Friday, March 26, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Today We Are All Foster
A brave few were chosen. Foster lives on in graphite, paint and what looks to be cigarette ash.
(via Nic-Rad)
Labels: Sometimes they'll clean your dishes for you, This is what happens when you let stranges in
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Friday, March 05, 2010
We, The Media
Not too long ago Andrew gave me the hat tip to join this Young Manhattanite scene with much less a few pot shots I took at easy targets. I guess I proved something because here I am posting my ish to the delight of at least one person: My mother (who has no idea what I do with my days in New York). As with most of my posting on the internet, I launch into it much the same way you reach into a garbage disposal to remove glass shards of a shot glass that fell in while you where grinding up some chicken bones and ice cubes. Rest assured I'm making that face and trying to keep the on/off switch far from my panicked thoughts.
--Jay
Meta-data has come to shape the world we inhabit when we go online. It has less to do with arbitrary information and is really the root structure of all activity. There are ways to manipulate aspects of appearance and presentation but there are also many ways to decode it. So much of our lives are steeped in this material. From our names to addresses, telephone numbers, bank account and credit card numbers, and even right down to our ISP addresses it is a false-positive to believe we can shape completely how others see us. It isn't so much about engaging in anonymous or identified commentary, nor is it about being honest or lying. It's knowing none of that exists as long as we keep putting more information about ourselves out there.
But what does meta-data tell us? Where can we find it? Usually it's just arbitrary code surreptitiously injected into just about everything we do on-line as well as off-line. It can follow us just as much as we can follow it. At first glance it tells us nothing but when we decode it, it shows us more about the context at large. Meta-data can be little more than time and date of an event, or as intrinsic as semiotic code embedded in an atmosphere of lascivious or lurid behavior. Many times it's used to cross-reference information, but occasionally it's used to uncover details not readily understood by naked inspection.
Awhile back a photograph surfaced on the internet, a screen grab of a 4chan comment thread. The original post was a picture of a razor blade and three lines of what looked like cocaine. In the post was a confessional boast admitting what a risk it was to be posting the shot. The following comments after began to question and finally expose the location of the original poster. The incriminating evidence was apparently extracted from the EXIF file's meta-data. By using global coordinates the anonymous commenters claimed it was taken in the location of the White House.
After that the screen cap floated through Reddit until it landed on BlackBook and Wonkette. Both sites discredited the exposure as a hoax (No one uses straight razor blades anymore.) Both pointed out data that suggested the physical location would be impossible for the White House to exist (49 meters above sea level). If anything it was a clever unmasking of what was just a concealed trick. A prank made to fool the unwitting into believing unsound things where going on behind closed doors in our nation's capital.
Another example of assessed meta-data involved pictures of the Abu Grahib abuse scandal. A number of detainees where mistreated and assaulted by the guards put in charge of them. The exposure of activity as well the investigation into the guard's treatment was all choreographed through the series of personal photographs the guards and fellow soldiers took during that time. What was a fray of activity, a gruesome depiction became more of a narrative once detectives lined up each piece of data along a uniform time-line. The horror was less sporadic but more damning to the guard's defense.
Both Abu Grahib and the 4chan post illustrate how a different and sometimes counter-story exists within the information being provided. That information reflects and often refracts our perceptions of the world. But how could we begin to understand or even get a hold of that perception? Plainly, we have to continue producing material to further the conversation. We have to inject more of ourselves into the embedded material. We have to further it along because it exists as long as we keep putting more information about ourselves out there.
--Jay
Meta-data has come to shape the world we inhabit when we go online. It has less to do with arbitrary information and is really the root structure of all activity. There are ways to manipulate aspects of appearance and presentation but there are also many ways to decode it. So much of our lives are steeped in this material. From our names to addresses, telephone numbers, bank account and credit card numbers, and even right down to our ISP addresses it is a false-positive to believe we can shape completely how others see us. It isn't so much about engaging in anonymous or identified commentary, nor is it about being honest or lying. It's knowing none of that exists as long as we keep putting more information about ourselves out there.
But what does meta-data tell us? Where can we find it? Usually it's just arbitrary code surreptitiously injected into just about everything we do on-line as well as off-line. It can follow us just as much as we can follow it. At first glance it tells us nothing but when we decode it, it shows us more about the context at large. Meta-data can be little more than time and date of an event, or as intrinsic as semiotic code embedded in an atmosphere of lascivious or lurid behavior. Many times it's used to cross-reference information, but occasionally it's used to uncover details not readily understood by naked inspection.
Awhile back a photograph surfaced on the internet, a screen grab of a 4chan comment thread. The original post was a picture of a razor blade and three lines of what looked like cocaine. In the post was a confessional boast admitting what a risk it was to be posting the shot. The following comments after began to question and finally expose the location of the original poster. The incriminating evidence was apparently extracted from the EXIF file's meta-data. By using global coordinates the anonymous commenters claimed it was taken in the location of the White House.After that the screen cap floated through Reddit until it landed on BlackBook and Wonkette. Both sites discredited the exposure as a hoax (No one uses straight razor blades anymore.) Both pointed out data that suggested the physical location would be impossible for the White House to exist (49 meters above sea level). If anything it was a clever unmasking of what was just a concealed trick. A prank made to fool the unwitting into believing unsound things where going on behind closed doors in our nation's capital.
Another example of assessed meta-data involved pictures of the Abu Grahib abuse scandal. A number of detainees where mistreated and assaulted by the guards put in charge of them. The exposure of activity as well the investigation into the guard's treatment was all choreographed through the series of personal photographs the guards and fellow soldiers took during that time. What was a fray of activity, a gruesome depiction became more of a narrative once detectives lined up each piece of data along a uniform time-line. The horror was less sporadic but more damning to the guard's defense.
Both Abu Grahib and the 4chan post illustrate how a different and sometimes counter-story exists within the information being provided. That information reflects and often refracts our perceptions of the world. But how could we begin to understand or even get a hold of that perception? Plainly, we have to continue producing material to further the conversation. We have to inject more of ourselves into the embedded material. We have to further it along because it exists as long as we keep putting more information about ourselves out there.
