The Digital
Iris Shimada
A Day in the Life of the Digital
8:00am - I wake up to the hum of classical music as I turn to read the red-lighted numbers on the digital clock in the bedreoom. It's dark and the red numbers glard at me to "wake up!" The digital clock replaced an ever tick-tocking clock that kept me awake at night. The digital has allowed me to sleep.
8:15 am - A walk upstairs to the kitechen to make coffee, alerts me to look at a digital clock on the microwave, the oven and the CD/radio player. The times on all three do not match. The digital numbers are different colors too. Still daz3ed until I drink my coffee. I don't know which clock is accurate, I take the average of the three. The digital has make me use my brain too early in the morning.
8:30 am - Push a button on the remote to turn on the HDTV channel with the sound off because I can watch the ticker-text news flow across the screen. Ever since the terrorist attack on 9/11, ticker-text news was seen on most major network channels.
The VCR placed below the TV has a clock that blinks on and off. I forgot to re-set the last time there was a power outage. The last time there was a power outage, the house felt sitll from the absence of a digital hum. When the power went back on I must have re-set five five clocks that I could remember how to reset. if I could not remember how to re-set the clocks on other appliances, they were left to blinking or a piece of electrical black tape to stop the blinking. I must remember differnet re-setting systems or forget it. The digital added and subtracted to my memory.
8:45 am - When it's time to turn the house alarm on to leave the house, a beep sounds every two seconds. I have sixt seconds (thirty beeps) to leave before the alram detects me as an intruder. If I forgt books, a jacket, or my four-year old, I need to re-set the alarm efore the sound of an annoying school bell from recess wakes up my neighbors. The digital keeps me on my toes.
The car door opens and I turn on the engine. The ceiling panel tells me I'm driving North West and the temperature is fifty-five degrees outside. The dash panel keeps blinking and beeping reminding me the car needs a tuene up and I need to add windshield washer fluid. the digital gives me more information than I sometimes need.
9:00 am - On my way to the cafe, I check mobiel phone messages, check home phone messages, delet some messages, save others. I am able to return phone calls using the phone number list in my mobile phone address book. The digital makes me think I am efficient with my tiem while taking attention away from drivign and maybe adding more tasks than necessary.
9:30 am - The mobile phone rings, I look to read the phone number to decide whethter to answer it, it has caller-id block and I can't tell who it is. I decide to let the automatic answereing machine answer it. The digital enhances decision-making or supports procrastinating skills and attention-defecit disorders.
10:00 am - Arrive at destination with laptop in hand, put coins in digital parking meter, and find a seat at cafe with airport capabilities. Plug in laptop and log onot email through aiprot; read, delete, and send email. Google a research topic and find some articles. The digital allows mibility and creates access twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. When is it time to take a break?
10:30 am - Begin writing on laptop, see many others with laptops, hear ringing mobile phones and their conversations. Reminds me of phones ringing in class and hearing fractured mobile phone conversation in the grocery store. The digital is increasingly embedded into the routine of daily life.
11:30 am - Download a few images onto desktop from the internet and write. I can be in one place and accomplish mutiple tasks. The digital has added ease by reducing research travel time.
1:00 pm - Buy lunch with ATM card. The digital allows qucik access to my bank account electronically. Money is a digital exchange system.
1:30 pm - Resume writing and resarch on laptop.
3:00 pm - Receive a call on my mobile phone from my son's babysitter who says Max wants to say "hello." Max gets on the phone and says "I love you dot com." At four-years old, Max can log onto AOL with a password I created for him. He logs on to PBS.org as the program vocally reminds him which website he is on. The digital is increasingly seamless at an early age.
4:30 pm - Leave cafe. Driving home and see a digital speed limit sign powered by a solar panel. The panel sign blinks "30" because the speed limit is 25mph. Not only do I know I am speeding, so do the cars following me. The digital becomes a public policing device.
5:00 pm - Arrive home and turn off the house alarm. I have a shorter time to respond and turn off the alarm. The digital keeps me on my toes.
