ATLAS SPEAKER Leah Buechley

Early this month I attended the Atlas series speaker Leah Buechley’s High-Low Tech presentation. In the presentation Leah discussed the organization High-Low Tech’s goals and the strategies they use to encourage kids to become interested in technology and believe that they have the ability to not only use but also create the technologies of the future. They believe that in today’s world that people take for granted the technologies we have because they come easy to us and that we don’t actually understand and know how they actually function. The organization puts on programs where they encourage people to design artifacts and experiences. The four aspects that High-Low Tech focuses on in these workshops are artifacts, audience, and intent and make it your own. By artifacts they mean that they are trying to explore traditions of human making. From this they try to mix these traditions with contemporary techniques. Through creating objects that represent good craftsmanship, objects made from smart materials all while preserving the beauty of the object at hand. They stress that the beauty of the object is just as important as the utility of the object. Meaning that the object should look as good as it functions as it makes the technology that more successful. The target audience they are trying to reach is another goal of High-Low Tech. They try to reach out to people who don’t have experience building technology and they believe that by educating these people that they will help drive the evolution of technologies we use throughout our lives. This point makes a lot of sense to me, as I believe that the more people that understand how technologies function, will help us progress as a society. For one thing for certain is that it could not hurt having more technologically educated people in the world. The intent of trying to educate people who don’t know how technology works is to get them excited about technology in general. By getting them excited in technology from an early age they believe that more people than not will pursue careers in technology in the future. Meaning that by exciting these people about technology that they will form interests in the development technology. High-Low Tech tries to create excitement in these people by use, control and create. They do this through the system, which they call Make it Your Own. Specifically targeted towards kids, they host public funded programs where they use open source hardware, paper sculpture, and drawing to create electrical circuits that work right in front of their eyes. Looking back on my education I wish I were introduced more to things like the kids in these programs have received. I feel as if I would be better off and more prepared for the future if I was exposed to a technological education throughout my entire education. I believe that what High-Low Tech is doing is great and I have taken interest in wondering the fallout from what they are doing. Being an organization that has formed not too long ago it will be a while until we know if they influenced kids interests in becoming interested in technology. However I believe that by introducing more kids to technology and how it is created, that it will produce more people who can innovate our lives in the future and I only see positives from what they are doing.

12.2

Some things that captured my attention in todays discussions was what makes things creative or not and whether those ideas can be considered copyrighted if they are not completely original. In my opinion no idea is completely original. We are so influenced by our society today that the ideas that we do come up with are ideas that are built off our daily interactions. Unconsciously we come up with these "original" ideas without knowing that these ideas are already out there. These thoughts are actually remixes of what is stored within our creative sectors. As much of our society is built off of this notion without getting much attention or thought I don't believe simular ideas should be considered copyright at all.

Blog 12.1

Todays discussion dove into the idea of the changes of sound recording. Prior to this class I ned of a couple of recording and playing formats. After this class I feel like i have gained better insight to what is actually out there and has reminded me or a few things that I had forgot about. Things that I thought were interesting were the different Era of sound and the immense changes in sound from what it was until today. Sound raises some serious questions in the socio-cultural world such as file sharing, quality over quantity, and ownership questions. I find it interesting as most if not all the different technology developments we have studied this semester has raised these simular socio-cultural changes. I find this unique to technology and interesting how they are all different but raise simular questions and problems at the same time. I thought today's lecture was a good balance of both the history and discussion on technology.

Blog 10.2

From our discussions today we have delved into a new realm about the use of the cloud. Specifically the new frontiers that we are heading into as a society. These frontiers include conquests into personal space and virtual space. From here we can see that a large majority of our file sharing and consuming are coming together. Whether these new frontiers are for the greater good of our society is up for debate. Are these new frontiers becoming too involved in our lives and personel information? Should we have the right to protect these systems from accessing this personel information? What can we do to prevent this from happening and does it even matter if this information can be accessed to large scale companies such as google? All of which I don't really know the answer for but is up for a huge debate today. As we move further in the future we will probably continue to battle about rights to information and I dont think that there will ever be a right or wrong answer or a solution created.

