Project – why am I doing it like this?

Project – why am I doing it like this?

My interest in ‘Lost in Cyberspace’ and issues relating to this developed out of an essay I wrote for Valerie as part of an exam to gain a place on our MA Digital Media. Jen if you would like a copy of the essay I can send it on.
I have drafted a proposal project for writing in the digital age. I have proposed a community website and possibly CD-ROM which will address issues relating to Net addiction and children.
I initially considered a project based on solely internet addiction but after researching found that it is a very large area to cover and decided to reduce the view point in a an attempt to increase the aim. This is just a starting point and I need get started somewhere!!!!

In any event the Net and remaining anonymous form first point of contact would be a stregenth in presenting this information as the beneficiaries are not likely to want to discuss private family matters without first getting a sense of what addiction problems may or may not be apparent.

Accessibility to information is also a key consideration.

Association/affiliation with organisations that are already established as trusted experts in child welfare.

I will develop on this over the following weeks.

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Children Internet use and addiction 1

Addiction refers to a state of reliance on a substance to an extend that one cannot withdraw easily. With advent of information technology to date, internet addiction is emerging to be a threat to the children aged 8-12years of age. Internet addiction refers to spending most of one’s time online thus affecting adversely his/her physical, social, physiological, mental and economic wellness.
Internet has been widely used by children in various activities. For instance, they can obtain educational material from the web for purposes of learning, be informed about the most current events as they occur globally and communicate with their friends via emails. They can also get to know new places around the world and what happens there while being exposed to new perspectives of life, participate and contribute to online discussions, plays, games and chats. On top of that, the children can get an opportunity for relaxing by playing games, listening to music and watching movies. Despite all these potential benefits of internet, it can be harmful when the child becomes addicted such that he/she spends most of the time online doing inappropriate and unnecessary things like watching pornography, reading and listening hatred speeches over the internet (http://www.otal.umd.edu/uupractice/children/).
Internet addiction in children presents with the following signs and symptoms. First and foremost, the child begins spending a lot of time on computer and loses control of time on computer completely with time, ignores friends and abscond duties to been online. The child feels anxious, stressed, and irritable when the computer is not available or interrupted. He/she may hide to go and browse which may lead to development of learning problems in school.
Internet addition has shown various negative impacts to children that may include the following. The child may become irresponsible both at home and in school thus perfuming poorly in class, engaging in immoral behaviors like juvenile delinquency due to persistent exposure to dirty materials such as pornography, use of guns and fighting techniques. To children who are addicted to internet, they normally withdraw from frequent exercises and thus may develop health problems such as obesity and bone weakness. Other health effects include strong headaches, dry eyes, backaches, pain on wrist, elbows and shoulders, loss of appetite and lack of personal hygiene. In addition, it leads to social decay since the children do not develop skills for interacting with others since most of the times they are engaged in playing with the computers
On the other hand, wise use of internet has helped children greatly. To begin with, it has been used for education purposes where children look for learning materials and resources to aid in doing academic assignments. Secondly, it has been used to increase children creativity for instance by engaging in mathematical games and other problem solving exercises. Thirdly, internet has enhanced communication skills like writing, reading, listening and observation skills. Additionally, due to the exposure to different cultures through internet, children learn to appreciate other people’s culture thus promoting understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity. Elsewhere, by sharing messages with others in various places of the world, they learn to make new friends.
To avoid internet addiction for children, the parents and guardians should observe the following; enlighten the children on teenage sexual abuse and the probability of online dangers. Putting the computer at the common room and not in private rooms within the house, monitoring use of chat rooms, make surveillance of your children’s online accounts from time to time, exercise parental control over the use of internet by installing blocking software and lastly do not let your child to be idle. In conclusion therefore, internet addiction for children is a contagious problem and therefore parents and guardians have a great role to play in preventing its adverse effects. (http://www.otal.umd.edu/uupractice/children/)

Anne Friedberg The end of Cinema: Multimedia and Technological Change

Anne Friedberg The end of Cinema: Multimedia and Technological Change.

I found the piece interesting. Friedberg discusses technologies that evolved between the 70s, 80s and onward. She explains how following cinema screen images moved in to the home by way of TV followed by Video then the Computer. She covers humanist interpretations and technical accounts of how for example the use of remote control was the beginning of an interactive revolution allowing the end user/reader for the first time to control their viewing environment. When we consider how interactive our environment has become via Mobile phones, Cable, TV, DVD, Interactive media, Internet, PC, Gaming consuls, CD Rom and more, we have certainly made major developments in terms of the amount of control the end-user currently enjoys.

She discuses how over time various technologies (e.g. beatamex, VCR) were tried and tested at massive expense through scientific endeavours and involving Giant world companies. Eventually leading to industrial standards.

