Ted Talks: Ray Kurzweil; How technologies accelerating power will transform us

Ray Kurzweil talks about the speed at which technology has advance throughout history and most importantly the rate at which it has evolved in the last decade as well as where technological advances are headed in the future. Kurzweil believes that the speed at which technology is growing suggests that we will be able to use technology to our own capabilities that will forever blur the lines between human and machine. He suggests that by the 2020's we will have reverse-engineered the human brain, and nanobots will be operating the human conciousness.

He begins his talk by explaining how accelerated power has begun to transformed us and how this accelerated technology is more predictable than one might think. Communicative technology for example has exploded within the last decade and continues to accelerate at a rapid pace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_change

My posts for other students

1. My post for Regina on McLuhan's playboy interview: 

Totally agree. The education system needs to be advancing with the rest of the world and that goes for the teachers as well. Technological advances have been such a great asset to the general classroom in not only with online courses but also with research and professionalism. For art schools it is vital that the teachers are in the know about the electronic culture because we are in a time where art has progressed off the canvas and into the media.

2. My post for Kate's Blog "Power to The People":

I love your comment about the pop up ads and would not be surprised if it was in fact an advertising tool for companies that are selling popup blocker products.

Free Music downloads. I've always have had mixed feelings on the topic but bottom line I feel like companies who re struggling with internet users who are getting their music downloads prom pirated internet sites should find a happy medium. Not only offer a free trial with unlimited downloads but on top of that give your users a bonus point system where you get rewarded with free music after spending a certain amount of money. One of my friends was saying that she had recently spent $500 on itunes downloads That is just a little absurd and rediculious. HAPPY MEDIUM!

Reasons why users should not use the pirated internet sites for music downloads are number one, it's not fair to the music artist/ creator who has put their heart and soul into their work just for society to rip them off and number tow, your computer is more likely to get a virus off of one of the downloads.

3. My post for Yardley's McLuhan's Blog:

I thought that his categorization was interesting and fitting for 1964(when Understanding Media was published). It was also a good segway into The Medium is the Massage which I found was more interesting.

One thing that I completely disagreed with was when he was talking about the light bulb concept and his idea that content has little effect on society. Maybe during the 60's it was more accurate but today there's no way that that theory can be true when you see teenagers on the news shooting at their classmates and teachers. Violent media content has to of played a part in those individual minds that think that its ok to take another persons life because they are having a hard time fighting acne and jocks in the high school hallways.

4. My post for Si-One's Gucci Ad Deconstruction Blog:

If you have to ask how much it is you can't afford it or the lifestyle. The story of all high end designers which just makes it all the more fabulous. From a fashion background it's hard to admit but all fashion ads like the Gucci ad sells a lifestyle, You are not only buying a dress, you're buying confidence, beauty, a hot counterpart, and the hollywood lifestyle. It can cause such a negative effect because while it's enticing it's also telling you that you and your lifestyle are not good enough and if you can't afford it you're not worthy.

5. My post for Mike's Deconstruction on the Absolute Vodka Campaign:

Ok, so I love love love the absolute ad with the prego guy in it. The fact that I'm so excited about that ad show's that it's targeting women more so than men and I would be surprised if they were using that ad campaign in women's fashion magazines. Again they are selling not only the product but the fantasy that comes with it.

Posts about the Deconstructing Media Blog

Mike said...

I agree with you, Calvin Klein is all about sex. I even know people who deliberately wear shorter t-shirts so that when they raise their arm or bed... their Calvin Klein underwear with the Clavin Klein name printed on them shows. They totally buy into the whole image.

Jason said...

I agree that CK is very keen on the notion that sex sells, because it does. They have been very sucessful in the past for their racy - almost pornographic ads. The controversy then gives them publicity in the end on much more media outlets (ie. the news, newspapers and so on) that they end leads people into thinking that they are now buying into a counterculture - or at least something taboo. I'm just glad that they are using adults now rather than creepy commercials terry richardson made for them in the 90s... see:

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resourses/educational/handouts/ethics/calvin_klein_study.cfm

ps. he is doing it again...

http://commerical-archive.com/node/132638

-jason

Yardley said...

I agree that the media of today is not selling as what you said, "a nice car, a good job and the white picket fence to the 2 story house that holds a family of five." Their target audience, which you mean our generation ages of around 16 to 40 is more looking for some sensation satisfaction. Sex, drugs, trippy atmosphere, and fantasy are good sources to promote products in ad, those are things that can really catch our attention, and it also reflected that our generation doesn't like to face reality.

