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An echo of early net.art initiatives, the contemporary INC was established in Amsterdam in 2004, in effort to extend research "to design, activism, art, philosophy, political theory and urban studies and [it] is not confined to the Internet alone...the INC maintains that the Internet can only be understood at the conjuncture of these various fields and lines of inquiry." This site is an amazing resource for research and reflection on new and emergent network cultures. The politics of search engines, Wikipedia, social networks, bitcoin, Internet of Things, Gaming and more! The ongoing conferences are backed with anthologies of related essays, most made available for free download on their site. Institute of Network Cultures "Publications" n.d. accessed April 25, 2014. http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/

Apple.com, 1996-2014

The design layout of the page is cosmetically very different from contemporary design practices. The use of color and typography isn't precise or functional in the way that it would speak to the brand's ideology of today's Apple. The landing page is more of a "news" page with hyperlinks to stories of Apple's news. The site is no doubt limited by the web's capabilities but is also a very straight forward, engineered approach; an extension of the culture of Apple at the time; a company of engineers, inventors, and tinkerers, rather than artists and designers. Much more emphasis was placed on the function of the website, rather than the form. By comparison the news section still exists on the landing page, only it has been relegated to a 6pt size link on the bottom right of the landing page. Apple now features products on the landing page, rather than news about events. Although, I do know the keynote speeches are featured on the landing page once a year. From 1996, up until the 1998, the layout was a menu of links on the left side of the page, a cluttered and unfocused aesthetic. In 1998 the iMac is first introduced along with an entirely clean aesthetic throughout the website. Only the necessary information is readily available; shifting the viewer's focus to the product, rather than the company itself. In the year 2000, the top-centered navigation bar is introduced, an design decision still used today on the Apple website. The aesthetic itself is relying heavily on skeuomorphism, with harsh drop shadows and faux buttons abound. Unfortunately, most of the links do not work, limiting me to a view of the landing page throughout time. Interestingly, most of the design layouts remain similar to the established aesthetic in the early 2000's, up until 2013 when Apple began to move away from skeuomorphic design and into a flattened out, more streamlined appearance.

Thanks for these observations on the development and dramatic shifts in the late 90s arrival of the 'clean' or seamless Apple look. Tucking away the old culture of the company, as you say--- the long-haired homebrew computer hacking gets a haircut! Thanks also for comments on the 'skeuomorphic' --- a tie in with processes of remediation.

As mentioned in Siva Vaidhyanathan's reading portion "Open Source as Culture/ Culture as Open Source", computer scientist Richard Stallman began developing the pursuit of the Free Software Foundation. During the 1970s and 1980s, Stallman was working for MIT, he "set out to establish" this foundation that would help "prove that good tools and technologies could emerge from a community of concerned creators" (26). The link I provided is for the "about" section on the Free Software Foundation's current website. I thought this might help provide more insight about the program and offer information regarding their goals and work to keep the public free and in charge of their own computer monitoring. Free Software Foundation, Inc., "Free Software Foundation: About." Last modified 2014. Accessed February 5, 2014. https://www.fsf.org/about/.

Thanks for building out a link to this site, there's a lot of rich connections that continue to be relevant, perhaps more recognizably today with copyright concerns surrounding audio and visual media.

Described by new media artist Alexander Galloway as " simultaneously an introduction to and a retrospective of net art" this turn of the millenium collection of net.art was put together by ZKM, a German art, technology and culture institute dedicated to interdisciplinary and international collaborations.

Net.art works by Russian artist Alexei Shulgin. Shulgin was quite active in the early years of Internet based art and culture, here, his website chock full of these early works which use and abuse the affordances of the medium at that time.

