Originally posted here.
Week 8 Screening: Johnny Mnemonic (1995)
What this screening made me realise is that I am not as engaged by films with weak graphics and due to the age of this film the visuals were not as captivating as those in the later weeks. This noticeably contributed to my lacking engagement and I also couldn’t follow the story well. However, I engaged in an interesting thread of tweets where we discussed our dependence on technology and how this is heavily increasing. Watching these films throughout the semester emphasises how we as a society continuously acknowledge technological growth but are we prepared for when it fails us? Or, are we prepared for a digital takeover? As explored in this thread, we turn to our devices to look for our answers and this is extremely noticeable in the day to day life for a student. Do we now start to lack practical skills outside the realm of technology? This film definitely encouraged an interesting series of tweets between Jonathan and I (see below).
https://twitter.com/chiIdishgaybino/status/1116164012775837696
Louise’s project follows the University of Wollongong’s Cosplay Society which I was unfamiliar with up until today. She is creating a series of documentaries and advertisements in association with the society to increase engagement and awareness. These videos will contain content of behind the scenes footage at photoshoots and what the social atmosphere is like. I made a variety of recommendations to increase engagement with the social media pages the group already has so this could hopefully increase the number of members within the society. Not all my recommendations have to be implemented for this project in particular but I think the most useful may be the cross-society collaboration if music in their videos is made by the Music Society, for example, this content will be displayed by them and reach an entirely new audience. Adding a watermark with a hyperlink could also be useful to guide their viewers to their most important socials or events being hosted etc.
Bec’s project follows the importance of women’s safety and has created an online community known as ‘Safe Space’ to encourage women to engage in conversations, invite each other out and provide general support overall. Initially, this reminded me of a Facebook group that is also Wollongong based called ‘Innovators In Heels’ which I linked for Bec to look at for some inspiration if necessary. What intrigues me about this topic the most is if the lacking anonymity may impact the contribution of women in these groups as they are directly associated with personal accounts. I highly recommend that Bec completes an anonymous survey to see if anonymity is a concern to members when discussing sensitive and/or personal issues. Another avenue that could be taken for those comfortable meeting physically could be an on-campus focus group to address safety concerns within the University itself and the greater Wollongong region. I think these recommendations could be easily implemented for this project and will encourage Bec to understand her audience further.
Connor’s podcast follows surfing culture which means he has a well-established audience in the Wollongong area as it is dominant across the region. I think Connor has a clear direction for his project and the content is easily accessible and easy to understand, which creates a positive experience for his audience. I highly recommend that Connor expands to the Instagram platform as surfing culture is perfectly captured and has a pleasing aesthetic for his audience to enjoy. This can be done alongside his co-host who is a videographer, the podcasts alongside pleasing visuals will enhance the content and expand his audience as it is not limited to Soundcloud. Also, the concept of virtual reality (VR) and surfing sounds really enticing and is not something I even considered to be possible and even though the exploration of this probably couldn’t be implemented in this project it could possibly be useful in a digital artefact for the future. In working with VR this also provides another opportunity to expand Connor’s audience, I’d be intrigued to see if this would interest him.
Future Cultures 