Mouchette

One of the extreme example of fake online identities is the website of Mouchette. This is a website of a 13 years old girl, who of course is a fake identity created by an artist.

This website contains pictures and links, and it's like the girl is exposing her real life to others but all those fake informations make us sick. 'She' wants to interact with us, and she left some  questions.You can leave your email address if you want.

What impressed me most was the set up of the homepage. no much words, and a sophisticated flower is used as a backgroud. It creat a sense of touch by adding some flies. 'She' is like destroying beauty. All the informations there seems to be real. I mean they are very detailed, for example, she shows us her bedroom. And posters along with other stuff are trying to confuse us.

It's very unique that she used sound effect on her website. And to accompany the pictures and the style, she makes those creepy sound when entering. It's meaningless and makes us uncomfortable. But the sound makes the website quite different from other works of art. It now contains fourv senses we have. So the feeling is stronger.

At last, Iwant to talk a little about the background of this websites. We know that this 13-year-old girl is fictional, but we admit that some part of the uncomfortable feelings we have are closly related to her age. We think it is disgusting and unappropriate for such a little girl to make such descriptions and pictures and sound. So if it would be diferent if this girl changed her identity to a more mature and sextual attractive woman?Is it because of her age that we think it is extreme? It's more like a moral discussion now.

Who are you and who am I?

With the development of internet,more and more different identities are applied nowadays, because all you have to do is to register and one fictional person come into birth.

After interviewing my classmates, I found one person particularly interesting. She has the most online identities among all the classmates I've interviewed, which is more than 10.She has facebook, twitter, MSN and many emails. Some of those identities are completely different from reality, such as age,gender,job. She thinks it's fun to use fake identities to communicate with people on line. And She feels unsafe to expose herself on the internet, the real her.

Comparing with mine,I'm quite simple. I have around 5 online identities, and they are some chatting tools, emails and blogs.They are more sensitive than the real me,because I think it dangerous to tell a person who really lives around you the real thoughts and feelings you have. I think that by using a fack online identity, you can express your real feelings and thoughts freely and escaping from the pressure you have from daily life. But there're some certain risks such as loss of your private information and causing trouble in reality.

Constructing Identity online

Key quotations(at least five)[After each quote remember to add the name of the author;the title of the book/article or website, the publication place and publisher's name/page number and the year of publication or the webddress and date accessed;the page number]

Key links.Add links to at least 5 good websites/ youtubes that give further information about the topic

Key Books and Articles. Make a list of at least 5 books or articles that contain interesting material on the topic.Write one phrase or one sentence comment on what you think of this book or article eg"looks easyto understand"."seems to focus mainly on one digital game."

What do we need to create?

    Thousands of  years ago, The first ape began to use bone as a tool is absolutely creative, just like those in 2001:the Space Odessey(picture 1).

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Duchamp is also considered creative.(see picture 2) But the latter one is more conceptual, because he didnot create the whole thing, he just played with readymades.(see picture 3)

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This kind of change contributed to what we want to discuss here: what kind of role should video sharing sites like youtube play in creative culture. As I may say -refering to the readings, they would probably enhance the creative culture in an unexpected way.

     Just like the examples above show that creative culture is moving towards diversity. And all along the art history, it mostly coming down from the sanctuary, and ordinary people(with or without training) can involved in the business of creation.  

     On youtube, as long as you have the resource, you can play the role as creator, or say producer. All you have to do is to register on it. Just imagine that if Funtwo chose another way to do his video, refering to the fictional dialogue between him and a powerful controller, the video would never be presented to us. 1With youtube, instead, "he could just playm film,upload and share. He does not have to ask anyone's permission."2 So everyone could participate and enjoy the fun of creation, isn't it what our ancesters was trying to do?

      Speaking of participation, the way we participate has changed a lot with these kind of websites. " Only a few years ago, the content providers and content consumers were still divided into two clearly separate groups."3 However, with the emergence of these websites, we can be both prodecers and consumers. Take 'Leave Britney Alone ' as an example, some viewers of the video-consumers- edited the video and put it online in another version, which made them also a producer.(see the link below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FAuJod1XmY

       So what do we need to create? I guess are just some crazy ideas, a camera and a computer with internet accessibility.

Reference

1:Leadbeater, Charles, 'We think' , Prologue, Page XVI.

2:Leadbeater, Charles, 'We think' , Prologue, Page XVII.

3:Marek, Roman, "Creativity meers citculation:internet, amateurs and the process of evolution", Page 2.

Cry baby cry

    What can we get from youtube? Something beyond imagination. It seems that we can witness whatever happening anywhere around the world, as long as someone records it with a  cell phone or mini camera and upload it. And information goes crazy along with thw birth of twitter. Bus Uncle is an perfect example. We also tries to express our feelings or opinions on anything and share them with others. Whatever form may them be. Leave Britney Alone represents that. I prefer the latter one. And the video is available through the link below.
Leave Britney Alone



       One night before, he was just a nobody just like any other U.S. boy, and then he just became an internet celebrity. It's all because of his video on youtube:Leave Britney Alone. 'on youtube, there has been 34,190,488 viewers since 2007'1. It would win him a gold record if this is a music album.

        So is this really a fantastic video that worth watching? To some degree, yes. But I would not say that it's a very good video with high quality technically. Because during the 2 minutes, there is only this Crocker guy crying and shouting for Britney, and he wanted the world to leave Britney alone. He was hiding under a blanket, but he did consider the light effect. He applied bright light to make everyone see clearly what he looks like and what he is doing. There is nothing innovative or even special on camera angle, it basically likes chating with your friend through web camera.

         Although the video has no aesthetic value, it did raise interesting socio-cultural issues. Because this guy just like he was going crazy, and his behavior suggests that his feeling about Britney: a total stranger who doesn't even know him is sick. He just like a cry  baby without reason. Also his weird make-up made him a non-mainstream figure, probably indicate homosexual tendency. It's not a healthy and normal boy exposing himself to the public,which made people argue and argue the moral sense of this behavior.

         I think we should take it easy. He didn't use this video to harm anyone, in fact, he was protecting someone. Besides, one main feature of internet is its openness, whatever he is thinking doesn't matter to anyone else. We may enjoy the interest of watching it and get on with what we have to do in real life.

1:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc