iMap = iDone

...and with that all done and submitted it was time for the first lecture with Bill who made me miss Neighbours =(

The topic was New Media and it was totally geared towards games and digital effects but i tried to get what i could from it.


Bill suggested that the recent popularity of superheroes who don't have supernatural powers but rather create them using technology e.g. Iron Man and Batman is a response to the never ending newness of technology and media. These superheroes literally upgrade themselves just as we the audience can now upgrade and reinvent ourselves with new media and technology. This relates to the theory of technological determinism, the idea that newer technology means it is instantly better.


Media has been evolving ever since the Renaissance with the invention of perspective and trompe l'oeils. Then photography was developeed and automatically created perspective freeing painters to break the constraints of realism as seen in Piet Mondrian's 'trees'. Art's shackles of realism were broken by the unfaltering realism of  photography enabling it to branch out in many directions and take on more abstract and surreal forms. 


We then watched a bunch of film with no relevance to character creation and special effects but i did enjoy the intertextual link in 'Broken Blossoms' (tehe) to the classic "Here's Johnny!" scene in The Shining. 


Bill then started talking about videogames which i tried really hard to care about. He showed us a clip of Dragon's Lair which is very cartoony and has a strong narrative and i could just sit and watch it play happily. But apparently player's stopped wanting to play it after playing through the story once having already completed the story and the limited game-play could not hold it's own. He then compared this to Space Invaders which is not entertaining to watch at all but was hugely popular as it was entertaining and addictive to play. So there is a conflict in videogames between narrative and game play. I personally think there should be more films of games so you can just enjoy the story lines and pretty artwork with none of the infuriating, repetitive clicking of buttons. Yey for Final Fantasy =)