5:15 pm - heat up cold coffee in the microwave, read the time on the microwave that doesn't match the oven or the CD/radio player. It doesn't matter what time it is. I read the hands on my non-digital watch. The digital, although embedded into daily life, can be turned off when necessary or over-saturated.
6:00 pm - Read the news on the ticker-text HDTV channel.
7:00 pm - Check phone messages, email, and take a break.
9:00 pm - Scan image s into document. Create Powerpoint presentation with Iphoto and desktop imagees. The digital alllows immediate creation, duplication, and a certain grafitication for the speed of accomplished results.
11:00pm - Sign-off AOL, shut down laptop, and set digital alarm clock for the next digital day.
Three Digital Artists by Iris Shimada
Barcode Artist - Scott Blake: http://wwwabsolutearts.com/portfolio/s/scottblake/
Blake states:
"As a computer artist, I am in the business of selling 0's and 1's. The barcode represents automation, efficiency, and commodities. It is the universal cod for the computer revolkution... I am interested in exposing what goes into the commercialization of individuals."
Scott Blake, a digital artist, uses the barcode in his artwork to form portraits of pop icons such as Jesus, Oprah, and Madonna. Blake uses what he calls "digital pointalism." it is a series of bar codes used to create an image. Similar in the style of Chuck close, individual abstract shapes in a block are used to create a full portrait. In blake's artwork, each individual rectangle barcode creates a scale from light to dark. Blake implements various barcodes and shading scales to create an image. Writer, Briana discussess and appropriates the "Barcodean Era" as :
"the barcode is the tattoo of ownership that every member of the Capitalist gang has embedde upon its property." http://www.discovery.mala.bc.ca/web.deimertbm/barcode.html
The barcode gives a product an immediate identity just as a pop icon has an immediate identy or brand. Blake uses a simple graphic symbol made of thick and thin, black and white lines with correlating numbers to actualize a pop icon by drawing an icon portrait with barcodes. It is this inversion of intent that is witty and critical at the same tiem.
For those interested in further work with barcodes, you can now purchase your own barcode at http://www.buyabarcode.com
POP! The first male Pregnancy: http://www.rythospital.com - Virgil Wong and Lee Mingwei: http://www.malepregnancy.com
Virgil Wong creates a professional looking medical research website touting a pregnant male, Lee Mingwei (artist). The website monitors Mr. lee's EKG, weight, blood pressure, and an ultrasound image. A media coverage column lists Time magazine, CNN, and USA Today to validate this cultural phenomenon. Quicktime video shorts film pregnant Mr. Lee on a bus, eating a meal, and buying groceries. Along with interviews with people and Mr. Lee's daily journal, Wong's website creates a sense of authenticity.
Our digital world is visually saturating. Whether it is a thirty-second commercial during the Superbowl or surfing the web for a subject, our attention spans are ever shortening. The time to distinguish authenticity becomes a glance. Our minds look for immediate cultural signposts to authenticate truth. Wong's mimicry is successful when he has convinced viewers that male pregnancy is possible.
GPS Drawing- Museum of Oxford, GPS Drawing Oxford - April 27 - June 6, 2004
GPS Drawing Oxford, is an exhibition consisting of artists using GPS technology from land, air, water, and maps. The GPS technology communicates between a receiver and timed satellite signals. GPS locates latitiude, longitude, and altitude to create a three-dimensional drawing. The drawings look like an Etch-A-Sketch drawing where the drawing is one continuous line. One continuous line drawing of words, abstract shapes, and aerial mapping are some of the many GPS drawings found at the website. Here, GPS drawings are archived from around the world.
In Jeremy Wood's work Greenwich Park, his line drawing overlaps an areial map of the park. it is interesting that Wood's selects the meridian of the world for a GPS project indicaitve of a longitude and latitude address.
GPS drawings map an individual's journey, a path of habitat. It is an opportunity to draw in a global scale and link to others around the world. The world is closer than "six degrees of separation."
Also see: GPS doodle samlpe at http://www.gpsdrawing.com/games/gpsdoodle.htm