“All Connected”

Here is a commercial I’ve been running into while watching TBS (specifically, reruns of The Office) situates urban space as screen interface. The message is about the sense of connection through social networking, a continuity that seems more and more “natural” in the media ecological sense of the word. The American Express card is a screen is, likewise, a metaphorical screen that connects digital information with people with public spaces with the private infrastructure that supports its formation.

Navigable Space in Contemporary American Cinema

These are examples for my paper presentation entitled “Negotiating the Limitations and Possibilities of Navigable Space in Contemporary American Cinema” at the Society of Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA from March 10 – 13.

Example #1: Myst, Doom, and Dead Space

 

Example #2: The Lovely Bones

 

Example #3: Inception

 

Example #4: Iron Man 2

When Media Collide

Henry Jenkins in Convergence Culture defines media convergence as “The flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want” (2). The Year Zero experience extends across the album, an alternate reality game, live concerts, and music videos. It combines the politics of media convergence with the biopolitics of control. My book chapter on said topic is entitled “Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero and the Biopolitics of Media Convergence” in The Politics of Post-9/11 Music. Please contact me for more information.

In February 2007, two months prior to the release of the rock music album Year Zero, a Nine Inch Nails shirt went on sale in Lisbon, Portugal with certain letters highlighted that spelled, “I am trying to believe” that lead to iamtryingtobelieve.com.

A USB flash drive was found at the same concert in Lisbon with the MP3 file of “My Violent Heart” from Year Zero and a URL hidden in its ID3 tags that led to the website anotherversionofthetruth.com.

Further analysis of “My Violent Heart”revealed static at the end of the song that produced an image of “The Presence” when run through an audio spectrometer. “The Presence” is the central mystery in the alternate reality game (ARG) that continued to unfold. (The final event in fictional Year Zero time line is the appearance of “The Presence” over the US Capitol on 2/10/0000, the same day the message boards at anotherversionofthetruth.com were updated.)

The promotional trailer for Year Zero was released on Yearzero.nin.com.

In the video, the camera glances over a road sign reading “I AM TRYING TO BELIEVE.” Another image in the video contained the text “/0024″  which led to the discovery of Yearzero.nin.com/0024. The image on that page was the cover for the album. Also, multitrack copies of the songs from the album were added to Yearzero.nin.com in Garageband format with links to raw files for remixing. An image of an AIR flag added to the bottom of the site linked to artisresistance.com.

Clues from these websites and other information released through Yearzero.nin.com like the track list of the album, digital audio tracks, and hidden images led to the discovery of many other links and pages. For more information on the alternate reality game and a list of all of the websites, go to ninwiki.com/Timeline_of_Year_Zero_Discovery. The “Year Zero Timeline” available at ninwiki.com/Year_Zero_Timeline lists the events in the Year Zero experience in chronological order, beginning of the suspension of Habeas Corpus (prisoner cannot be held indefinitely without a trial) with the signing of the Military Commissions Act by President George W. Bush. Frank Rose’s article in Wired entitled “Secret Websites, Coded Messages: The New World of Immersive Games” focuses on the creation of the ARG. The link to 42 Entertainment, the production company that worked with Reznor, is 42entertainment.com/yearzero/. The vision of a dystopic American uncovered through the ARG provides a historical context for the music album.

Other elements play a part in the Year Zero experience. For example, the music video of “Survivalism” – the first single from Year Zero - echos the performance of the song during NIN’s Lights in the Sky tour in 2008. Raw feeds of audiences members were displayed on a giant stealth screen behind the band. Below is the music video, performance, and lyrics of “Survivalism.”

