Creativity and New Media

     I created an avatar in Second Life that I was honestly not pleased because I wanted something that is complicated but unique at the same time. However, I did not disappoint, I did find a video that I would like for you to see in tribute to the king of pop Michael Jackson. Then see the Second Life version of Michael Jackson performing my favorite song, Smooth Criminal. It's amazing to look at the details of every move he makes is almost exactly just like the original. Hope you Enjoy peeps!!!

Smooth Criminal Concert

Smooth Criminal Second Life

Creativity

    Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? This holds true in the way we think ourselves, whether you look at yourself in the mirror or you see yourself on a more deeper level, it's evident we have a gift creativity waiting to be unlocked. However, how do we develop this sense of creativity that lies in eye of every beholder?
    New media acts as a catalyst in our creative thinking to birth fresh ideas like the iPad, Facebook, Twitter, the Internet and several more. For example, a way new media fosters creativity is through mashups. Let me explain, have you ever heard of remix of a song that sounded sometimes better than the original song? You might have noticed a two or more people in the song especially if they never sung a song together basically "mashed" together to make the song seamlessly sound in sync. Here's an example of a video mashup, the first video is Crank That by Soulja Boy, the mashup is the 2nd video involving Disney characters.

Soulja Boy by Crank That

Winnie the Pooh Mashup

     Although this mashup parody is interesting and funny to see, Disney's legal advisers are tolerating this kind of misuse to their prized characters. Why you ask? In my opinion, it's all politics. This mashup was created five months after Soulja Boy Crank That first came out. In order for people to become more aware of the Winnie the Pooh cast and make more money due to the songs' success and popularity, it's a win-win situation. According to this " the song hot No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this month" (Barnes, 2009) I don't see why not take the opportunity.

References

Brooks Barnes (2007, September 24) Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of it's Critters. But Why? Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/business/media/24crank.html

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

     Have you ever imagined a place that you never been? Or wanted to relive? Maybe, you wanted to recreate that experience for you to reminisce on or to share your experience with others who hasn't been there. If you can relate to this feeling of nostalgia, than your in luck because in our world today, we provide plenty of online software for those users that are interested to have a chance to recreate this "life".
     An example of modeling reality using virtual worlds is a program called Second Life. One of the different ways that this program can be used to create virtual worlds is to recreate a Chelsea hotel involving a murder in room 100 in 1978. "Michael Brown, an Internet technology support manager and singer-songwriter living in rural southwestern Pennsylvania" (Knafo, 2009) came up with the idea to recreate his view of this hotel. Here's his perspective of his reality of the Chelsea:

Michael Brown

     Did you notice the details of even the painting on the right hand side of the picture? If not, it shows a picture of a hotdog-looking dog with "Chelsea Dog" tattooed on it's side. If you think that's something then I bet you wouldn't believe that politicians uses Second Life also. Let me explain, a Linden Labs worker was at a congressional subcommittee hearing that was broadcasting simultaneously in the company's own Second Life virtual world on a projected screen. The reason for them using Second Life in their presentation were to highlight a few questions like: Can Second Life be used to launder money? Is it safe for children? Can you make any money from this world? Basically, politicians are using Second Life as a tool to figure out if it's possible to enact criminal activities without out anyone knowing. Here's an example of a person in Second Life of a political party:

As you may already know there are pros and cons to virtual worlds. A few pros are:

• You escape the realities of this world for something more fulfilling to you.
• You can use virtual worlds to get a picture of how you may want design a place.
• You can use virtual worlds to fight crime by create scenarios in virtual worlds.
• It's a great way to bring people together and collaborate with each other.

A few cons are:

• Security flaws 
• People can become more anti-social by living on Second Life 24-7.
• Subject to terrorist plots by recreating environments and planning how to bomb them.
• Can also be easily distracted while in virtual worlds.
• "Launder Money" (Musgrove, 2008).

     As you already figured, it's something about virtual worlds that has a way to foster creativity. Based on these two images you can see that all you really need to create your own world is an imagination. Even blind people who haven't seen before, too have dreams that cannot be explained. Where does this come from? So as you can see this idea of thinking of something and creating it into existence is something is innate in all of us. I mean God spoke light into existence and we're created in his image are not? So think t your self for a moment, have you ever felt that if you knew now what you didn't know then, boy would things be different. Marrying that man that you knew was wrong for you, not having that child at a vulnerable age (God knows you love them), overcoming the anxiety of people telling you are not good enough, failing that test and the list goes on. One thing I think we all can agree on is that we all have problems and that we've made mistakes as a result of it and only if we had a Second Life I would be better off or so we may think. 

     With technology currently improving year after year after year we have to ask ourselves the question concerning virtual worlds, what will it look like? In my opinion, virtual worlds in the future may have such an impact in that we won't be able to distinguish between the two of reality and fiction because the virtual worlds are being built right before your very eyes. Look at Facebook, we have some people who live on Facebook for hours (You know who you are) and you can't get in touch with them physically face-to-face, only online. Look at reality TV shows as another example, these shows couldn't be any further away from the truth of reality but our minds gain weight on the lies they convey to us and try to implement those same misunderstood principals in own lives. If you ask me, virtual worlds are just the beginning when it comes to what people can think of. People are currently working on a 3-D printer. We are making imagination a reality but is it good for us? Let's see in the next 40 yrs.

References

Saki Knafo (2009, May 1) Chelsea: In Room 100, It's Sid and Nancy All Over Again. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/nyregion/thecity/03virt.html?_r=0

Mike Musgrove (2008, April 1) At Hearing, Real and Virtual Worlds Collide. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/01/ST2008040103032.html