Saturday, May 31, 2008

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Conquering the last terrain of analog - Amazon's Kindle (Part II)

No windows persuading me to make all sorts of consumption pop up from my book. And no one knows that I am reading at a particular time in a particular place. But once the device is stuck onto your body, you are constantly under tracking by these big brands. Every body is accessible. They learn about your movement, your next stop and your next encounter. They hold the key to your minds. Readers will only be blinded with the ideological excitement of possessing this so-called freedom of connection to the infinite space of knowledge. You think you are now communicating with many more people around the world at any time any space but on the other side of the coin, you are actually being barred from connecting with groups that are less up-to-date. The immediacy of update widens our information lapse from person to person. Information one possesses easily deteriorates. The common ground for discussions is gradually shrinking due to this temporal difference in information reception.

"Book clubs could meet inside of a book." (Newsweek, 70) To a certain extent, yes, readers are no longer confined to a physical space for book salon or discussions but in turn, they are now confined to that virtual space which is highly manipulated by the space administrator, which is Amazon in this case. Instead of "making the entire works of humankind available to all people", they are now only available to those born in the digital age, more affiliated and knowledgeable mass. The rich poor gap is constantly widening, not only between the analog and digital camp, but also among those in the digital net. It is no longer a fair game. Within a global scale, those living in the third world will never get a taste of such technology. Even they are willing to read, their knowledge simply depreciates compared to other parts of the globe. Capital thus flows from around the world to those knowledgeable elites who are now connecting among themselves and sharing all sorts of information at an ever accelerating speed.

The whole evolution from analog to digital is a coercion that builds upon excessive needs and constantly making one feels that he or she is out-of-date. They will not point a gun at your head to force you to buy the new edition. Yet by gradually limiting and finally ceasing to release that previous edition, buyers had no choice but to switch to the newer one. This will certainly happen to the production of books in the near future. Books will not extinct but perhaps not each and every piece of writings will have the chance to release a book version. As Amazon's database expands, fewer and fewer publishers could resist the entire digitization movement.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Conquering the last terrain of analog - Amazon's Kindle (Part I)


Last Christmas Amazon has released its first electronic book (e-book) which is already the 2nd generation of its kind into the market. Newsweek has devoted a total of 6 pages to cover this story on November 26, making a sound feature on The Future of Reading that might be shaped by the attempt of this device. How revolutionary is this Kindle? Is it really going to "change the way readers read, writers write and publishers publish?"

As claimed by the CEO of this online bookstore giant, Jeff Bezos, their mission is to digitize entire libraries of the world, to create "the world's only book" so as to "make the entire works of humankind, from the beginning of recorded history, in all languages, available to all people, all the time." (Newsweek, 70) What he meant by "all the time" refers to their newly developed wireless connectivity which surpasses all its ancestors including Sony Reader, the pioneer of e-book. With just a glimpse, one can hardly tell what makes the device so different from the PDA or mobile phones from which we read our everyday news and documents in transports. And what makes these big corporations so sure that they will be able to conquer this last terrain of analog, the print media which has been the bedrock of our civilization for centuries, but not another fashionable product that roars in the short run?

We were told that the product is in fact no different from an actual book. It can even lead you into the state of ludic reading – the rabbit hole that heavy readers enter when consuming books for pleasure. (Newsweek, 68) What Bezos was trying to convince readers was that it is not the medium that brings one into that hypnotic state. What have been paramount are in fact the ideas of writers. The aura of a book can be substituted by any medium and this time, this device, this machine. Instead of mingling with papers – static and 3-dimensional, now we were told to mingle with all sorts of screens – interactive and 4-dimensional. With their power in the media (they are in fact the media), they stir up noises and create talking points through platforms like blogs and forums, and thus slowly immerse oneself into the need for change. But how could the two mediums be possibly the same?

Thursday, May 22, 2008

798的神話


剛看過今屆的香港國際藝術展,更參與了其中的一場研討會─時移勢易:博物館與文化慾望,沒有太多的驚喜,卻有許多值得思考的地方。

雖說這是一個藝術展,但現場的佈局跟展銷會沒多大分別,參展的畫廊也不介意把售價一併展出,務求盡用那百餘尺的空間。根據官方的資料,現場有來自二十國的畫廊,但在我看來,主要來自歐美及亞洲主要城市,國內的佔上大多數,推介的作品也源自這些發展中的大都會,少有中東甚至非洲等地的作品,不無可借。值得一提的是我國作品滲透率之高叫人訝異,隨處可見岳敏君、焦興濤的作品,還有許多帶有濃厚政治色彩的畫作,中國風吹得還真盛。

就連研討會本身也是面向中國的說,期望從來自世界各地的策展人身上取經,帶動香港與國內的文化工業,說是工業一點不為過,可不都是各國建構自我形象的一個手段?博物館的建築成了國際都市的必然象徵,高傲地佔據着逐漸萎縮的公共空間,扭曲的不止是文化本身的意義,更是人類生活的根本自然,很認同Tate Modern的首席策展人Sheena Wagstaff的一席話:Museum is not built for profit-making。是的,香港的政客就是不大願意去接受這個事實,所以不斷地追問如何經營一個自給自足的博物館,老實點說,還不是當爸爸的不願意負上這沉重的擔子,生下來了,就自己學會獨立吧!難怪做兒女的天天都在鬧,不大長進。北京的798藝術園地卻恰好相反,太獨立了,還闖出了點名氣,老父也就不得不支持,順勢叨點光。

看來,香港還得花上一段頗長的時間,才會學好走路這一課。

"A-Glow-Glow" Interactive Media Arts


早前看過兩件互動裝置,第一件來自英國的United Visual Artists (UVA),名為Volume,一眾由LED組成的感應柱因應觀眾的行動作出反應。當觀眾遊走於柱子之間時,聲音的跌踫奏出一陣和諧的共鳴,然而LED的反應卻沒有預期的理想,似是被過多的預設程式操控着,自顧自地發揮;又因現場觀眾太多,反應欠缺即時性;相對地,觀眾得停留較長的時間來觀察裝置的反應,尋找當中的語言,沒多少耐性的或把裝置當作玩意兒的總不得要領,很快便離了場。

同樣的情況亦出現於第二件裝置上─Teddy Lo的《稀孔》,這個的情況更糟,皆因玩法太複雜,需要你手機的藍芽之餘(較落後的可沒份兒了),七條的訊息發放頻道亦未能滿足眾多好奇的觀眾,等待不久便宣佈放棄,就是收到訊號的也搞不懂當中的意思,失望而回的佔了大多數。

相信這仍是創作互動裝置的一大挑戰,得在觀眾失去興趣前引導對方進入與作品自行溝通的狀態,從而進行對話、交流。當然,首要的是觀眾願意進行對話,藝術品不是商品,它不強迫你來簇擁它,而是靜靜地待在那兒,等你來接近,收穫多少,全看你願意在它跟前付上多少的時間。

Thursday, May 8, 2008