the same ad experience. They respect our individuality and realize that to make money off of us, they have to cater to us as individuals. The NSA, however, doesn’t discriminate; they monitor us regardless, despite our differences. Perhaps they respect our extremely tiny change to incite violence and terror, but while a corporation wants to affect everyone with their tracking, the NSA only casts a huge net as a failsafe. Furthermore, we don’t have to be tracked by corporations, unlike the NSA. No one forces us to use Google’s free services; in fact, anyone can make a Google search without an account. They simply ask that if you want to play on their playground, you play by their rules as well. Sounds fair to me, especially since they don’t force us to buy anything, but hey– maybe I’ll enjoy that suggested video on my YouTube sidebar.
Many reader posts this week focused on John Foreman’s article, which doesn’t surprise me. I would have, too. Full disclosure: I was literally obsessed with Disney as a child, and as far I was concerned Disney could never be bad. It all started when Cinderella came to my birthday party when I was 3 and told me I was a princess. I was 5 years old the first time my parents took me to Disney World (which I pronounced Dis-uh-nee), and we’ve returned many times since. I vividly recall receiving a special hotel room key with my name printed on it, and hiring a family tour guide who could get us extra fast passes as we rode the rides. It was all about efficiency, and there would be no time wasted. As my sister and I grew older, it became more and more like a game as we tried to get as many fast passes for as many rides as possible. It seemed like a race against all other families to do the most we possibly could in the shortest possible time. In hindsight we were maybe too intense about our vacations.
The Duncan Family Disney Mentality, as demonstrated by Gloria from Modern Famliy
So to me, the Disney MagicBand feels like a device that would cater directly to my weirdly intense family. We get sucked into the adventure and can’t stop running between rides and discreetly racing other families and buying snacks along the way, which is probably what they want — complete absorption in the entire theme park experience. The MagicBand removes all obstacles in our way, like having to physically remove your wallet to pay for things. It seems like it would be a perfect fit for us, so I decided to dig deeper into Disney’s data collection. Apparently, the MagicBand is technically defined as “an all-in-one device that effortlessly connects you to all the vacation choices you made with My Disney Experience.” What a nice personal touch. However, if you check out Disney’s Privacy & Legal page you can actually “review how your information is collected and protected” which will then direct you to this FAQ where you can then access The Walt Disney Company Privacy Center. The sheer number of links it takes to get to this page is enough for me to lose interest in learning about how Disney is tracking my data. This stuff is boring so I read it for you. Here’s what I’ve found.
Disney collects three types of information: personal, anonymous, and aggregate. They collect your name, address, email, password, gender, date of birth, phone number, payment information, anything posted on their website, anything posted on a Disney app, location information when using their websites or apps, usage, viewing and technical data, and more. So what happens to your data? Well, a member (read: subsidiary or affiliated entity) of the Walt Disney Family of Companies (including ABC, Disney, DisneyPixar, ESPN, Hollywood Films, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Muppets, Playdom, Star Wars, and others) will act as data controller. Specifically, a data processor will be the one analyzing your data on behalf of the data controller. Using your data, they can “send you offers and promotions for our products” and “provide you with advertising based on your activity on our sites and applications.” From here, you can click through to Disney’s Online Tracking and Advertising page, which, if you’ve made it this far, is where you’ll really lose interest in caring about any of this (with the exception of maybe some data enthusiasts or something). Do I really want to understand the full reality of giving Disney my data in return for this plasticky wristband of convenience? Or do I want to be blissfully ignorant as I buy my $9 bottle of water with the wave of my arm, just like a magic wand? I want to say no, that I wouldn’t be a part of their system, and that I wouldn’t simply give my data away so easily. But let’s be real…