Blog 10.1

Cloud Computing to me is this network of computers that all feed into each other to make a powerful computing system that allows for easier access and searching of data on the internet. To my understanding cloud computing uses a large amount of computers that are specific to their own set of data. That in turn works with all the other computers in a network and allow for fast, easy access to data which is all stored together. It allows for changes in storage data to occur because of the ability to lessen the usage in certain areas and the ability to increase the usage in others. Tensions/ issues that may arise is who gets to use the data storage, how it gets distributed and when they get it. We can see from the amazon.com example from the reading they use a lot of data the week after thanksgiving. If a situation occurs where systems within the cloud becomes overloaded at data could be lost and or computers could crash i think...

Blog 9.2

Exploring the various crowdsources on that long list provided to us I chose to explore different systems that would seem fun and interesting at the same time. By doing so my attention span towards the crowdsource wouldn't shift and I would find myself submerged in the source that surrounded me. First I started off in artigo a system that i though would interest me because of my art background, however I became bored of the project of tagging various artworks after the first go around. Possibly a result of me feeling like I wasn't doing it right. However I scored a 120 points... which who knows might have been good... I moved on from there though and dove into the world of eyewire.org. A system which is researching neuron mappings. Here I worked through various 3D interactive neuron puzzles that challenged my brain to figure out. It was fun and I also actually felt like I was contributing to something bigger than completing this assignment. I find that the interactiveness of the project interested me as well as the scientific backing of it made it feel like I was actually doing something. While participating I wasn't really thinking about how it felt to do it because I was fully concentrated in putting my best effort into the study. Afterwards I felt a bet accomplished and wondering if I would go back to this site ever again. What I have decided is that perhaps if I had some down time I would return. However I'd like to explore my options out there in the crowdsourcing world. It seems like there is something out there for everyone and that I may find something that would help me pursue some of my other deeper passions.

Blog 8.2

Before class today I used a couple of different technologies. First and foremost right this second I am using a desktop computer to write this blog. But I have also used my personel laptop as well as my smart phone which is an iphone. Within these technologies I have mostly used the internet, but have as well sent out a text message or two, chatted on instant messenger and checked my various social medias such as facebook, twitter and instagram. I have also used adobe flash to produce data which I then shared through google drive to a teacher of mine. Since the beginning of this semester the newest tool that I have started using is google drive and blogger. I have never really blogged before but recently this semester I have had to blog in a majority of classes. Prior to this class I have never used google drive before and now I have found that multiple of my classes use google drive to share files. It's made sharing data a lot faster and easier to do. Other technologies that I have used this semester include visitorsstudio.org, an online studio where artists can long onto and collaborate simultaneously in compiling digital works of art. Some of my passions include... -photography -video -visual arts -social media -web design -graphic design -applications I find that I am most passionate about trying to find a way to combined all of these various interests into a career of some sort.

Blog 8.1

Since the 1970's the internet technologies have evolved from being developed by the military and educational institutions to being developed by large scale companies. Initially these systems were developed from a centralized system created by AT&T but have expanded to take on the form of being decentralized and full out networks. Creating end-to-end architecture systems that simplified the network. meaning there is a simple system of computers in the center and all around apps are surrounding them and shared throughout the network. These developments will impact our ability to participate in future evolutions by furthering our development of the internet. I feel like we have moved a little bit further in the development of the internet through WIFI and the cloud which allows us to access and share data virtually anywhere. This discussion today has broadened my understanding of how these systems that I use on the daily function. They make me think about the possibilities for the future. And have me thinking about ways in which we can improve what we already have going on today. It's hard to think about because our systems are so refined and seem to work perfect. I'm interested in helping to figure out the next step of the internet and developing better interconnectedness between us.

Blog 7.2

-While searching for the information regarding my partner I found that it was easier to find information about her than I thought it would be because she and most all of her family members were connected through social media. Taylor has alot of different accounts on the internet where alot of her information was stored. The hardest things to find on the internet I found was her addresses, which was not really unexpected. -I was surprised that Taylor could look up my house, who owns it and the value of my house it was kind of weird. -After reading the passed couple of articles that we have gone over in class I've decided to become more deliberate about my online image. It kind of scared me and immediately after reading the first article I checked all my accounts on facebook, twitter and instagram to see if there was stuff online that I didn't want future employeers to see and judge me about. I usually take a sarcastic approach to what I post online and I find that alot of the stuff I put up doesn't directly represent who I am and could see how people might view what I put up differently than how I see it. So the next day I continued to go through my profiles setting privacy settings as well as deleting certain things that I don't neccassarily want people to see anymore. Even though I know that, that information will probably never disappear it makes me feel a little better about my online image right now.

