Rana Mohamed

I agree with McLuhan’s idea in his book “The Medium is the Massage”. McLuhan explained that the surround environment can influence people. The author wrote about neighbors,  job, family, education, government, and the others who have impact on human. The author only mentioned those six factors influence people perhaps because the book was written before the new technology and social media, was invented, which leave a massive impact on people action and behavior. For example, some people can manipulate news and posted them on their social media websites to indirectly use others to reject and rebel their regime. In addition, the technology has a huge effect on us in both ways negative and positive. An example of the negative side of technology is the tv shows, misleading news, and advertises that brainwash people. brainwashed people can adopt an idea regarding to what they hear from tv which is not the actual scene. therefore, people have to think twice before the believe what the hear or see until the know better about any certain situation. Finally, I really enjoyed reading this book, but what confuse me is the title of the book which made me think that did the author really meant “The Medium is the Massage” or he meant “The medium is the Message”.

In the book ” language of new media”, the author Manovich focused on the five principle of new media. the principle are ” numerical presentation, modularity, automation, variability, and transcoding”. The ability to convert the media to be numerical representation has been a huge impact on the reproduction of the new media. Specially now that we can transmit it with the advent of the internet and new devices. For example, I can view my numbered images on iphoto application which has a lot of features such as adjust the image’s color, size, shadow, angles and also I can flat or corp the photo. The author also talked about modularity which is a huge part of our devices which I can listen to a song on my phone while I am watching images. They always have different identities, but they all run at the same time. That was an example of modularity which is independent components or parts that can be combined. Automated new media can be clearly appear on the social media websites while using the automation software or apps like Buffer, Hubsopt, and many more. Those softwares and apps can allow users to schedule media posts in advance and monitor their accounts when someone leaves comment or mention them. At the end, Manovich did a great job describing the five components  of new media in his book and that we can see and enjoy all of them in our lives nowadays. 

http://www.ubu.com/sound/staring.html

I picked this example of sound art because I found it interesting to me. If I listened to this record before I read the article “The art of Noise”, I would say that it’s not a music or art and it is just playful  record. However, after reading the article I realized that any kind of sound surround us can be a piece of a beautiful music art. Each sound in the record separately deliver different feeling to the audiences. in addition, combined all those instruments together could deliver feelings vary from separate sound which make this piece of art unique and special.

After reading the article “The Art Of Noise” I remembered that some noises for others can make me feel in peace like the sound of water. I love going to the beach or to the water fall only to enjoy the sound of the water while my friends found that sound is annoying for them. each sound a round us has its unique impress to people. when I listen to the waves of the seas or ocean, I feel calm in my mind which allowed me to go to a meditative states. it also can lower my stress level and improved mental clarity and improved mood as well.

Inner Peace

People often feel or hear some beautiful sounds that penetrate minds and souls with no permissions. Those peaceful voices could happen while we are in a deep sleep. For example, one night I slept on the couch while I was watching my favorite drama series, after midnight while I was sleeping I felt peace going through all my nerves like the running blood. The beauty of the voice waking me up with full of happiness. I kept unconsciously listening to the song of Michael Jackson called peace till the end of it. In the morning i got up excited and energetic which I never felt for long time. I remember the song and that day like the back of my hand. The song could be just a song like million songs in the cloud yet it was unique for me which I keep listing to it because it gives me joy and power.