“Everyone can be connected to everyone else through only six short linkages”. Duncan Watts introduction of this topic is very interesting because the world is so vast yet we can be connected to a stranger this easily. The physical distance between one person from another normally is a large hindrance in meeting each other but now its easier to connect with others. Because of this, it is easier to reach everyone. Each degree is another connection from someone you know but they get more distant. Two people are regarded as “close” regardless of physical and social proximity due to social networking. Six degrees is close yet distant but allows us enough connections too meet people if we desire. This relates to my project as I want to explore the relationship between people.
“The individuals who affect us are ones that we repeatedly observe and yet do not directly interact with - our Familiar Strangers”. Eric Paulos and Elizabeth Goodman describe how these Familiar Strangers are a middle ground between people we know and complete strangers. We do not interact with these Familiar Strangers but hold relationship with them in which both parties mutually ignore each other. Technology has given us a way to connect with people who are far away but we still do not communicate with our Familiar Strangers. This is also due to the fact that people retreat to their mobile phones to decrease the chance of interacting with strangers when they are presented in strange or uncomfortable situations. They are tied into the daily routines of urban life as we notice them without even realizing it.
Roland Barthes holds a very specific and consistant view in The Death of the Author. He believes that the author is never anything more than just the man who writes the work. Writers can only imitate each other. None of their work is an original. Everything is part of a ready made. Even though none of the works are original, a text is a space of many dimensions and hold a lot of detail. Different readers may come up with different meanings but only the author can say what they actually meant. So when the author is gone, trying to decode a text is useless. A disjunction happens and it will remain a mystery.
The Art of Cyberspace by Pierre Levy has a very different view on art. Levy acknowledges the emergence of cyber art and how it is changing how we view things. Cyberspace cultivates attraction in three main ways: how a message is invoked and transmitted, the differences between the the artist and the viewer, and how message meanings are changed and altered. Artists create a work with a specific message in mind and spectators perceive it upon its viewing. This way of art is changing with the emergence of a techno-cultural environment. This environment ignores the distinctions between artist and viewer as it places us in a creative cycle. We become a co-author as works are not finished but instead left open ended for our own interpretations.