In-class Blog 7.2

Digital Technology raises the issues regarding public and private information by allowing virtually all the information about yourself to be found if a person digs around enough. It's virtually impossible to go unnoticed on the internet if you partake in various different social medias. This allows for all the dirt about you to be dug up and made available to possibly people you dont necessarily want to access this information about yourself. BEfore this class I knew that everything on the web left behind its foot print and could be found by anyone who could navigate the internet. But as of recent I've become more self conscience about what my image and reputation is on the internet. It has made me make virtually all my profiles and accounts private and have made me censor some of the things that I have posted to the internet in the passed. It has made me scared of what is out there about me. I am not a bad person but some of the stuff I post on the internet is really sarcastic and not the direct representation of myself.

Blog 7.1

- A lot of my photo's are taken through Instagram this new application that was developed specifically for sharing images with your friends. You can like as well as comment on your friends photos here. Another majority of my photos are shared through Facebook and a handful put up on twitter. As for other more visual arts photography I have to convert my RAW files to DNG on my computer put them up on Adobe Bridge then they either get shared through Dropbox or placed on my online portfolio. http://xhairs.carbonmade.com/ -A majority of my photo images are looked at by mainly just my peers or people around me. Sometimes random people get to see them. As for more of my serious pictures, they are viewed by future employers as well as my teacher and class mates. -After reading the article, I am some what concerned about some of the stuff I post via Facebook and Twitter. It made me feel like I should probably try to clean up my profiles of all the unnecessary junk that has built up over the past years. Just because I don't really want to no get hired because of some stupid joke I posted to Facebook or something. I am not really concerned about the photos that much. I don't post photos that are took edgy in a manner. Probably the photos I am most concerned about are the ones where I am drinking in them. Even though I am 21 years of age, they make me feel iffy like I should probably take them down before contact people for jobs.

Blog 6.2.2

Technology I believe alters our cultural conceptions of truth/ reality. As It makes it easier for us to produce what we all want to see it takes from what is actually the truth. I find it interesting how we all criticize these photo manipulations however they are for the most part socially acceptable and desirable traits we all want. I find that the two sides of the spectrum often contradict themselves. Making it hard for a viable statement to be made. When one thing is wanted and another not in another case they can be desired the other way around. The influence technology has on our culture of truth/ reality I find is a push & shove relationship that goes back and forth from both sides. The key is finding the medium or the state that both don't affect each other.

Blog 6.2

#digitalmanip This image and article is a political statement about gun laws in America. Clearly a conservatism bashing on the President. It uses irony as the President is shooting holes into the Bill of Rights, while he is trying to control gun laws at the same time. As photo manipulation has gotten better ever since it has been invented it seems as if it has been used as a weapon or some way to hide the truth. Even more troublesome to me is that it seems that it is being used to create this world that we can never actually experience. As a photographer, I really don't like photoshop I find that it makes you image look cheap and unreal. A question that I want to know is that as technology continually gets better, is there still going to be the need for photography in the future? Or will we just be creating fake images from scratch of what we actually want to see? And by doing so does this make us blind to the world around u

Blog 6.1

1.When/Where/ how often do you take photographs(or videos)? -I take photographs on the weekly, sometimes depending on the circumstances on the daily. Often in my surround boulder setting. But I am not just tied down to boulder. I pretty much take pictures whenever I become inspired by something so I try to capture the essence of where I am. As a photography major I need to stay on my toes and capture what get me excited. 2.What are your favorite photo(or video) subjects? -Personally I like taking pictures of people. I find that by taking portrait pictures it's easy to capture emotions and makes the picture your trying to make better. I often take pictures of people out of their element perhaps in wearing some sort of prop. I find this interesting is is a great way to produce emotions. 3.How important are your photographs to you? And if they are important, what makes them? It depends on certain things in determining how important my photographs are to me. Some pictures just don't turn out how you expected or wanted. Plus it depends one the subject matter. If I just am not into the thing I am shooting, then they aren't really that important to me. But if im fully engulfed in the matter then the photo's are precious to me and mean a lot. 4.Do you consider photography an art form? Why or why not? I certainly do. It takes skill to do photography past the ever so common "kodak" photo that anyone can take. There are many compoenets and thought that go into creating a truly good photo. Like composition, shape, color, focus, depth of field, material, and subject matter. It's clear to see when someone just went out and shot a couple quick photo's or really focused on something and tried to create something pleasing to look at. Photography is an art form that is accessible to everyone and doesn't really confine someone to specific skill such as drawing and painting do.

