New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

How Can Art Be Subversive in a Platform System? The Case of Benjamin Grosser

What would happen if one morning, a morning like many others, after you got up, you discovered that your Facebook home page is completely empty, without any type of content? I’m not talking about a crash or...

By Tommaso Campagna on 09/24/18 Comments Off

Weeping Angel: The latest surveillance tool, that can turn your smart TV into a bug TV

Earlier this year, a revelation by Wikileaks called Vault7 refueled the privacy debate concerning intrusive media (Hacker News; The Verge, 2017). The series released documents on CIA activity between 2013 and 2016, showing how the intelligence agency gained access...

By Nina Welt on 09/25/17 Comments Off

“One More Thing…” – A critical approach to the Apple 2017 Keynote Presentation

But there is “One more thing.” There it was again. These famous words, first introduced by Steve Jobs, where presented at the 2017 Keynote Presentation. It was the first presentation in the official Steve Jobs Theater and the “One...

By Tijs Koops on 09/25/17 Comments Off

Is Apple our Online-Privacy Vigilante?

Abstract: Apple purports that its new Intelligent Tracking Prevention Technology integrated in Safari browser prevents 3rd-party cookies from collecting users’ data, therefore, reducing online ads, and ultimately protecting users’ privacy. This paper challenges this by arguing that ITP’s functionality...

By K. Abdulghani on 09/24/17 Comments Off

Squarespace and Interfacification: How Much Does Knowing How to Code Matter Anymore?

In an age of intuitive design and slick interfaces, users nowadays are rarely challenged to question or understand the mechanics underlying digital media. In the early days of computing, one would need basic technical computing skills in order to...

By Sal Hagen on 09/21/16 Comments Off

The Logout Project

We might all have felt this way at some point– scrolling through endless posts and photographs of people who seem like they are living “The Life”: getting that promotion they have dreamed of, marrying the most perfect person in...

By Izumi Otsuka on 10/16/15 Comments Off

Too long; Didn´t watch

We all know the feeling – there are just not enough hours in the day to attend to all the interesting things out there. There might now be a solution for at least one aspect of the dilemma, a solution, that people...

By Alina Niemann on 09/16/15 Comments Off

Mobile Apps as a New Level of Reality

“New Media”. This collocation is used so often nowadays (and not just by researchers or practitioners, but by journalists, self-proclaimed experts and general populace) that it takes a conscious effort to take a step back and ask “What’s new...

By Leonid Goryachev on 09/15/15 Comments Off

rMA Thesis Conference 2015: (pre)Cyberspace Perspectives on Information Technologies

The following is a modified transcript of my research presentation for the 2015 Research Master in Media Studies Thesis Conference. My thesis is an exploration of magical writing practices in contemporary digital culture. This was too much to talk...

By Rose Rowson on 05/05/15 Comments Off

Google Spreads Its Wings: Will Flutter Soar or Burn?

Flutter. The name implies flight, but it is actually described as to wave or fly rapidly in an irregular manner or to flap the wings without flying. However, a third way to describe flutter is that it’s the name...

By Vincent Sloof on 11/18/13 1

Hacking the Digital: Fingerprint Secured Touch ID from Apple

The iPhone 5S is a revised version of its predecessor, the iPhone 5, and was unveiled to the general public last month on September 20th. Aside from various improvements and new available features, Apple’s new fingerprint-based identity sensor, Touch...

By Nicholas Vieira on 10/10/13 1

The Need to Communicate

You don’t have to be a science buff to be familiar with the English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. His telltale robotic yet endearing speech quality can be recognized by anyone who is at least a little attuned with pop...

By Paula Carmicino on 09/12/13 Comments Off

Collages by Broken Kindle Screens

A collaboration between artists Sebastian Shmieg and Silvio Lorusso, this project examines and documents 56 images of broken Amazon Kindle display screens that result in quite astonishing pieces of collage art. In an era of highly advanced computing technology,...

By Geoff Kim on 09/09/12 1

iPhone Art : This Century’s Modern Art Movement

Smartphone technology established its omnipresence at the arrival of the 21st century. For better or for worse, digital handheld technology has become a defining element of this millennium. The gadget’s pervasiveness combined with its seemingly limitless assortment of program...

By Autumn Hand on 10/31/11 Comments Off

New Media in Brazil: An interview with the curator of FILE

FILE stands for International Festival of Electronic Language and is the biggest festival of new media in Brazil. The event happens annually in São Paulo and eventually in other cities of Brazil and holds projects, installations, screenings and presentations...

By Juliana Paiva on 10/29/11 Comments Off

App review; Pixlr

I am a photographer. I have an app for that. Pixlr is a Flash-based image editing application from Autodesk. Autodesk is well known for its industry standard architectural and entertainment software such as AutoCAD and 3D Studio Max. Autodesk...

By Martijn Dorresteijn on 10/13/11 Comments Off

App review: Sleep as an droid. Or as a cyborg?

I love to sleep. So much that waking up early on Monday for morning classes is a hard and laborious task. I always set my alarm clock about half an hour early to compensate for the time spent snoozing...

By Renoud Netjes on 10/12/11 1

App Review: Wikitude

With the introduction of AR (augmented reality) software and its implementation into mobile devices there has been a considerable rise in apps that use such geo-location and AR features. One of these apps is ‘Wikitude‘ developed by the Austrian...

By Philip Breek on 10/09/11 Comments Off

Thoughts about the unveiling of Iphone 4S

Today was the official release of Iphone 5. Oops, IPhone 4S I mean. I followed through the NY Times and The Guardian‘s live blogs and Twitter. While I was overwhelmed with an incredible amount of data, #letstalkiphone quickly become...

By Juliana Paiva on 10/04/11 1

App Review: Waze, a social GPS

As the fever of Geolocation apps continues, Waze seems to stand out with integration in different media and personal communication among their users. Waze is a GPS application available for iOS, Android, Blackberry, Nokia and Windows Mobile that blended...

By Juliana Paiva on 10/04/11 1

Challenging Time: Google Plus and Facebook Timeline

‘The most fun thing about going out is when you run into friends unexpectedly. With Hangouts, this sort of meeting becomes possible on the internet for the first time. Let your friends know you’re available and find out who...

By Stijnie Thuijs on 10/04/11 Comments Off

Book review: Programmed Visions by Wendy Hui Kyong Chun

Wendy Chun’s Programmed Visions book is the third published in a software studies book series initiated by Matthew Fuller. Software studies is a relatively young discipine in digital humanities. Yet, it’s an emerging field, gaining momentum from the overall intrusion...

By Eelke Hermens on 09/26/11 3

Thoughts on the Contemporary Gaming Landscape

This post is a bit of an experiment. Basically, it's a summary of what I would like to write my thesis about. In the spirit of open collaboration, I'd like to know what you think of this idea. Obviously,...

By Laurent Hubeek on 04/27/11 Comments Off

Holmes Wilson on Universal Subtitles: Collaborative, Volunteer Subtitling for any Video on the Web Using Free Software

(A blogpost on Holmes Wilson’s presentation, originally published @ Video Vortex #6 website. The original text can be found here) The importance of subtitles is an undeniable fact for Holmes Wilson, co-founder of the Participatory Culture Foundation. Through the foundation’s latest open source, software-based project Universal Subtitles,...

By Ourania on 03/13/11 Comments Off