Interfaces: Charcoal

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:34:00 -0400

Because I’m exploring media in this blog, I thought I should begin this expedition by using an earlier “extension of man” than is found in the “Electric Age.” These are sketches I did at The Metropolitan Museum of Art with charcoal pencils, a stump, and a click eraser.

Above: This is a sketch of Maillol’s The Night.

Above: Another of Maillol’s nudes.

Above: One of Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais.

Coming to Terms with The Adventure Game

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:40:00 -0400

While the adventure game set new precedents as far as ludic semiotics and pixel art ideology, the genre’s HCI became archaic much faster than did the still innovative narrative structure.

Example 1.1: Sam and Max Hit the Road (1993, Lucasarts)

Example 1.2: Space Quest 4: Roger Wilco and The Time Rippers (Sierra, 1991)

Example 2.1: Maniac Mansion (1987, Lucasfilm Games)

Notable titles:

The Secret of Monkey Island : Sam and Max Hit the Road : Space Quest Series

Kings Quest Series : Maniac Mansion : Day of the Tentacle

Zak McKracken : Grim Fandango : Quest for Glory

The Dig : Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

New titles for fans of this genre:

Sam and Max: The Devil’s Playhouse : Back to the Future

[image via http://scummgames.net/miposters.php]

Considering McLuhan

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 11:50:00 -0400

NMDS 5006 [Posted on Blackboard 9/20/11]

Response to The Medium is The Message:

In my opinion to really understand McLuhan you need to see how his mind works. You also need to hear his concepts alongside the concepts that his 1960s peers held to in regards to electronic mediums. To my mind, the best example of these essentials in understanding the way the McLuhan theories work is best studied in the debate he had with Norman Mailer in 1968 (SEE BELOW).

McLuhan is a prose theorist. By his own admission he is a literature teacher first, and would probably walk away from it if he thought there was a way to go back. From reading a lot of the discussions that seem to think McLuhan is not giving enough credit where credit is due, or simplifying some kind of artform when he says “The Medium is the Message” I think a major point is being missed. McLuhan, in studying pop culture and youth culture comes away with a kind of hyper-quickening mode of diatribe that is more James Joyce than Albert Einstein.

McLuhan is very good at picking up the huge influx of information that he was allowing to come at him, and in his often improvised oration some very real truths were interspersed. His discussions on Narcissus cannot be ignored, the evolution of connectivity among people being obsessed with people, however most of these things were not traditional prophesies, they were merely insights that came from the study of the medium AS message rather than the message IN the medium.
I think a lot of people make the mistake to think that McLuhan was coming out and making vehement accusations as many that criticize the media in today’s world are apt to do. McLuhan was merely stating some theories (sounding often very sure of himself) that would come to “The literary man” as he tried to “turn on” to the world of “the Electronic Man.” McLuhan was a modernist dictating the postmodern. His television persona was much like Nietzsche’s Zarathustra - a work of literary art during a paradigm shift.

The Medium is the message, but it is also the massage, and Mussolini is the message too. It’s easy to put McLuhan in a box if only reading a couple pieces he authored, but I try to remind myself that the man was more of an artist than a mechanistic theorist, and that artistic influence is one of the reasons I’m so drawn to the origins of Media Theory as a study. In McLuhan’s least cynical moment he really sees those with the artistic skillsets as those with the most valuable purpose in society in an Electronic Age and I think his theories are there to give ideas to such persons of possible ways to verbalize this new world of mind numbing speeds and a lack of time and space.

Example 1.1: The McLuhan/Mailer Debate
Example 1.2: Marshall McLuhan at John Hopkins University

[Image via: http://fredericksebastian.blogspot.com/]

Media Explorations

Interfaces: Charcoal

Coming to Terms with The Adventure Game

Considering McLuhan