Page 163 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2015163“With the platform’s users watching more than six billion hours of video a month, and people consuming more than nine times as much digital video as they did in 2010, Hollywood planned to secure its own future by consummating a merger. Last year, DreamWorks bought AwesomenessTV, a company that manages YouTube stars, for thir- ty-three million dollars, and a wave of old-media investment followed.”If you’ve watched in alarm as Hollywood releases more and more unimaginative content, then the idea of fresh new thinkers in this space sound attractive. But, before you get too overjoyed with these changes, understand that the brave new world of DIY video is likely to be even less intellectually stimulating than what came before. And the next trend after YouTube promises to be even more vapid: videos made with the app known as Vine5 that last all of seven seconds.The next trend after YouTube promises to be even more vapid: videos made with the app known as Vine that last all of seven seconds.Seven seconds? Against this standard for stardom, Andy Warhol’s famous quip about15 minutes of fame6 might as well have been uttered in the 19th century. But such is the Pandora’s Box that we have opened in ourquest for easier solutions that more and moreof the population can access. Improvements in technology allow for lots of positive changes in our society. But almost every advancement also brings new perils and new problems. Technologymakes questions of right and wrong, good and evil, benefit or hindrance so much more difficult to process.While the online video space will be fascinating to watch in the upcoming months and years, technological advances (easier to access, easier to create, easier to store, easier to manipulate, easier to change, and easier to distribute) are imparting other equally radical changes in the non-virtual world. Indeed, our entire notions of art are changing as new systems allow us to manipulate the environment on a scale never before possible. One of these best examples of these changes occurred at SXSW 2014 with a project called “Pi in the Sky.”7On Thursday, March 14, this project invaded the skies over Austin. The day was perfect for this exercise in experimental art: perfect blue sky with very little wind not a cloud in sight. Five specially-designed airplanes spent the better part of an hour circling over the city. The message they created with their computer controlled sky- writing equipment was simple and yet profound: “3.14159265359.” Seeing the formula for Pi written in such a way was a spectacular reminder of technology’s significance in today’s world. As noted on the wikipedia entry for this project:8Pi in the Sky was an experimental, aerial art display where airplanes spelled out pi to 1,000 places in the sky over the San Francisco Bay Area The display took place on September 12, 2012 It was then displayed again in Austin on March 13, 2014, during the SXSW festival, at which time it was said to be the largest art piece ever displayed in the state of TexasHugh Forrest