DAI227 week 11

Week 11 DAI227 Questions - Topic - THEME PARKS & SHOPPING MALLS


1) In Margaret Crawford's Essay "The World in a Shopping Mall she outlines that 'the size and scale of a mall reflects "threshold demand"' - what is meant by this term? 

That people tend to be more dependent on having a shopping mall that we have them everywhere, even if they are just a one stop store

2) In the same article Margaret Crawford describes something called "spontaneous malling" - what does this mean?

Pg. 18 “The transformation of shopping into an experience that can occur in any setting has led to the next stage in mall development: “spontaneous mailing,” a process by which urban spaces are transformed into malls without new buildings or developers.” in today’s world of consumers, you don’t need a physical mall or store to shop or buy things anymore, you can just buy them online.

3) According to Michael Sorkin in his essay 'See you in Disneyland', how did Disneyland have its origins?

Disney had a deal with ABC to promote their park with a tv promotion, in return for the networks money, Disney offered their precious commodity: the mouse

But the most direct ancestor, origins is the World’s Fair in 1951

4) Michael Sorkin writes in his essay that Disney's EPCOT Center was motivated largely by frustrations Disney felt at his Anaheim CA park. What were those frustrations?

The frustrations were the million lost to others who were housing his visitors. And the disorder of it all the sullying of his vision by a sea of sleaze

5)In his essay "Travels in Hyperreality" Umberto Eco describes Disneyland as 'a place of total passivity' - what does he mean by this?

It’s describing the way people have to act and behave in the park. Like when people wait in line they act entirely different and robotic. That people are told what to do, over and under just to get to the same place in the end.  It’s similar to being a controlled person to perform at a mechanical pace to maintain order.

week 7

Federico DeJesus

1)      Who invented the first computer game on the PDP1?

 Steve Russell

2)      What was the name of the game?

 SpaceWar!
3) What was the name of Morton Helig's amusement device that let you smell, hear and see in 3D filmed experiences?
 Sensorama
4) What early 1970s movie does an arcade console machine of Spacewar appear?

5) What was the name of the man who developed the first TV tennis game?
 Ralph Baer
6) Who was the man whose company Atari commercialized the idea of the arcade computer tennis game?

 Nolan Bushnell

7) What was the name of this version of the game?
 pong
8) What are vector graphics?

 Whereas a

television screen or a modern computer monitor is a

“raster” display, consisting of hundreds of horizontal

arrays of dots that are drawn one at a time, so that a

diagonal line on screen always looks “stepped,” vector

screens enabled a perfectly straight line to be drawn

between any two points on the screen.

9) What types of games do vector graphics lend themselves to?
 They are wireframe 3d that made 3d polygon shape, it lend themselves to the Star Wars game and Tempest
10) When home computers were first made available, how did owners load games into them?
 They load games from floppy disc
11) What is the name of the 1985 film in which a young Matthew Broderick starts World War III with his home computer and modem?
 WarGames
12) From what sources did the designer of the Space Invaders aliens draw inspiration?
 Squids
13) What is the name given to the contemporary subculture of 8 bit music made with gameboys and other 80s game technology
 Chiptune
14) "Escape from Woomera" was a videogame which was used to draw attention to the plight of inmates at a remote detention center in desert town in what country?

Half life game mod
Australian

DAI227 week 6

 

QUESTIONS FOR DAI227 WEEK 6 LECTURE

1) Steve Mann describes his wearable computer invention as a form of cyborg blogging for one person (fill in the blank)
(see youtube link to Mann interview in web resource page)

2) Steve Mann's concept of opposing camera surveillance with "Sousveillance" is described as a form of “reflectionism”. What is meant by this? To mirror and confron bureaucratic organization. meaning to do the same thing to them as they are doing to the public.
(in ReadingsF)

3) In the section of "Sousveillance" called "Performance Two" Steve Mann describes how wearing his concealed device becomes more complex when used in what type of spaces?  It becomes more complex In public places such as a shopping mall,  it becomes semi complex as security would tend to be watching him. The more places he goes with camera the more often he is being watch.

4) The final paragraph sums up what Mann considers the benefits of "sousveillance" and "coveillance". What are they?  Sousveillance It is a conceptual framework of self-empowerment in opposition to modern technolog and surveillance through a series of performances.   Coveillance is the data collected with interactions in their daily lives.
(ReadingsF)

5) In William J Mitchell's 1995 book "City of Bits" in the chapter "Cyborg Citizens", he puts forth the idea that electronic organs as they shrink and become more part of the body will eventually resemble what types of familiar items? They will become more of clothing  - soft wearables that conform to the contours of our bodies and they have to be fitted for each person
(ReadingsF)

6) From the same book/chapter, list two of the things that a vehicle that 'knows where it is' might afford the driver & passengers. The GPS on the car that gets its information from you and can also be a tour guide as it can pull up information highlights of the area.   Artificial intelligence that knows where the car is heading and is able to drive itself
(ReadingsF)