Marshal McLuhan

Professor, literary critic, educator, scholar, philospher, and communication theorist. There are several words and to describe McLuhan bit what remains the same is the fact that he was a pioneer in therorizing the media world in which we live in. During McLuhan's  lifetime he has raised controversial concepts and ideas about the increase and advancement of technology. His work was primarily the study of the mediums  of the media and it's affect on society. 

McLuhan is a great person to study in this class because there has not been anyone who has been able to study this subject matter so thoroughly and make such impactful and controversial observations as a result. There are theorist today who have followed in McLuhan's footsteps and have studied the media and it's affects on our society, but the fact remains that McLuhan is the pioneer in thouroughly dissecting and the media technologies that have sky rocketed into what it is today and what it is advancing into tomorrow.

McLuhan's writings have been intriguing and it has given me further understanding of the core of media technologies. In one of his earlier writings, "The Gutenberg Galaxy" (1962), he writes about technologies making a shift from the print culture to electronic media. According to McLuhan, the print culture has a predominace of the visual over the oral and pushes auditary and other senses to the background. The print culture is individualism and fragmentation to a "tribal base" or collective identity. McLuhan has stated that the electronic media is replacing the visual culture with the oral culture as this shift from print to electronic occurs.

"The world has become a computer, an electric brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction." - Marshall McLuhan

McLuhan has taken a kind of extremist standpoint with this statement and concept. He believes that if we do not watch the effects  of the media's influence, the "global village" will become ruled by totalitarism and terror. He also believes that the modification of print to electronic means a modification of individualism. With this idea, I have to disagree wholeheartedly because technology today has advanced our creative thinking and self expression. The media and information that we obtain through new technologies and media medium has changed, but what has also changed is that now we are more apart of the media. People in society are not just the one's absorbing information through the media, we can participate through primarily the internet and even with TV through reality TV shows and live audiences for talk shows. Since we can now speak out and be apart of this technological movement, we don't necessarily have to go to the streets and protest when we don't agree with something political. The media is a powerful device and the people are using it just as much as the media sources through creating digital identities and blogging, networking, and uploading video to speak our minds through this ungoverned and uncharted territory. In a way we are more individualistic now than when society relied solely on the print culture.

Deconstructing Ads, Movies, and Music

Ads, Movies and Music are all huge contributors to the Media world. They are extremely useful and influential media tools used in our society today. These mediums have been used to sell not only products but a lifestyle of the "new" American dream. Today it's not enough for people in our society to just want a nice car, a good job and the white picket fence to the 2 story house that holds a family of five. People today are now so driven towards having their dream job and living a carefree lifestyle that isn't as geared towards settling down and raising a family like generations before us. Our generation wants the grown up the responsiblities and salary that belongs to the ultimate dream job but we don't want to grow up. This could be attached to several contributing factors that all are bottom lined down to we don't want to make the same mistakes that generations before us have made. We don't want to get married to quickly, we don't want to settle into a boring nine to five job like generations before us. We want more than that. We want time to actually have hobbies and a life outside of earning money. We want the whole package and the media world is becoming increasingly aware of of our demands and have catered to our outlook on how we want life to be. Several ad

vertising agencies, movie production companies, and music artist today have focused on our generation. They are selling our dream lifestyle.

Ads:

 The Calvin Klein ads are a great example. They have been notorious for their provacative ads. The ad shown to

 the left is a classic example that "sex sells"; every ad that Calvin Klein puts out into media sources like magazines and billboards contain the message that if you buy our product you are buying a lifestyle of beauty and sex. You will feel empowered, feel more beautiful and sexy and you will get laid by a hot ass man/woman if you wear our jeans, put on our fragrance and live the Calvin 

Klein lifestyle.

Movies:

"There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors..." Jim Morrison

The Doors (1991)... such a great movie. This film is a great example of trying to hold onto the past for the fear of the future. It's ironic that there are so many popular films out today that are a recreation of a past movie or that are about a historical event because it seems that our generation is so set on being different from generations past. The Doors is all about drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Right now in pop culture it's all about drugs sex and rock and roll. It seems that there has been a quiet revival of the carefree 60's and 70's free love attitude. Our culture has an obsession with wanting to be a rock star or being in the spotlight period because with that lifestyle comes a sense of having the dream job as well as having the sensation of not growing up. Reality shows such as American Idol are perfect examples of America's obsession with wanting to make it on the delusional road to fame. 

Music:

The Perfect Drug by Nine Inch Nails

This song is about love or lust invoking the same kind of sensation and addiction that a drug would. The music video for this song is great, it has a twisted Alice in Wonderland vibe that goes with the lyrics of the song perfectly. In the video the lead vocalist, Trent Reznor, drinks absence and then the video goes green and gets pretty trippy. 

This song/ music video is yet another example of the desire to escape past generations action of settling with the classic 1950's american dream.