Response 1-KeeganE
New Media 206 has so far presented me with a substantial amount of ideas and thoughts to work with and further alter the definition of ‘new media’ which was formed by the end of my NMD-100 and NMD-102 courses. In our very first class we watched the documentary on Hackers and Phone Phreaks, which certainly began to steer my train of thought from the rather generic development methods I had explored previously, and launched me into a brand new idea: great things can come from a devious mind.
As a child of two extraordinarily strict parents (bless them both), I was almost forced to be subversive in order to achieve particular ends, and more often than not it had something to do with some form of technology. My parents hardly discouraged the use of technology, on the contrary: they supported it, and helped me begin exploration into programming, micro-controllers, and other such areas I was far too young to really work with effectively. They did, however, have a huge problem with ‘screen-time,’ and limited my use of technology to a very regimented system. This was not a system I wanted to be a part of, and slowly I began learning how to use tools or techniques to work around these problems. NMD-206 is the first course (or entity at all if I’m honest) which has encouraged such actions, and it has really got me thinking about my current process when I’m in the developmental process of some project or code. There is a certain dedication to the phone-phreaks and hackers in the documentary which may not have been present if it weren’t for the challenge of undermining some authority, or altering some aspect of a machine used only for a corporation and making it suddenly accessible to everyday people.
That’s a huge leap, and it’s changed my way of looking at the tools which I use everyday. How can I manipulate this piece of technology to work in a way which it wasn’t meant to? I am certainly using a laptop with very sophisticated and tested technology, which is intended to perform a multitude of actions.. but what else could it do if I put my mind to it? How can I take this rigid and aesthetic piece of technology and, well, homebrew it? The closer I come to understanding technology, the more I start itching to dismantle and apply my knowledge in some potentially idiotic but functional way.
New Media has always offered me exploration and freedom to design creatively, without completely throwing out the practical and rigid structures of code and mechanics. It’s a continuation of my childhood hobby on a larger scale: tinkering, jerry-rigging, and messily combining whatever I have to make something, purely for the sake of making it. Once I fully master the subtler side of the more refined tinkering new-media offers, I will have complete power to make something for my very own, and that is how I intend to use my abilities. I will of course apply myself to a job, but once rigidity is applied to tinkering it is no longer tinkering, but designing: building. Whilst this is still incredibly enjoyable work, my place lies in creating and experimenting, which a workplace may not necessarily encourage: they don’t want something experimental, they want the next best thing, and an assurance that the next best thing will work. I cannot guarantee the functionality of what I make, but I enjoy every second of the creation and take pride in what I develop, so if a workplace can’t support that side of it: I’ll simply do it in my spare time. This is what New Media offers me: complete freedom to develop.
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“New Media has always offered me exploration and freedom to design creatively, without completely throwing out the practical and rigid structures of code and mechanics. It’s a continuation of my childhood hobby on a larger scale: tinkering, jerry-rigging, and messily combining whatever I have to make something, purely for the sake of making it”
Wow–that definition of New Media is pretty interesting!
About jobs vs freedom…can you imagine creating your own job? can you imagine working with other like minded people? The home-brew kids did this. Deeper question: do we need corporations and jobs to survive? or is that just the old one-to-many system? What do many-to-many jobs look like?
For some hints see:
http://livingeconomiesforum.org/the-new-economy
Many of the hackers began working in corporations, then just rebelled against them for the same reasons you mention about constraining creativity.