7) Mitchell tells the story of Samuel Morse's first Washington-to-Baltimore telegraph message. What was it? "What hath God wrought?"
(ReadingsF)

8) Donna Harroway in "A Cyborg Manifesto" argues that women should take the "battle to the border". What does she say are the stakes in this border war?  territories of production, reproduction, and imagination.
(in ReadingsF)

9) Harroway posits the notion that:
"We require regeneration, not rebirth, and the possibilities for our reconstitution include the utopian dream"
What is this dream?
(in ReadingsF)

10) Many have argued that 'we are already cyborgs' as we use devices such as glasses to improve our vision, bikes to extend the mobility function of our legs/bodies etc, computers and networks to extend the nervous system etc. What do you think? Are we cyborgs?
to me my idea of what a cyborgs are is a combination between man and machine that is put together as one like how they would show it in movies and tv’s such as the Terminator, it’s a form of a man but it is completely robot.  A robot mind with a human flesh.

(one paragraph)

week 5

Student Name Federico DeJesus

Today’s Date March 2, 2010

Game Title Examined Asteroids

Year of Publication 1979

Game Publisher Atari Inc.

Game Developer  Atari Inc.

1 - What is the game genre (e.g. shoot-em-up, racing, sports, puzzle, MMORPG, ‘sandbox’, music sequence following game (e.g. DDR, guitar hero)

Space shoot-em-up

2 -What is the type of game ‘world’ or environment (e.g. flat environment, puzzle/maze space, 3D world?)
small black area that loops around when you get from one end of the screen to another

3 - What is the perspective taken by player (e.g first person, third person perspective, top down, isometric) in relation to main player controlled character.

Top view perspective

4 - What is the actual gameplay – what does the player have to do?

Shoot at rocks that blows up in to pieces which you have to destroy completely until there no more

5 - Is the gameplay intuitive? (i.e. is it easy to understand what to do without instructions?) describe.

Easy to play, with 4 directional buttons and on fire button to use

6 - Is the gameplay patterned (game does the same thing over & over) or is it random (happens differently every time?)

It has the same pattern over and over, after you cleared out all of the asteroids more will come

7 - What does the type of graphic approach used as well as the audio tell you about the limits of the technology at the time the game was published?

It was a very limited graphics as it only has black screen and white outline of the objects around you. It was one of the very first arcade game that came out at that time


8 - Describe your views about the game from the point of view of

1. ease of play, the controls are easy to use and understand and theres no other objective other than to destroy the asteroids

2. Enjoyability, the enjoyability is fair and would keep me entertained for a few hours but as I play it more and more it becomes repetitive

c) level of engagement/immersion,  not really much to go by on engagement or immersion as the screen is just black with white outlines

9 - Had you played this game prior to this time? If so, when?

I have play something similar to this but for me to play it in an actual arcade, I have never played it at all

10 - what does playing the game remind you of in terms of other games/media?

It reminds me of how limited technology was back then and reminds me of the history of games as I believed that the game I played is a part of gaming history.

Perspective 

Top           

Side          

Front         

My inspiration came from the popular TV show Doctor Who, where the main character called the doctor is a space time traveler where he goes in search for anomalies in different time and tries to fix them before the history of the universe changes.  In this scenario I have 8 different locations with bread crumb trails showing the path of where to go next. Eight different stages with their own situation that would eventually come together in the last stage.

I made place to be a map stage where one part of the area is a stage to start the game, just like how Super Mario Brothers where they would have an overhead map of the world and each area is a stage.  This map that i have made more for a stage selection game where one area contains a side scrolling game.  each stage can contain different themes as i indicated it with different object in the filed, for example i have put a T-Rex that would indicate its a dinosaur stage, and the yellow balls would indicate where the next stage is and your progress in the game. 

Week 4


1) According to the text "Remediation" the author uses the phrase (in relation to Hollywood's use of computer graphics)
"remediation operates in both directions" - what is meant by this?

The diversity is even greater for hypermediacy, which always offer a number of reactions to the contemporary logic of immediacy. Remediation always operates under the current cultural assumptions about immediacy and hypermediacy.

2) What does Michael Benedikt, author of "Cyberspace the First Steps" introduction argue had happened to modern city by the late 60s, having become more than 'a collection of buildings and streets'?

The city became a center of communication, storage and transportation services

3) In his short story "Skinner's Room" William Gibson describes how Skinner watches a tiny portable 'pop-up' TV set. What can skinner no longer remember? (remediation in relation to television as an idea is neatly summed up in this sentance!)

He can't remember when he ceased to be able to distinguish commercials from programming.

4) Author of the famous pamphlet "Culture Jamming" Mark Dery paraphrases Umberto Eco and his phrase "semiological guerrilla warfare". What does this mean?

the freedom to read it in a different way

to try and see it or interoperate the reading in many ways other than what is put on the screen

5) From Mark Dery's pamphlet, briefly describe "Subtervising"

it is a form of cultural jamming. Like to block radar