Why do some people still cling to old technologies?
People have very different motives for collecting and using old products instead of the new. Some people have a need to feel different and unique, and they might feel trapped in a mass producing, endlessly consuming culture. Thus, they search for things that will set them apart from other people. Another group of people might collect old stuff out of nostalgia, and yet another group may be convinced that old products and technologies are of better quality than the new ones. Also, you see an increasing group of environmentally aware people who prefer to use old stuff out of ideological reasons.
The Photograph
Digital photography is a very good example that a new solution can change your way of thinking, your way of perceiving. Remember when you used film cameras, and you never knew what the picture would look like before you had developed it three weeks later? Digitalization changed that. Now you spend much more time taking the “right” picture by constantly deleting the ones you didn’t like. But the good thing is that you actually can manage to take a decent picture, instead of discovering that your finger was in front of the lens on your friend’s wedding picture when you develop it.
But what happened to printing the pictures? Since cameras became digital, everybody puts their photos into their computer, but rarely prints them out. What about our old photo albums – are they dying out like the dinosaurs?
Also for professional photographers, the introduction of digital cameras has been a blessing. Back in the 80`s, photojournalists had to carry around tons of equipment, develop their film in makeshift laboratories in the bath tubs of hotel rooms, scan and send the picture home to the main office over an unstable telephone line so it would make the deadline for the newspaper the next day. Today, technology allows these photographers to send pictures straight from their cameras to the office by the touch of a button.
Photographers that still use old techniques like Polaroid, Hasselblad and other film cameras, say that the “feeling” is different in the printed picture. According to them, the grain in the film adds its own quality and touch to it. It is mainly photographers that use their camera in art-related work, that still use film.
And then we have letters and postcards. What is so special about receiving a postcard? I think what makes it so special is that you know someone took time and effort to send it to you, and when you receive it, it has traces of its long path: A coffee stain it picked up in the café where it was written, the postage stamp it received at the post office in Cairo. Finally, it finds its way to a suburb in Norway. Then, after reading it, you put it in your big and messy drawer in the hallway. Three years later when you are cleaning up, you find it by surprise and read through it again.
Now we have wireless internet on every corner and tools like sms, mms, email, Msn, Skype and Facebook. Why should we spend valuable vacation time running around looking for stamps and a post office?
Music
And what about music? Today we have Ipod’s and mp3 players in our cell phones, and with an easy “click”, you can listen to your favorite songs. So why do people have a special relationship to old records? Of course they persist that the sound quality is better, and more “real”, but there is something else about it. Holding a record, while you lift the stylus arm and set the needle gently down on the record. A little “squeak” occurs, and the song starts. What a fantastic and interactive way to put your favorite songs on. But of course most of them have an iphone in their pocket, since it is “really practical”. So maybe it is ok to use both? One for different moods and needs?
Antiques
There is something about collecting antiques, that is different from buying a new couch at Ikea, or even a high quality brand. Normally when you buy an antique piece of furniture or a car, you buy it to refurnish it and spend time on it, so it can regain a quality of being “new”. So why not buy a new one instead? Talking with people that collect antiques, they tell me it is all about the feeling. The feeling of taking care of this old fantastic product that someone many years ago worked on with finesse and perfection (that many of the collectors feel we lack today), is a incredible rush. For many of them, there is also a sustainable part of it; to take care of and use something used, instead of buying something new, is important. The materialism these days are provocative to many people, too.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Research: Nostalgia
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Research: Morse code
Morse code is a character encoding for transmitting telegraphic information, using standardized sequences of short and long elements to represent the letters, numerals, punctuation and special characters of a given message. The short and long elements can be formed by sounds, marks or pulses, in on off keying and are commonly known as "dots" and "dashes". (Wikipedia) Morse Code was first devised in the 1830s for use with the telegraph. It later became an essential part of civilian, maritime and military radio communications. But the military has largely abandoned its use in favor of newer technologies, and the Coast Guard stopped listening for Morse S O S signals at sea during the 1990s (...)
There is still one major user of Morse code. Radio amateurs worldwide use it to communicate with each other. It has an internationally understood system. Landline Morse is also kept alive by hobbyists. The most well known Morse code phrase is SOS or “save our souls”. SOS was chosen because the code for it – dots followed by 3 dashes followed by 3 dots – is unmistakably recognizable even to those who do not know Morse code.
So what is a code, and what do we use them for? A code is a system of symbols, letters, words, or signals that are used instead of ordinary words and numbers to send messages or store information. A code is used to keep the message short or to keep it secret. Secret writing has been employed about as long as writing has existed. Cryptology has long been employed by governments, military, businesses, and organizations to protect their messages.