When reading "Open Source As Culture/Culture as Open Source" by Siva Vaidhyanathan I was very interested in the quotes and sources taken from Richard V. Adkisson. When doing some further research I came across this link, which when clicked on, downloads a PDF of his essay "Intellectual Property and Eminent Domain: If Ever the Twain Shall Meet." This essay discusses that strict protection of intellectual property will kill creativity and the government's attempts to take control of the private property. Adkisson also discusses Eminent domain which gives the government access to private material for public use.

In Open Source as Culture/ Culture as Open Source, the operating systems Linux and GNU. GNU was developed by Richard Stallman in 1983 as an open source operating system which could be developed by many different people working towards the freedom of software. The GNU project was necessary when most software was proprietary in the 1980's. The GNU web page has a great detailed history of the development of GNU from its beginning to how it is being used now Stallman, Richard. GNU Project, Accessed February 12, 2014.

Here's part 1 (of 3 segments on youtube) of documentary by John Akomfrah on Afrofuturism---an African-American literary and cultural movement, associated with science-fiction writers Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler and others. This movie's protagonist the "data thief" digs through archives of past, present and future, drawing on intersections between various musical genres which share a mythos of future technology and the extra-terrestrial. The future read as history, something already happened, the Atlantic Slave trade framed as alien abduction narrative, the music producer/DJ as cyborg --- human/machine hybrid finding new connections through material memories of black culture. "The Last Angel of History (part 1)" Posted on Youtube by Desultory Heroics. November 23, 2013. Accessed February 21, 2014. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqgkXbQOi68

Regina Lynn's commentary Virtual Rape Is Traumatic, but Is It a Crime? discusses the concept of cyber rape, and the position it currently holds in our culture. Lynn discusses the serious nature of cyber rape and address the psychological trauma involved; but she questions if it should be considered a crime in the real world. Lynn states that while traumatic, cyber rape is not to be equated with real life physical rape. I selected this article because while I do not necessarily agree with Lynn on the subject, I thought it was interesting to read an article from a viewpoint that is oppositional to the majority idea that cyber rape is a crime in it's own right.

Found this Wired magazine article on cyber rape that i thought would be relevant to the conversation on the Mr. Bungle reading

This very, very recently available app by PNCA prof Stephen Slappe is another example of the continued cultural continuum of the spatial fourth dimension in art and culture Using an actual Google street view camera to facilitate production of an extensive non-linear narrative project, EIGHT transforms the app into a portal to several inter-related 'dimensions'

This is an excellent resource for researching a variety of primary source documents. Digitized films, rare books, zines, audio recordings from many diverse historical and contemporary sources. Of particular use to New Media Studies are the copious amounts of documents from the so-called "digital revolution" of the 1990s. This includes television programs like "Computer Chroncicles" (1983-2002) chock full of artists and technologists and the ideas that inspired them. The artifacts in this series including the various motion graphics, fashion and even jargon that permeated the computer cultures at this time! There are also fairly recent additions, including the cyberpunk zines "Reality Hackers" and "High Frontiers." These present a 'street-level' pulse on the countercultural charge of new media in the 80s and 90s. Finally, I want to point out a free service offered here that is called the Wayback Machine --- a searchable history of the Internet, billions of websites archived continuously since the Internet went commercial in the mid 1990s! The Internet Archive. "The Wayback Machine" https://archive.org/web/. (Accessed January 24, 2014)

Marshall Mcluhan's assertion that "we shape our tools and then our tools shape us" mentioned in class, echoed again in the Nicolas Carr reading this week. Here's a handy web version of Mcluhan's influential text from 1964. Mcluhan's quips, probes and puns were quite popular in the 1960s, resonant then with a youth culture immersed in 'new media' and the social-political intersections thereof. In the 1990s, as the so-called 'digital revolution' ramped up, Mcluhanisms were prominently re-surfaced. There are not chapter titles provided in this rendition of the book, so you might want to cross-reverence a table of contents elsewhere. On the other hand, you can use the 'find' function of your browser to seek out sections on a variety of media from the spoken word to the printing press, money, roads, clothing, comics, telephones, television and much more! First part is theory, second part case studies. "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Marshall Mcluhan (1964)" Accessed January 30, 2014. http://www.lab404.com/242/understanding_media.html

This is a better article describing how she made her way into sci-fi and a great explanation of Cyborgs within Afro Futurism as metaphors for the struggle of any oppressed within a social power dynamic.

