Find the "click" spot to interact...You'll get the hang of it...just like buying soda...first you see the ad...then you recognise the logo...next thing you know you find the store...once you know where to get it...you can always get more.

February 5, 2007

Dani E. Day

Dmst 4200

Instructed by Trace Reddell

Digital Detournement - Cyberbabble

Reflective Statement

I question my true understanding of what it is to be digitally detourned. As I have read many texts on or related to the subject, I still find myself unsure of the legitimate meaning of such a term.

My initial understanding was that mixing and matching media and messages (propaganda), one could change the trajectory of the understanding of the viewer to something different than the original message or messages and to some degree, negating the idea of personal property (something I continually find myself addressing from the viewpoint of creator and copyright holder.) I struggle with the statement "Plagiarism is necessary, progress implies it" from the User's Guide to Detournement.

I find myself bashing the culture I live in, the so-called masters of the era and the concepts of many theorists I read. It is much like that of the religion I preach. Not of this or any other doctrine belief, it is a manifestation of many parts of the whole of any one or all of the ideas and justifications of thought. To combine ideas and fragments of information is what I do and what I believe on a grand scale, but I do credit the ideas I can relate to a specific order and I understand that some of what I may consider my own thoughts may indeed be that of some other that I have read or seen in the past and have merely accrued through the osmotic effect of having lived and learned in an age of expanding information.

After receiving feedback from a few peers, an instructor and some friends, I am now questioning if I understand anything at all. The assignment itself, to my understanding, is a sampling of media combined to create a message other than or in addition to that of the original media. The limitations set for this assignment box the elements to the readings of Adilkno and Clark with a more ample range of media vehicles including web sites and advertisements. From my initial perspective of understanding, this means to use text from the readings intertwined with images of my choosing to establish a mediated experience of re-mixed digital media into a conceptual implication of a re-mastered mix of information. What the hell that means... I have no idea.

I thought the goal of this assignment was to gain further understanding of the variations of Detournement from the minor to deceptive. If during the exploration, one should find a grain of thought or belief about the concept or intention, then all the greater the achievement of the assignment. To this I feel accomplished, for I have thoroughly investigated my original intensions and have found myself questioning my own thoughts and beliefs. To create critical thought is ultimately the goal of education in the first place...or is it to box us in another shell of intellectual mumbo-jumbo so we can seem to rise above the mediated to become the mediator? Pepsi's website is the media vehicle for this project. I chose Pepsi because it has a wide demographic and chooses to target all of them. For the musically inclined, Hip-Hop is the vehicle of choice, for the sports fan, a plethora of games and sports trivia. Do you have a flare for fashion? They have it covered! Even the artist can find a way to interact with the website and products to engage in the progression of the consumption.

Pepsi uses it's logo as the navigation for its cyber travel through the many cities and towns of the spotlighted DJ's and their music as well as the method to gain access to the many bits of information on Black History and the hottest car bobbles. Pepsi uses the logo dot as a way to gather followers much like that of the "Pied Piper" so I incorporated that concept into my project by having the viewer follow the dot and the images in the project also follow the dot.

I used the Diet Pepsi navigation as the background image for my project because it shows the more typical navigation of websites. I felt this would anchor the idea of this being related to websites as a marketing strategy and navigation as the primary tool to gain knowledge. I incorporated the Pepsi dot as the main source of navigation through the project to stay consistent with the "original" work and because, lets face it...it's kinda cool...

The other elements and images come from a variety of Google searches and screen shots of various Pepsi WebPages that I modified to varying degrees with Photoshop and Flash. I wanted to create an environment reminiscent of the Pepsi Worlds, but keep them somewhat "not Pepsi" so they could represent consumption of any product not just Pepsi. The ultimate mix of images from the Web and text from Adilkno and concepts of Clark's were intended to create an idea of what it is like to be manipulated by media and made to believe that we are dependant on the messages and products of our environment to exist in this society. The idea goes beyond the cyborgian cell phone and need for speed in the sense of Clark and becomes an extension of our soul expressed in the cyber-sense of images and semiotic meaning.

Take for example the image of the robot from iRobot juxtaposed against the text "Ultimately...blurring the boundary between conscious awareness, electronically manipulated space and media induced psychosis." As I see the image from the viewpoint of having seen the movie, I immediately place the image with the concept of conscious awareness. The manipulated space and psychosis follow suit by way of my own incorporation of the unseen scenes of Will Smith's character in the flick against the messages of The Media Archives previously viewed in this project Cyberbabble. The seen images, texts and unseen information brought to the mix via subconscious connection have created a new or detourned idea from the original information.

Therefore, it is up to the viewer to decipher the meaning based on their own externally interlaced concepts of reality and internal information defined by psychological manifestations of what they see and think as intelligent beings exposed to the images and text before them. In other words, the detournement is created by the process of mixing media and viewer and can be multiplied and determined by individual understanding and level of education and or intoxication. Therefore, I as the pseudo-creator of this project don't know what the hell this all means...except to my own ability to understand myself...so...you figure it out for yourself!