Alternate Browsers?

I do not use Google Chrome, habitually, although I use the map feature often. I do not use google as a search engine either. The reasons are quite clear in the quote below from todays Age newspaper article. I use duckduckgo as my primary search engine with Safari which has historically given better colour support and management than any other browser. Using alternate browsers makes sense in an our current highly surveilled world.

Some other browsers to consider are, iCab, Opera, Firefox, Tor.  On the desktop and mobile platforms.

Google has talked about this approach before. While Apple and Mozilla don't derive much money from advertising, the vast majority of Google's revenue comes from digital ads.

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Flickr is AWESOME!

The second picture that I uploaded to flickr in 2004.

I have been a  flickr.com pro user since 2004.* I have invested heavily in its service for my own creative needs and to share with a larger community. Now with the NBN I also backup all my jpegs and  tiff files. I have unlimited storage and bandwidth for about $75.00 AU per year. It is worth every cent. If you care about your photographs and want to keep them safe and not be used as some kind of ad or artificial intelligence fodder then consider using flickr as a minimum to store your work, but consider getting involved as well. Smugmug as the new owners are doing a great job with flickr. I see no reason why SmugMug would allow this great service to fade! Don't just listen to me I am biased after all; 16 years of biased in fact, Read this article if you need some clarification.  Ferdy Christant says it in much more detail, more eloquently and logically than I ever could. Follow me s2art. Or not. Flickr is still the best place in the world to share and store your photographs!

* This is not a paid endorsement, although I have used flickr daily since 2004. I continue to enjoy it and use it creatively and socially and now as a secondary backup service.

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Inbox?

Today in my inbox I received this email, for a service I showed interest in in 2014! I know have a page at this uri, https://tilde.club/~s2art/ . I still need to work out how to use it?

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Ways of Seeing Algorithmically

Lewis Bush is going to republish John Berger's seminal work Ways of Seeing to include and examine AI and machine vision. Excited!

"...I am currently in the progress of reworking and updating ‘Ways of Seeing’. Just as Berger’s book sought to educate audiences about the ways we perceive and interpret art, my project ‘Ways of Seeing Algorithmically’ aims to do something similar for the new visual system of algorithms and artificial intelligences, helping audiences understand how these technologies see and understand the world around us. 

To do this, material drawn from my research into artificial intelligence is overlaid on to the pages of ‘Ways of Seeing’ in a way which creates contrasts and juxtapositions between Berger’s text and images and my own. In doing this I will also collaborate with Richard Hollis, the original designer of ‘Ways of Seeing’, in order to ensure the update remains true to the original."

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Devastation?

https://theanthropocene.org

Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier in The Anthropocene Project, an ambitious multimedia endeavor that includes a photo book, a documentary (it will debut at the Toronto Film Festival in September), and a series of virtual reality experiences.

More on wired.com

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Spoilers?

Garry Winogrand’s “Untitled (New York),” from 1952-58

I am looking forward to visiting New York City soon. I have compiled a list of cultural institution I want to visit and in this day and age of the internet I know exactly what galleries are showing what art and when. Two of those galleries are, Brooklyn Museum and Gagoisian . The Brooklyn Museum is showing Gary Winnogrand’s colour work. The Gagosian, Jeff Walls’s work. The Newyorker online magazine has an article that covers them both and compares them. It is now impossible for me to unthink what I have read about. But also I can go and visit with some prior knowledge. A double edged sword? Only time will tell?

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Instagram?

I have been an instagram user since about 2011. It launched in 2010. It was one of many services on offer at the time. I cannot remember any of the other services that competed with Instagram.
Instagram was a crazy place, in the beginning. A place where good and interesting photography was being posted. For me this was reason enough to use it. Then Facebook bought it. Over time the marketers and influencers took over and finally advertising formed part of its death knell. The final nail in the coffin? Algorithms.
In the early days I would post often. Charged by the idea that somehow using only my phone camera I was attempting to make ‘good pictures’. I realise that this is a nebulous and slippery idea. It was a level flying field and everybody was working with the same tool. Somebody worked out how to fool the instagram web site to think you were using a phone or tablet to upload with. Thereby removing the remaining friction in using the service. These days I rarely upload more than once a week. And now it’s as much about my work exterior to the service. Another marketing tool. This is a pity it was fun and interesting in its early days. Now I rarely find any new or interesting work. And somehow have managed to avoid influencers all together.

With all this in mind there seems to be some push back on the web against Instagram. Andy Adams’ Facebook group FlakPhoto is a good place to gauge the current state of the medium from a serious photographers perspective. While I see that instagram is useful, everybody seems to use it, I don’t feel compelled to use it. Josh Rose in his article on Medium recounts a recent interaction. He worked with a creative agency. Nobody there asked him about his instagram account. And several people looked at his website. I agree a serious working commercial photographer needs to maintain a presence there. But using numbers such as ‘followers' and 'likes' is precarious to the point of damaging. I suspect savvy enough creatives will understand this and will have adapted long ago. I gave up the numbers game a while back. Then accidentally deleted my main account. Which in itself was refreshing.
I joined instagram for the challenge of making “good” images using the simplest of tools. And in the beginning that was enough. Many skilled photographers were doing interesting with the service. All that has gone out the window. I feel like blogging and websites may have gone full circle and be on the up again for photographers.

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Early memories of the internet?

Embassy of the internet survey

The embassy of the Internet put out a survey recently, here are my responses.

• Username/Name:  s2art
• Age: 50+
• Gender: M
• Location: Antipodes
• Job Role/Description: Educator; since 1993

What do you first remember most fondly about using the internet?
My first exposure was really to the WWW. I was doing my teacher training. One subject got us looking at technology in the classroom. I sat at a computer and “surfed” not really knowing what to look for or find. I guess due to bandwidth concerns my University blocked ALL images. So I was completely underwhelmed by that experience. I was an Art/Photography major at that school. Within 12 months however I was working in  a photography department of a school whose HOD saw that this was important and connected the department to the internet with a dedicated line. I also acquired a desktop computer and had my own connection to the WWW. At the time had a friend who was a  from Rochester in the USA. He put me onto listservs and mail groups. My early days of internet communications came from these groups and I spent many an hour dutifully downloading my mail each working. Reading it offline. Then reconnecting the next morning and sending my replies. Over the years I found many tools for online communication. My favourite has always been email however. Not long after came learning html and blogging, then flickr.com, and instagram. What I really loved about my early years of the WWW was to ‘surf’. Drifting from homepage to homepage. Discovering some real gems.

What do you think has changed the most since your early years on the web?
The demise of homepages and to a certain extent blogging. The WWW is really now an ‘app’ and few people experience it outside of their phones and tablets. When it so much more than that.

How do you use the internet and what do you mostly use it for?
Research, entertainment, shopping, as well as my own publishing to flickr and blogging.

What is your biggest concern about the internet and/or the future of the web?
The balkanisation of the web by a few services, apple, facebook, google, instagram etc.

What would you change about the way we use the internet or how it is controlled now?
It’s difficult to know how to reclaim those early days. Maybe it isn’t even a wise premise to expect?

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New Ways of Seeing?

A fabulous radio series that examines John Berger’s famous essay, Ways of seeing in the 21st century.

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BBC Four's Podcast on the Internet

How is technology changing the way we see? The artist James Bridle reimagines John Berger’s Ways of Seeing for the digital age and reveals the internet’s hidden infrastructure.
Listen Here

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