Blog 5.1

I would consider myself somewhere in between a technological insider/outsider. I find that I am pretty hip in the sense that I tend to participate in the latest new technologies. But by no means am I the one who discover's these hot new medias. However once I do discover these technologies I enjoy using them and using them to their full potential. I find them valuable assets that help connect me with and work with my surround society. I dont really see my habits changing after the discussion because I find that if I were to change my status of a technological insider/outsider in betweenness that I would become uncomfortable in where I am and would become lost or detached to my peers. Balsamo's chapter didn't really impact my thinking about technology. She references Summer's in here chapter which in a prior class to Atlas 2000 I had already learned about. So that aspect of technology has already been implanted in my mind.

4.2 Reflection

Carey's reading and the discussions further increased my belief in how technology has continued to shape our lives in what they are today and that they will always. There is no way in controlling how they control us. I find that there is no degree in which technology and ideology are inseparable. Technologies shape our lives and the way we think. This is awful to think about but I find that modern society is controlled by technology and that we almost have no control over technology. It like we are living in a SciFi movie or something. In way i do buy Carey's argument that technology is tied to managerialist and imperialist ideology because he does bring up valued examples of how they affected these different ideologies.

Blog 4.2

I do believe that the technology that I use in my everyday life does impact my worldview. I think it has shaped my taken for granted assumptions in the way that I think that everything that I have and use on the daily bases, that everybody does the same thing and uses the same technology as I do. I guess that I assume that most of the world follows the same pattern of technology and that we are interconnected in that sense all the time. I don't even really think about it I just assume that everybody has a facebook, twitter, and instagram account and I want to instantly connect with them. As well as like the iphone. I think that it has become such a commodity in our lives that it is often surprising if somebody doesn't have one or uses and ipod in some manner. The technology that I use in my everyday life has become such the norm that I dont even think about it's affects on society in general. It's hard to think that there are people out there though that aren't experiencing the same relationship with technology as I do and that they rely on different means to share and receive information on the daily or however they do it.

Blog 4.1

An assumption i make when thinking about technology is that technology is there to improve our quality of life and to make things easier on us. Generally I think this as an unconscious assumption because technology is everywhere in our lives today and I don't even need to think about it. When something needs to be done is simply search out for the necessary tool i need to complete this action and do it. I don't really give much thought about the technology just that it is a tool to help me complete my task. I think i am most drawn toward the Ontology Paradigm however I can see truth and importance in the Epistemology Paradigm as well. I find that these paradigms draw to me closer because when studying life in general i want to know what is real, true and knowable. I dont get drawn in by the facts or quantitative numbers such as in the methodology as numbers don't seem to mean too much to me. I want to be able to see how things relate to my life and how I am affected. I am not a number so I dont relate to the quantitive aspects of methodology. I feel like today's readings and discussions did add to my growing understanding about technology/ society. I feel like it helped broadened my understanding of technology and its relationship with society. It helped me understand I feel like that the deterministic aspect helped to minimize the the realm of how technology affects our lives. And helped to narrow the understanding of the different theories out there.

3.2 Follow Up

Were you more interested in the technical/material or social dimensions we have discussed this week? Explain your interest and how it relates to your interests more broadly. Pick one of the contests for control that we have reviewed this week? Which actors would you have (or do you) side with and why? What have you learned about the relationship between technology, society and change by reading Lessig’s chapters? Were there any new questions/insights that reading these chapters inspired? I would have to say that this week in class I was more interested in the social dimension of the material. I really don't know that much about the technical aspects of this kind of stuff. I get the technical stuff... Okay actually im going to change coarse. I would say that i enjoyed learning about both the technical/ material and social dimensions of the material we covered in class this week. I would say they they were both interesting and serve the same importance in learning this information. I would say my interest is based around the idea that I want to learn as much as possible about anything and everything this class has to share. Relating to to my interests more broadly... thats just how I am I want to know about everything and be as well rounded as possible. In the contest between free-resource and controlled resources I would side with free resources. I believe that tools should be provided to the world via internet for free such as this blogger account and all of the google gadgets and all the free resources out there. I believe that control resources should still be available however like things are today. However i strongly regard ripping off other artists/ information systems is wrong and should not occur. Artist's need to make a living too. I've learned that technology has had a great effect on our lives as they have always in human history have done. As of now i dont think I have any further questions that I could raise. The only thing id like to say though is that I cant wait to see what the next 10 years brings!