I should have listened to her
So hard to keep control
We kept on eating but our
Bloated bellies still not full
She gave us all she had but
We went and took some more
Can’t seem to shut her legs our
Mother nature is a whore

I got my propaganda I got revisionism
I got my violence in high def ultra-realism
All a part of this great nation
I got my fist I got my plan I got survivalism

Hypnotic sound of sirens
Echoing through the street
The cocking of the rifles
The marching of the feet
You see your world on fire
Don’t try to act surprised
We did just what you told us
Lost our faith along the way and found ourselves believing your lies

I got my propaganda I got revisionism
I got my violence in high def ultra-realism
All a part of this great nation
I got my fist I got my plan I got survivalism

All bruised and broken bleeding
She asks to take my hand
I turn just keep on walking
What you’d do the same thing in the circumstance I’m sure you understand

I got my propaganda I got revisionism
I got my violence in high def ultra-realism
All a part of this great nation
I got my fist I got my pain I got survivalism

Once purchased, the compact disc for Year Zero is heat sensitive (a thermo-chrome disc). When you hold the disc for about five minutes, it reveals a digital message of ones and zeros and information about the copyright.

As of 2010, Reznor is reportedly in talks with HBO to transform Year Zero into a television series. For more information, see: http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2010/09/28/trent-reznor-and-hbo-moving-forward-with-year-zero-sci-fi-series/.

3D TV

Below are several commercials for 3D TV I’ve been catching over the past couple of months. In these advertisements, the appeal of this new television technology is its capacity of the image to break the frame of the screen. Instead, the 3D TV screen is a threshold, a portal that links virtual space with actual body. What are the politics of this connection? What is its history? Where is its potential?

Media Surfaces

Check out the comments about the post/video Imagining an augmented reality future that’s not an advertising hell on Boing Boing. It focuses on experiments with what they call new “media surfaces” like constantly updating screens in the home that, like clocks, never turn off.  Some are angry at the narrator of the video who assumes that *we* want such a seamless integration of information. From Anon, “Yes, all I need are 5,000 more sources of information all clamoring for my attention. If this ever becomes reality, I quit. Honestly, I’d rather die, or perhaps poke out my eyes, or move to a desert island.” And then, after 38 negative posts – a sea change: from slippy0, “I contest that technology like this could further separate us from our IV of internet, so we could actually have more free time. Why spend hours surfing reddit when I read all the headlines on my idle TV while eating breakfast?” I especially like the irony of slippy0′s point that wirelessly integrated media surfaces enable us to “separate us from our IV of internet.” Rather than being tethered to our screened devices, screens surround us so we don’t have to depend on these devices. Mediated environments enable us to break free from the “interruption” of technologies that demand our attention.

From these comments, the battle lines were drawn: consumer convenience vs commercial saturation.

What does this reaction to the video tell us about the growth of the screenscape? Ironically, at least from an American context, the multiplication of screens in urban environments and public spaces seems to have been (at least up to this point) uncontested. The fear of constant advertising, especially in the United States, is a moot point.  Yet, this is the primary argument (at least on Boing Boing) against ubiquitous media surfaces. The reactions to this video tells me that the terms of the new continuity emerging from the transformation of space into the screenscape are currently being negotiated, but they need to be more clearly articulated in order for a meaningful debate to occur. Whatever the case, watch the video. It’s fun.

Sony Internet TV Meets the Urban Screen

So, the most interesting part of Paranormal Activity 2 was the following commercial for Sony Internet TV during the previews.

After a quick pan of a cityscape, a girl tweets using a magical Sony device that gives her access to the urban screen. Next, a wonderfully multicultural group of people begin to gather, collectively watching a soccer match and communicating through an even bigger urban screen. Finally, an entire city block is overtaken by bodies. A news broadcast on the largest urban screen reads, “Giant Crowd Gathers,” accompanied by a live shot of the video board. The image pulls back and to reveal we are watching a YouTube video on a regular-sized Sony television set in a living room.

The Internet meets television, with the urban screen signifying this sacred union (again, the screen-threshold rather than the screen-frame).  The blending of mass and new media through “Internet TV” reaffirms the potentiality of the screen. This commercial represents the political potential  of information exchange – no, more than that…interpersonal communication – through the screen. What about talking to each other face-to-face? No, that will not do. Nor is face-to-face communication powerful enough to change anything in today’s networked world. Meaningful conversations occur (and can be recorded and traced) through the interface; the spatial formations of publicity can be mapped through the spectacle of the screenscape.

From Castle to Screen