Response To Ascott and Telematics

Roy Ascott makes a good, clear point about how much our world is technologically advancing with the passing of everyday. I am definitely amazed at how far we have come over the last few decades and look forward to see what is to come. Ascott defines telematics is a term used to designate computer-mediated communications networking involving telephone, cable, and satellite links between geographically dispersed individuals. In todays society telematics is extremely important. For example everyone uses email. Without it, it would take a lot longer to send a message to someone. Today its as simple as taking a few seconds to type a note and clicking the send button. You need to send messages with your daily work, within school, to co-workers, family, friends, and more. As far as telephones go they are just as important if not more important. Now a days we call people constantly and send text messages using our cell phones. There are also social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, only shopping places like Ebay and Amazon. You can also use a computer to have a video conference with someone across the world.

Ascott asks, "Is there love in the telematic embrace?" I would have to say obviously there is a love. People embrace technology and they enjoy being able to quickly send messages and purchase items online or research a topic without leaving your home. As far as technological art goes people have also embraced it as well. It has taken a little bit of time but society loves it. Now I'm not talking about art made off the computer to sell. I'm talking about commercial based art. Graphic designers make millions off designing stuff.

As far as Ascott's early work example. I think its interesting. It's not exciting or anything but it does catch your eye and then make you think. It also makes you want to read the text to learn what is happening within the image. It was a clever idea. There are so many things you can do using text.

The Semantic Web

So if I am reading this article on The Semantic Web right then this is something that the creator of the web, Tim Berners-Lee is going to create? The Semantic web is going to improve the web that we use today. If I reading this correctly then it seems that the web will be faster and more knowledgeable. It's going to be more computer friendly, where the computer can easily find the information the user is looking for. It seems that the web is already impressive and that we have far outcome the days of early HTML. We have moved from just a single document on the web to something bigger and better, where there are thousands, if not millions of sites on the web now. And now a days as we I write this response, current HTML is becoming outdated and the new thing to have is XHTML. Lee states that the semantic web is to provide a language that expresses both data and rules for reasoning about the data and that allows rules from any existing knowledge-representation system to be exported onto the Web. It seems that Lee wants to add logic to the web. Make it smarter within itself as well as for the user. It seems as if with the creation of the semantic web that machines will become intelligent, allowing them to comprehend documents instead of just loading them.

This article was very interesting but I have to admit it was kind of confusing. I am just a beginner in web design so some of the terms Lee used went over my head. Otherwise it was very informal article and I learned a lot. Of course I am always impressed by Time Berners-Lee.

Response To Ten Myths

First off I liked this reading because it was quite interesting and was very short. Sometimes when I read a long article I tend to get the high points but lose focus mid-way. Anyway, in the first part of this article I agree with the first couple myths. However I do not agree with myth #3 because I do think that it takes time, money, and skills to create web based art. You can get buy with the basics but in order to produce a fantastic piece you must have the knowledge of various software programs and the expenses to purchase these programs. Jon Ippolito is right when he says people would rather spend time on the internet looking up works of art rather than visiting a museum. That's a very sad thought. Only a museum can show the true beauty of a work of art..web based work or not. The author states that internet art is not a form of web design but I disagree. Yes in some cases internet art is not web design but what about web design being a piece of internet art? For example I design a site for a company. It's beautiful, colorful, and informational. Is this not a piece of art in its own way? If not, why? Just because it was created digitally and for the web doesn't make it any less worthy or interesting.

Ippolito states that "internet artists spend much of their time innovating: custom writing Java applets or experimenting with new plug-ins. But innovation in and of itself is not art." I think that Ippolito is completely wrong. You may not be able to physically see this form of art or at least it is not exactly what first comes to mind when you think of art but yet it is still art. It may no be all colorful and fun but it is still a creative process and isn't that what art is?

Over all Jon Ippolito has made some very good points but I do not agree with them all. I believe that his 10 myths may only be myths in his mind.