Masters of Media

Art up your desktop

The way people viewed artworks throughout history has been very different and has evolved over time. Walter Benjamin’s essay on the work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility has become a classic text about arts in...

By Eva Valkhoff on 09/30/12 Comments Off

Fabbing in Brussels!

The official opening of Fablab.iMAL that took place on Friday 14th in the well-known Brussels-based Media Lab iMAL (Center for Digital Cultures and Technology) gave us the chance to look closer at personal fabrication and to observe curious artifacts....

By Aurelie Ghalim on 09/24/12 1

Peas and carrots, Bonnie and Clyde, database and narrative

Okay, first of all sorry for the title. If you are hoping to get some randy Bonnie and Clyde details or some smashing peas and carrots recipes, I am afraid I will have to disappoint you. But, if you...

By Charly Landman on 09/20/12 1

Augmented Reality and Extending the virtual

The idea that the world is confined with boarders and barriers is slowly evolving to an open space during this globalizing age, without for example passport controls on the ground in the EU. The utopian idea of the world...

By Anne-Claire Verheul on 09/14/12 2

New Media and the Law – A trio of Case reports

In March of this year, Liam Stacey (a Biology student at Swansea University in Wales) took to twitter after the footballer Fabrice Muamba collapsed during the middle of a match, the result of a cardiac arrest. The game in...

By Kieran Lewis on 09/13/12 Comments Off

New Media at KLM Open 2012 – New app for oldies.

The KLM Open 2012, also known as The Dutch Open, is a famous golf tournament at the golfclub in Hilversum. Golfers from all over the world come to our little country to play golf and win fantastic prices. This...

By Jaimy Quadekker on 09/13/12 1

The history of Dutch newspaper websites, 1996-2011

During the late-1990s newspapers began to move onto the Internet en masse, giving rise to the question whether these digital immigrants would adapt to the new world of the internet and make full use of the opportunities offered by...

By Lucas Reehorst on 09/13/12 Comments Off

Mash-up trailers and YouTube: “birth” of a new media object

You have probably already seen them and maybe you have not even noticed them. Some people describe them as ‘trash’, as ‘gosh awful bad’, as ‘YouTube spam’, and others might describe them as ‘(amateur) art’. A more neutral way...

By Charly Landman on 09/13/12 2

NYC Neighborhood Explorer: Data Visualization Tool

I want you to think back to the time you moved to the neighborhood you currently live in. Was it a difficult move? Hard to adjust and find libraries, cafes, and parks near you? Of course it was! I...

By Joe Mier on 09/13/12 Comments Off

The effect of new media in teaching music

A thirteen-year-old child walks into the music classroom and recommends the guitar teacher a song of an independent, French punk band. The teacher listens to the song on YouTube and concludes that it is a bit too fast. The...

By Jeroen Rademakers on 09/13/12 Comments Off

Users become producers at Urban Screens 2011: Screening the city

New media, urban culture, personal data and creative ideas: it all came together at the Urban Screens 2011 event last December in Amsterdam. This years subject was ‘Screening the city’, which focused on how cities can be brought to...

By Charlotte on 09/12/12 Comments Off

9GAG Is A Repost Machine

9GAG is no ordinary user-generated content machine, it’s a repost machine. You could actually call it Reddit Light. But is that really a concern? 90% percent of 9GAG posts are reposts from Reddit. How am I so sure of this?...

By Daan Smith on 09/12/12 1

TimeBank Romania: how can alternative currency support an online knowledge exchange community?

This is the question I am still delving into since I joined the startup project TimeBank Romania about 9 months ago. What is TimeBank Romania? Imagine an online platform where users can exchange knowledge and skills. They do so...

By Irina Enache on 09/12/12 2

NIMk: Yes, they’re still open!

Before closing its doors for good at the end of this year, the Netherlands Media Art Institute dedicates an exhibition to one of the key terms in online culture: openness. Getting lost is one of the annoying, yet inevitable...

By Mathias Schuh on 09/12/12 Comments Off

Performance Art Meets Social Media: Kathryn Cornelius Marries the Internet

On Marriage and Divorce as Performance Washington, DC based performance artist Kathryn Cornelius completed her recent work, Save the Date, on August 11th, 2012. The piece was performed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art as part of Take it...

By Maya Livio on 09/11/12 Comments Off

Unlike Us Conference – Understanding Social Media Monopolies and their Alternatives

For many people, looking at Facebook is the first thing they do when they wake up. There are about 600 million users on Facebook, and you might as well say that Facebook – together with other SNS like Twitter...

By Serena Westra on 09/11/12 1

Underskog.no: an example of a private online community

Underskog (directly translated from Norwegian meaning “undergrowth” or “underwoods”) is a phenomenon I heard about even before moving to Oslo. Sometime in 2008, my Norwegian friend, being only too happy about being a part of it all, described with...

By Jules Mataly on 09/11/12 1

Genes, Memes and Temes: Paradoxes in Meme-Theory and the Dangers of Memes

In March 2012 the animated sitcom South Park aired an episode featuring the potential dangers of memes. Its message: it is impossible to keep up with the latest memes and those who choose to imitate certain memes in public...

By Stijn Wonderen van on 09/11/12 Comments Off

Everyone loves a good story: immersing the audience with transmedia storytelling

Simply going to the cinema and watching a film just doesn’t cut it anymore. We, the audience, want more. We want a sequel, we want to look forward to seeing that sequel, we want to discuss what might happen...

By Lydia van der Spek on 09/11/12 Comments Off

Digital Drama: Cyberbullying

“The internet of things: Our things are going to talk to other things, and they are going to be talking to us, and in doing so, it is going to open up the window of opportunity for somebody to...

By Sophie Waterloo on 09/10/12 3

Google and the Principles of the Semantic Web

One of the first goals of the Internet was to expand the knowledge of the users by connecting different data. However, the contemporary web is by no means comparable to this initially academic network. The web expanded unprecedentedly and...

By Lauressa Ford on 09/10/12 Comments Off

The art of work in the age of digital reproducibility

The contemporary working environment has changed beyond recognition in many industries; none more so than those invested in new media. The skill sets required to excel in such an environment brings with it a paradigmatic shift in workplace culture...

By Matthew Elworthy on 09/10/12 Comments Off

A New Media Advertising Solution for a Classic Brand: Mercedes-Benz Romania

There’s Mercedes-Benz and there are other cars. I’ve always been an admirer of the German super-brand, not only for its outstanding four-wheeled pieces of art, but also for having a spectacular history and the power to constantly re-invent itself....

By Alex Manole on 09/10/12 Comments Off

Why Led Zeppelin isn’t recommended for a Led Zeppelin cover band

The thesis, on which I recently graduated, has been my most thorough academic venture yet. This blog post offers a brief account of how my BA dissertation, titled “Off the record: Reconstructing the rationale behind Last.fm’s social music recommendation...

By Steven Boegborn on 09/10/12 Comments Off