Lisa's Year 2 Blog

I found it strange when I read Lev Manovich’s opinion on Interactivity … Like everyone else (except Lev) I thought that one of the heights of interactivity is playing a game. As the ‘Gamer’ you are in control you can do what you want go where you want and continue for however long you want until you get bored. However it seems that it is completely the opposite of this (so Lev says … and i actually agree after much thought) it is really the game that is in control of the ‘Gamer’. For example, it chooses when you’ve done enough to get onto the next level, it has been coded to only let you do certain things at a given time. In this sense we are condensed and made to conform to what the game wants us to do .. pretty freaky how we can be controlled by a game and not really realise it.

Similar to this, Stanley Milgram conducted an obedience experiment to see how many people out of 40 participants (20 male, 20 female) would conform to an authoritative figure when they could be putting someones life could be in danger (Real Milgram Experiment 0.45seconds onwards) this video shows that this particular participant, although he resisted a few times he still carried on to “shock” the “learner” all the way up to 450 volts (which is enough to kill a person which they are aware of due to the labels on the switches) very few refused at an early stage majority quit the experiment after shocking the “learner” at 230 volts even then as the video said none of them got up without asking permission first. Because of Stanley Milgram’s experiment we can clearly see how much we conform to an authoritative figure without question.

Which is why Lev Manovich seems to not understand how interactive artefacts manipulating the public is a good thing… simple answer to this is that we dont even know its happening just like the people in Milgram’s experiment they thought it was an experiment about learning not obedience. Lev believes we shouldn’t keep a utopian view on everything sometimes having a dystopian view is a better way to avoid being controlled… bottom line is don’t accept what you’ve been given just because you’ve been given it.

From when the task was announced i thought it was going to be a fun task to do but i didnt really understand what it was about, through research (admittedly on Wikipedia) i found that psychogeography is the way in which we behave in a certain environment.

Through thinking about that and thinking about my route to university i found that the route i take is the same one every time i go to university i even cross the road at the exact same point aswell, why?… i have no idea its just a route that is installed in my head, kind of like having an internal Sat Nav that tells me where to go each time. However i took notice of more things on my journey that i recorded in photos than i would usually and found somethings ive never even noticed before for example i saw a very old-looking lamp light on the side of a modern pub.. never seen it before even though i passed it all last year aswell.

What is interactivity? is there actually a definitive answer or is it always just peoples opinions of the meaning

In a sense surely it has to always be peoples opinion of the definition of interactivity afterall that is what interactivity is … the audience interacting with what ever it is they have come into contact with. Whether it be an online game where you can clearly see interactivity happening or an advertisement on a billboard that people look at every day take in, and in their own way (interact) interpret what they have seen.

For me, interactivity is something you come into contact with and alter. For example the most tedious things for me when im trying to watch my favourite programs, such as X Factor are adverts that interrupt so now i use Sky + to fast forward through the adverts and bits that i dont want to watch like the competitions or reviews of last weeks show that ive already seen. For me this is the height of interactivity as im essentially changing the program to how i want it to be.

I read the article on Innovative Interactivity (http://www.innovativeinteractivity.com/2009/07/08/the-future-of-interactive-videos/) and one bit that stood out to me was when Matt Ford said “Television content that was simply migrated to the web, and raw video uploaded from users around the world. The two were drastically different in quality and experience, but what they did have in common was a passive viewing experience. Hit play, sit back and watch: essentially the same viewing experience that exists when you turn on your TV, select your channel, and nestle into that well-formed indentation in your couch.”

After reading this i immediately thought about last year when i was living in student accommodation and couldn’t get a good TV signal. I found a site that runs with the university called Cat-Tv which i would use to watch freeview channels on my laptop by choosing my channel and nestling into the well formed indentation on my bed. Just like i was watching my actual TV (except it would pause to stream every now and then).

I also tried out the Journey to the end of coal Interactive documentary. Usually i dont like documentaries however this is different as you get to choose what the documentary does and where it goes next. This reminded me of a DVD i bought the other day, it was Final Destination 3 2 disc edition and i read on it that you as the viewer could take over and alter the character’s fate and change the film… i haven’t tried it yet but if its anything like this interactive documentary ill have fun taking over.

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