A Love/Hate Relationship

I had no relationship with new media at the beginning of the semester. In fact, I had no idea what new media was. I could surmise the basic concept but the actual definition did not register. I must have encountered new media time and time again without realizing what it was.

For Theater 216, we had to take pictures and create a collage using a digital photography program. I had used Adobe Photoshop before but very briefly and superficially. I was a little nervous in the beginning. Eventually, however, I was able to make a presentable final project.

The slideshow was a little less nerve-wracking because it involved mostly photography, which I am more comfortable with. Although I did alter the images by resizing, cropping and editing, this project went more smoothly. The music fit perfectly with the photographs I took and thankfully, I was beginning to become comfortable dealing with new media.

Going to the Museum of Sex was the first time I fully understood what new media was and how it functioned. When I went into the exhibit and saw the chronicle of sex and pornography through the ages, depicted using film projected onto white blocks, I began to think of how large an impact this new form of media has on contemporary society. It is a blatant sign of progressiveness when art adapts to the day’s technology. Though the phenomenon could have been chalked up to the Museum of Sex being such a liberal museum, I knew new media was a driving force when I went to the MoMA and saw Kiarostami’s Five exhibit.

I've never made a movie before, let alone a digital one. This project was far above and beyond any run-ins I’d had with technology. When I was filming, however, I saw that I actually enjoyed it. And while editing was definitely a large thorn in my side (my computer was being moody and freezing up), the final product was better than I could have hoped for. It is a bit ironic that we can create such antediluvian effects using a digital medium. Such is the versatility of new media.

I never, in my wildest dreams, thought that I’d be capable of creating a website. I had never dared to open Dreamweaver up before. But getting started was easier than I thought even though I had some trouble with uploading everything to the server in the end.

Since the slideshow and movie were too large to fit directly on the server, they had to be uploaded to YouTube first. YouTube is the epitome of new media. It encompasses the whole idea of obtaining information on a large scale free of charge.

It is incredibly refreshing to know that I can accomplish all these. From being completely new media illiterate to producing an Adobe Photoshop collage, a slideshow and a movie was such a huge leap. I didn’t think I’d ever do anything like it. It is good to know that new media and I are not as adversarial as I once thought. I used to be the kind of person who looked down upon flashy, eclectic, changing mediums of art. But really, it was only because I was not familiar with it. Perspectives change.