Ironically I thought, copyright issues relating to VCR copying are introduced and Friedberg discusses a 1884 court battle between Disney and Sony where the court concluded that it is not the device that was actually breaching copyright laws.

Friedberg has accumulated an equally impressive range of information regarding marketing and business issues relating to cinema, the development of rental markets and home viewing and concludes the big screen remains a hugely profitable industry.


Reference Wikipedia
Anne Friedberg is Chair of the Critical Studies Division in the School of Cinematic Arts at the university of southern California. An author, historian and theorist of modern media culture, Professor Friedberg received her PhD. in Cinema Studies from NYU. She was on the faculty of Film and Media Studies at UC, UC Irvine where she was the principal architect for a new interdisciplinary PhD program in Visual Studies and the founding director and programmer of UCI's Film and Video Center. In 2003, she joined the USC faculty, where she has been instrumental in the creation of the Visual Studies Graduate Certificate.

compare an adaptation

The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera is a 2004 Joel Schumacher directed film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart's internationally successful 1986 stage musical, which is based on the novel written by Gaston Leroux in 1911.

Description
Combining romance, horror, mystery and tragedy it is a dark tale of a deformed child who killed his abuser and hides out for life in solitude within the Paris Opera House. The child grows up to become The Phantom of the Opera. In a melody that speaks of the “music of the night” we are taken on a journey deep into the dungeons of both The Phantom’s home at the Opera House as well as the dungeons of his soul. This can sometimes be the case with both spiritual manipulation and obsessive love. The character of the Phantom falls in love with Christine a young actress who performs at the Opera House. He somehow mysteriously almost hypnotizes her into developing a relationship with him. Meanwhile Christine is secretly engaged to Raoul a nobleman and patron of the Opera. On discovering Christine’s involvement with Raoul the Phantom gives Christine a choice to stay with him forever or he will kill Raoul. Her decision to this confrontation brings to an end the story of The Phantom of the Opera.

The Musical

I saw the stage version in Hamberg Theatre Hall, Germany circa 1990. Although my use and understanding of the German language at that point was not yet expert I engaged strongly with the play and it captured my imagination and moved me emotionally. The power of music to move our emotions is felt within the work. Themes running throughout the musical include actor’s lives, love triangles and star-crossed lovers.

The Film

I saw the film in or around 2006 and found it a faithful rendering of the show. But with Webber's footprints all over it, and not much more than that. If anything it had the opposite effect on me. The cinematic adaptation is full of high production values, time-tested songs, exquisite sets, and lush costumes but painfully full of itself that I cringed for the duration of watching the film.One real difference from the stage version is that it is unavoidable that the phantom played by Gerard Butler loses his crucial mystery when brought up close and personal with the audience. Seen at a distance, lurking in the shadows, he's a more remote, isolated and effective figure. Although I think the actress Emmy Rossum fares better as Christine Daae, projecting a mixture of talent, beauty, and innocence.
I felt The Phantom of the Opera played well on the stage, where audiences are seated several feet away from the lead actors, but when director Joel Schumacher sweeps his camera in for one of his dozens and dozens of close-ups, their melodramatic facial expressions come across as over-the-top.

The Book

I haven’t read the book written by Gaston Leroux in 1911 but would imagine what makes the stage version unique is the haunting music of Andrew Lloyd Webber. Andrew Lloyd Webber was the son of a Christian organist at the Central Methodist Hall in London; he grew up within the church and understood the power of music to communicate spiritual truths.

Links that interested me:

www.thephantomoftheopera.com.av/

www.theatre-musical.com/phantom/synopsis.html

film theory and criticism - Concepts in film theory by dudley Andrew

Film Theory and Criticism
Edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen

Reference-Oxford University press:

“Since publication of the first edition in 1974, Film Theory and Criticism has been the most widely used and cited anthology of critical writings about film. Extensively revised and updated, this sixth edition highlights both classic texts and cutting edge essays from more than a century of thought and writing about the movies. Editors Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen have reformulated the book's sections and their introductions in order to lead students into a rich understanding of what the movies have accomplished, both as individual works and as contributions to what has been called "the art form of the twentieth [and now twenty-first] century." Building upon the wide range of selections and the extensive historical coverage that marked previous editions, this new compilation stretches from the earliest attempts to define the cinema to the most recent efforts to place film in the contexts of psychology, sociology, and philosophy, and to explore issues of gender and race. The sixth edition features several new essays that discuss the impact of digital technology on the traditional conceptions of what films do and how they manage to do it. Additional selections from the important works of Gilles Deleuze round out sections dealing with the theories of such writers as Sergei Eisenstein, Andre Bazin, and Christian Metz, among others. New essays also strengthen sections dealing with the idea of "excess" in film, film spectatorship, the horror genre, and feminist criticism. Film Theory and Criticism, 6/e, is ideal for undergraduate and graduate courses in film theory and criticism.”

