This weeks lecture was quite short and focused on what it is to be ‘Post-Digital’. Post-digital refers to works that are beyond new media. New media does not refer to what we would call new, it is more of a classification of a specific few forms of media that were considered new at that particular point in time.

We looked at a video of WIiliam Latham’s VR work called ‘Mutator’. He uses VR to create spaces that are occupied by environments of alien organic nature which are constantly mutating. It feels almost like an entirely different microscopic world that has been enlarged for the viewer. I do find the graphics are a bit dated and something from the 90’s with the psychedelic colour choice. I think it would be really interesting if the visuals were given a bit of a realistic touch.

Then we looked at Jeffery Shaw’s ‘Legible City’. Aptly named, this work is sat on a stationary bicycle that acts as a controller for a 3D environment of large towering typography that mimics a city layout with the viewer being able to cycle through it. This was just intended to highlight how early people were considering VR when we are only now years later really focusing on its development.

Another example was Perry Hoerman’s work ‘Bar Code Hotel’ in which a bunch of barcodes are set up and allow the viewer to scan. Each scan would trigger a 3D space projected with a particular event.

My main interest in this lecture was the brief discussion on the difference between post-digital and post-human. Post-human referring to the augmentation of the human body and how technology might be used to alter or improve it, for example, its performance and abilities.

This makes me think about cybernetic enhancement and the combination of technology on a biological level. The idea that we might be able to alter our genes or have designer babies is an amazing but slightly scary concept. How far can we go though before we are not human anymore at all? A state that is beyond being human. A little but of a tangent there, but anyway.

This TED talk I found really interesting on what a post-human future could be like. I think this is definitely something that should be talked about more.

I was unable to attend the tutorial for this week so I will just discuss the reading in my next post and try to look at some of the questions as well.