Question 2

"To take what is our culture; "rip" it- meaning to copy it; to "mix" it- meaning to reform it however the user wants; and finally, and most important, to "burn" it- to publish it in a way that others can see and hear. Digital technology could enable an extraordinary range of ordinary people to become part of a creative process." This quote from p.9 of chapter one in Lessig's book The Future of Ideas captured my attention because I find the author goes against his main argument while encouraging people to be "more creative." The quote is referring to the music industry specifically however i believe that it applies to all design and creation realms. I find it interesting because the author encourages people to "rip-off" someones hard work through open source technologies in order to allow people to become less ordinary and more creative. It seems to me, if you wanted to encourage people to keep being creative and less ordinary. That you would encourage someone to create original works on their own instead of ripping off and leaning on someone else's hard work for the back bone of a piece. To me possibly the artist in me believes that one should have to jump through the same hoops as the people before them. By doing so it would keep the creative juices flowing in our society that Lessig encourages. As well as moving society even further forward than before compared to the little step forward that is achieved by ripping off and using someone else's work. So the question I want to raise is... Is it better for our society to be shaped by extraordinary creative people, or is it just okay to let the ordinary creative people use the hard work of others to shape our society? If its okay will the authenticity of our society still remain?

Blog 3.1

1.The development of the Internet was similar to the development of the telegraph in a couple of ways. For one thing the internet as well as the telegraph were completely new ideas for their times. These new technologies both had a great impact on peoples lives that affected how they interact in their daily lives. Both allowed for people to communicate across distances. As well the impacts changed more than communication they both spread into different areas of our society such as having effects in our political, social, economical systems. Likewise both systems started off rough in some ways. The telegraph sparked conflict with companies who didn't like the idea of another competing system such as the postal service. The internet sparked many conflicts based off of social issues surrounding the many technological disasters of the era. Not everything was the same in the development of the internet and the telegraph. I have found that when the telegraph was invented, it was such a new concept and idea that people were amazed and didn't understand it. It seems as when the internet was invented people were starting to get used to these advances in technologies and weren't as amazed or ignorant in how it worked. 2.I don't think the way i Have thought about the relationship between, technology and society and how they interact based off our discussion about the invention has changed. I have found that the invention of these technologies are very simular in the aspects of our lives that they have changed and that the overall reaction of people were about the same. I feel like both of these technologies have been a valuable asset to how we live and interact within our society today.

Blog 2.2

Our original question: -What might we learn about the relationship between technology, society, and change by studying the case of the telegraph? Your individual reflections: -What have you learned about this relationship? I have learned that technology can have a greater impact on our lives than simply making our lives easier to deal with. Technology can extend past our physical relationship with it and can have a greater meaning. It has the ability to effect the world in a greater way such as in the reading, when the telegraph seemed to grip our entire country and had the ability to effect everybody's life. From this it can be seen that the effect of technology can actually be negative rather than manly positive outcomes. -What tensions did this technology spark? When the telegraph was invented it made long distance communication faster and easier to do. Do to the expensive cost of sending a telegram the telegraph was mostly beneficial to the upper class businessman who were able to afford it. This allowed for the richer to get rich and the middle class business to struggle. The Western Union created a monopoly from the telegraph and was saught to have the capibility of controlling various aspects of our economy and politics. Due to these reasons tension sparked up from the invention of telegraph technology. -What other ides/questions have interested you? Gardiner Greene Hubbard was William Ortons main competitor, or the man who was trying to minimize his "monopoly" over the telegraph communication system. He claimed to be fighting for rights of the middle class against the upperclass. Could it be said that after Hubbard's many failed attempts of becoming wealthy himself. He being jealous of rich businessmen sought to tear down the Western Union claiming by doing so to be in it for the middle class. While scheming his way to becoming a rich business man at the same time?