Thanks for sharing these! Now that I see the name, I think that she might have been mentioned by Soda_Jerk, guest artists in another class last semester. I'll put up link to their project, also in realm of Afrofuturism.

Bruce Sterling providing a summary of Design Fiction. What it's about, some key figures who have developed the practice and examples of works that fall into this mode of design. Spends time discussing the background theories of 'diegetic prototypes' and drawing parallels with corporate 'vaporware' and military R+D promos. A short introduction to Design Fiction, a starting point. I'd recommend coupling this one with more in-depth articles and examples to build a thorough understanding. Bruce Sterling. "Patently untrue: fleshy defibrillators and synchronised baseball are changing the future" Wired UK: Culture. Posted October 11, 2013. Accessed March 8, 2014. http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/10/play/patently-untrue

  After reading Alexander Galloway's Countergaming chapter from his book, I wanted to see some examples of artist-made game mods. I Youtubed video game mods and discovered a Youtube channel called 'Vsauce'. Vsauce is run by internet personality Michael Stevens who posts videos that discuss and answer questions about scientific topics, gaming, technology, culture, and more. The video I found about game mods was called Top 7 Video Game Mods: V-LIST #6. As a person that doesn't do a lot of gaming, I found it pretty interesting to see the mods in action. The coolest thing in the video was a guy who is building a working 16bit arithmetic computer. I don't know if it can technically be considered a mod at all, but it is pretty impressive regardless. The implications of stuff like this brings me back to the Galloway reading which ponders the future of video gaming and a as of now unrealized independent gaming movement. "Top 7 Video Game Mods: V-LIST #6 " Posted by Vsauce. Sep 30, 2010. Accessed March 19, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaTsPvyTCLQ

This piece of Design Fiction is imagined to exist in a world where products are developed to the point where they almost have lives themselves. When thinking in terms of Spime, "Brad the Toaster" is a product that plays into the idea of discontinuing the process where products of today's consumer culture are built, and then soon become obsolete due to new technologies arising. Brad and his fellow Sprimes might be the answer to all environmental sustainability problems. Sprimes would be sent out into the world, their every move being trached. Every interaction that they have with people will be tracked, and stored in a database, ready to be accessed by developers. If these developers can study these interactions, what does work with a product, and what doesn't, then their Brad 2.0's can be the best possible product, without having to create a series of upgraded products, only to be obsolete when a new need is discovered. Vanhemert, Kyle. "A Toaster That Begs You to Use It: Welcome to the Bizarro Smart Home." Wired. March 14, 2014 http://www.wired.com/design/2014/03/addicted-products/

Thanks, this intersects with a number of rich topics within realm of New Media and, as you note, spimes in particular! There's also a funny variant here of anthropomorphized machines and notions of sentience. The video for Brad the Toaster is another compelling example of a diegetic prototype

Ctheory is a long running journal of theory, interviews with artists and critical essays on technology and culture. At least two decades of material here! We read the Paul Virlio article "Speed and Information" from this site. There are many great and illuminating articles and essays to be found here. You might try running some keywords from your research and see where it takes you. Ctheory ed. Arthur and Marilouise Kroker. Accessed April 25, 2014. http://ctheory.net/home.aspx

Here's the website of artist Gabriel Shalom. He was the artist giving presentation in lightning talk mode on hypercubism. Here he has an elaboration on hypercubism, speaking both to the early 20th and 21st century in terms of influences, intersections and techno-cultural tropes. Gabriel Shalom "An Introduction to Hypercubism" n.d. http://www.gabrielshalom.com/theory/