Chapter on Adaptation by Dudley Andrew from his book Concepts in Film Theory
Published by Oxford University Press US, 1984
239 pages

Reference - Google book search
“Concepts in Film Theory concentrates on the major areas of debate rather than on individual figures. Andrew provides lucid explanations of theories which involve perceptual psychology and structuralism; semiotics and psychoanalysis; hermeneutics and genre study.”

Adaptation

As the word itself says, film making is all about the process of making a film from a story that you have, or a story borrowed by somebody else. A film maker is in charge of the screenplay, shooting, editing and distribution and even direction of the work.
Andrew explains that it's rare for a book-to-film adaptation to actually be a clone of the original work, let alone better. The adaptation process involves a relationship between the original work and the adapted version. “Various artistic signs with a given shape and value contribute to the finished meaning of the work.”
By the time other issues come into effect such special-effects, budgets, actors, the editor afraid of deviating from formula, and film making teams eager to put their own imprints on a project have all had their way with a story, the qualities that made the original work unique have often been leeched out.

Borrowing, Intersecting and Transforming

Andrews explains that Borrowing, Intersecting and Transforming Sources all play a role in the adaptation.

‘Borrowing’ he describes as the “most frequent but vast and airy mode” of adaptation and seeks to gain a respectability and or “aesthetic value” by replicating an already recognized piece of work for example Strauss’s Don Quixote or an adaptation of piece by Shakespeare or a film about Beethoven for example.

‘Intersecting’ Andrews describes as a mode that intentionally leaves the original work “unassimilated” in adaptation and the viewer is presented with a “refraction” of the original. This form of adaption allows the film to be “the novel as seen by cinema”. Examples given include Bresson’s Joan of Arc and Straub’s film Corneille’s Othon and the Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach. Intersecting is described as a mode that “refutes the commonplace” that adaptations support only conservative film aesthetics.

‘Transformation’ is described as the “most frequent and tiresome discussion of adaptation as it concerns fidelity”. The “letter” and “spirit” of the text render an interpretation. Tone, values, imagery and rhythm are used to maintain fidelity to the original piece of work. For example using a blues/sad song to create atmosphere in a scene and stir the viewer’s emotions. Similarly color psychology can be used to stimulate emotion and adding to the viewers experience in an attempt to maintain fidelity.

Dudly Andrews concludes in this chapter that “it is time for adaptation studies to take a social turn”. He questions the conditions that exist in film style and culture “to warrant the use of literary prototypes”. “Stylistic strategies and dynamics of exchange” are discussed as issues that need to be addressed. He suggests “we need to study the films themselves as acts of disclosure and be sensitive to that disclosure and the forces that motivate it.”

Maybe one way to go about making a film that more than lives up to its inspiration: would be to start with a book that isn't all that great to begin with, like Mario Puzo's pulpy, florid novel The Godfather. One of Hollywood’s greatest critical and commercial successes. Then add evocative direction, iconic performances, and memorable music. People will still read the book, but the film version is the one they'll remember.

Writing Machines Blog 1

Chapter 1. Media and Materiality

Chapter .2 Material Metaphors, Technotexts, and media-Specific Analysis.

“Writing Machines” by Katherine Hayles explores the relationship between contemporary literature and computer technologies, focusing on the ways that new technologies of writing have affected the development and dissemination of the written word.

The piece through an autobiographical character named Kaye explores the development of literature and how technologiess used to present lititure has evolved over a forty year period. From the 50’s when type was the voice of the printed page up to the 90’s and the practices of Cybernetics. Creative, technological, and artistic practices are explored.

Coming from a rural background the character Kaye initial bewilderment and almost obsession with the written material she encounters lead her to study English and Media. Katherine Hayles is currently Professor of English and Design Media Arts at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Hayles explains literature was never only words, never merely immaterial verbal constructions. Literary texts, like us, have bodies, an actuality necessitating that their materialities and meanings are deeply interwoven with each other.

Hayes introduces the important issue of copyright and sentiment then suggests it is the way in which ideas are expressed through digital media that could be secured as copyright as this also effects the readers experience.

Something that interested me - Text as Technology
Examples of language and hybrid verbal terms introduced and or developed by Hayes in Writing Machines:
Media-Specific Analysis
Cybernetics
Medial Ecology
The precession of simulacra
Simulacrum
Inscription Technologies
Tecotexts
Ergodic texts
Rhizomatic structure

Print considerations I found interesting:
Graphic design and print elements have been used to enhance the reader’s visual and sensory engagement. Consideration has been given to the print qualities of the book. It is a small paper back and was designed by Anne Burdick it has an embossed cover that allows the reader to pass your finger across the edge one way and it spells Writing pass it the other way and it spells Machines. The reader is invited to fondle and engage in a physical experience used in print media as embossing. The typography used in the book is innovative, variations and graphical manipulations of fonts are used and images of text to establish a relationship between form and content.