MAT 150 - Flash 1: New Media Exploration

Ahhhhh! Where to start! Identifying new media possibilities has made me feel like John Nash, the mathematician depicted in A Beautiful Mind, not the genius part, but the scenes where he is unable to harness his thoughts and writes on any remotely flat surface, walls, wood, post it notes, completely covering the interior of his garage. How do you begin to explain something that has limitless possibilities? We are on the cusp of being able to be anywhere are any time and have complete control of our experiences with new media techniques.

Wherever your interests lie: sports, music, television, art, etc., the experience is yours to create. Let’s narrow our focus on the direction multimedia is going with experiencing music. A quick and dirty chronicle of the evolution of experiencing music over the course of time includes: having to see it live to experience it; then came the development of radio; then phonographs enabled us to hear it at will; then music performances became televised; the next big thing was music videos; with the development of the internet interactive music videos became possible; subsequently we were able to select which instruments the band would perform for a song; and the most recent advancement in multimedia music technology can be witnessed through Chris Milk’s interactive film production of David Bowe’s “Sound and Vision” performed by Beck. The “Sound and Vision” production demonstrates the ability to experience a concert from any location within a venue – even from a catwalk – with perfect sound quality using 360 cameras and 360 binaural microphones which makes for a true to life sound experience. The only thing missing is the smell from puffs of smoke floating through the air.

The “Sound and Vision” project really expanded my thoughts on where ideas will take us next. The first exciting thought that came to my mind was the effect it will have on televised events. For instance, an NFL game has several cameras at work during a game and a producer in a control room determining which angle we view. In the near future it seems very possible for every fan to select the camera/angle they wish to view at any given moment –or if they are like me and pay little attention to the field, they could span the crowd and sidelines for their own form of entertainment.

The evolution of multimedia music experiences can be seen on the following websites:

“Neon Bible,” Arcade Fire
http://www.beonlineb.com/