Platforms Assignment
Due Dec 11, 11:59pm
With at least one other person (from the class or not), have a conversation on a platform you have never used before.
What constitutes a platform? For the sake of this assignment, anything in which every involved party is capable of participating in the conversation. New and invitation only (Clubhouse), or ancient and obsolete (irc? The back room of an inn an a text-based MUD?). Non-digital is possible (carrier pigeon? radio?) is allowed but probably unlikely. This may take some trial and error based on the technical and other specificities (different operating systems, reliance on VPNs that might limit ports, accessibility needs).
Turn in ~2 pages of analysis and reflection (or equivalent in other media of your choice) of your experiences which should include:
Answers to questions derived from any of the previous readings, films, or artworks.
For instance, From the first weeks readings, Winner and Easterling (and from this week, Ranciere by way of Steyerl) provide useful concepts to think about how infrastructures filter things; who has access? Who is left out?
If you were to include this platform in your regular communication habits, how it would relate to (and obsolete or reinforce) existing channels? consider and potentially cite the analysis you already did early in the quarter
Including some opinions is fine, but try to move beyond what you liked and didnt as a matter of taste and consider why, for instance, your expectations were different than the developers.
If logistics make it difficult for you to coordinate with other Film 189 students, you can do this with friends or family. The platform should be novel for them as well, though.
If you have trouble finding someone to do this assignment with, get in touch. Ill match you with someone or volunteer myself.
Some examples, feel free to add more to the etherpad on element:
2d spatialized live a/v chat
https://town.siempre.io/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.calla.chat/ (Links to an external site.)
Browser-based VR
https://hubs.mozilla.com/ (Links to an external site.)
Ancient Text-based MUD (Ben Grosser and I both used to play this one in like 1993, way before we knew each other. if you leave the main town you might get attacked) http://ancient.anguish.org/ (Links to an external site.) ; you connect using a very insecure protocol called TELNET.
IRC – freenode is one of several servers https://freenode.net/