Conclusion (related to my thesis)
The Morse code was an important communication tool for decades. Now, with the Good Vibes, Morse code is revived, and returns in a practical and modern form. Good Vibes is excellent for use with the original Morse code-system, but users can also make their own and more simple language if they prefer.
Research: Second Life
I have heard about it many times, but I don’t have any friends that use it, so I didn’t know anything about it. The only thing I had read, was when a newspaper wrote about some guy that sold his house in Second Life for 1200 euro. I was shocked, but intrigued. So when given the opportunity to take a class in Second Life this semester, I couldn’t say no...
Journalist Joel Stein wrote his first impression of Second Life in an article in The Times: “The growth of Second Life is particularly impressive considering that the program takes forever to download, requires a computer with a graphics card for gaming, sucks up hours just to design your character and—this is the genius part—has created the perfect capitalist system in which you pay for fake stuff (clothing, housing, hookers) with real money. People make thousands of U.S. dollars selling designs for cars or flipping virtual property. Many companies, seeing an opportunity for marketing and sales, have created virtual branches on Second Life: American Apparel has a clothing store, Adidas hawks shoes, Starwood previewed a new line of hotels, Reuters has an embedded journalist, Jay-Z played a concert and the Sundance Channel is setting up a virtual screening room. Apparently, people want to cram their second lives full of the same stuff they have in their first.“
So I had to try it out myself, and made an avatar (a personality), and went in… The first thing I thought about was “What do I really want to do in here?”, since it is so popular and millions of people are users. “What are they all doing?” I started to search for the free-stuff, and changed my clothes and body. But then I wanted to talk with people, so I try to find somebody to talk to. First I talked to one guy that seemed to be sitting on a bench doing nothing. I asked him what he was doing, and answered with the same question to me, so I didn’t get a lot out of that conversation. I asked everybody I met, “What can you do in here?”, and everybody answered “Whatever you want to!” But what did I want to do? I don’t know. So I sat on the back of a horse, and checked out some free jewelry, and then logged out. I think my approach to Second Life is my interest in the people that use it, not using it myself. So I decided to do a research on relationships and people inside of Second Life, with special focus on “long distance relationships”.
(notice my fantastic "mouse" avatar, yeah it is me on the right, sitting...)
Research: Facebook
The website hasn’t become so popular in Italy yet, but in Norway it was so popular last year that the newspapers wrote about it on a daily basis, on issues like “How to use Facebook”, and “How to delete your profile” etc. Over a million profiles are registered in Norway, in a country with 4,5 million inhabitants. Everybody I know (between 13-40) has a profile, and I have found all my old classmates, and we have planned a reunion this year. I’ve joined several groups for fun, some with political issues, some helping other people. Like one group I joined last year, a Norwegian student promised to give 1 NOK to a “good cause” for every member that joined. He got the attention of the news media and more than 80.000 members joined in a couple of weeks. In the end, he got sponsors to cover him, as the payment totaled over 10 000 euro. He paid everything like he promised. (...)
This shows the power of Facebook, and how many ways to use it. Of course it is a big issue with the privacy-settings, since young kids put out all kinds of pictures for everybody to see, not maybe understanding the consequences of that. But still, Facebook for me is a great tool to keep in touch with all my friends, distant or close. I can write on the wall of my friend in New York, while looking at some pictures of a friend in Thailand. Nobody knows that I’m looking, or what I’ve been looking at, and this adds to the “passive communication” part. You don’t have to take part, if you don’t have time. In Norway this was a big thing, since we traditionally have some “social”-issues. Through many years of big distances between houses and the cold temperatures, we are used to staying inside our houses, with our family and our microsphere. So for us Facebook is the perfect tool. Writing a message on a “wall” is easier than writing an sms or picking up the phone, and it is incredible how popular it has become. Especially using the “is…”-tool, is a way to communicate what you are doing and feeling to others, without having to actively take part in the conversation.
Introduction
My thesis is based on our modern relationship to the computer and communication. What happens when all our communication becomes digital? What happens to the tactile value that most of us appreciate, but compared to the digital sufficiency, is too complicated and slow. Can we find a way to keep the intimacy and tactile value of the analog communication in the digital world? My goal was to find a way to use the best of the analog and the digital worlds, and make a communication tool for relationships.By using my personal experiences, I would like to figure out a way to personalize our methods of communicating, in a non-verbal way. I started doing a thural research on the world wide web on our methods we have today.
My thesis process
This is a blog that will follow my final work for my thesis, and be a window out to the world with my thesis project; "Good Vibes" jewelry collection.
