Today, I find it very hard to make something on the web that
is new and fresh. Today the web has sooo much material that it seems near
impossible and is quite over whelming. Back In the 90’s the author describes
the web as a “culture”, something that has an environment and was easy to play
around with. It is insane to think that this could have happened 15-20 years
ago with the Internet we have today. Due to the vast number of people out there
that are going against the grain on the Internet and trying to make something
new and improved all the time, trying today would land you as a speck in the
sand. Often the world rejects the old fashion behavior. As the article states: “Your
CV is posted on the company website or on a job search portal. Your diary will
be organized on a blog and your vacation photos are published on iphoto.
There's a community for every hobby and question”. Don’t get me wrong, I am all
for new technologies and improvements but sometimes aspects of the past to me
will always be aspects of the present. Just like clothing goes in and out of
style as a repeating pattern, the past always comes back. I say save your
vintage clothes and hold on to old fashion ways of dealing with the Internet,
because bringing them back could be new and fresh. Just like in all aspects of
art, new contemporary styles of painting/design come in but the old figure
drawing, portraits, and mediums of the past still get incorporated. There is a
reason why are ancestors of the past used the mediums and practices that they
did, and there is no flaw in bringing them back. Though I am a strong advocate
of reinforcing aspects of the past, in our society today and especially on the
internet, old style WebPages and sites are categorized as “sketchy” and “illegitimate”
(I must say that I am a victim of this). When I go to a site with moving icons,
flashing words, (old aspects of the intenet), etc, I automatically think that I’m
on a bad site and going to get virus. Successful companies today, are all for new
and high-tech, and that’s how they will appear (which is why these old outdated
styles are seen as illegitimate). The Internet and everything for that matter is
always contradicting itself, perhaps the cycle will never end.
These type of funny vintage cartoons are a style of the past, however the cartoons are incorporated with funny modern quotes likes these:
I think it would be cool to take this style of cartoon and quotes and to make a couple that contradict and make fun of our attitudes about old and new aspects of the internet and modern technology. Since in the past these types of cartoons were used as advertisements and propaganda, I could make one that is used for the same purpose but with a modern flare.
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ReplyDeleteHelen,
ReplyDeleteI think it's a great idea to examine the way propaganda works on the internet. The cartoons you describe sound like something that may exist on reddit in some form, but I'm sure you could find a way to subvert the kind of things that end up on the internet for propagandistic means: I'm thinking a little about the advertisements that come up on the side of facebook that might contain some small political message, or perhaps the way social networks use your information to determine your advertising. There may be some very simple photoshop manipulations you could make that could produce something pretty nice. There was an exhibition of Olia Lialini's work here in Dallas some years ago that might provide some inspiration (particularly her online newspaper videos.) Try to think about what form would be most productive and would communicate your message while commenting back on the technology your critiquing.