Mediaspace Potentials / Open Video Conference / 19.6.2009

Mediaspace Potentials
Kari-Hans Kommonen
Arki / Media Lab
University of Art and Design Helsinki TAIK
khk@taik.fi • http://arki.uiah.fi

19.6.2009 • Open Video Conference

Mediaspace Potentials / Kari-Hans Kommonen / Arki · Media Lab TAIK / 19.6.2009 1

Context for Open Video
- digitalization of society
- emergence of the Mediaspace
- characteristics of the Mediaspace
- Mediaspace potentials
- designability and the openness of the Mediaspace


Evolution of the digital dimension


Computer as Metamedium
Alan Kay, Adele Goldberg: Personal Dynamic Media
“Although digital computers were originally designed to do
arithmetic computation, the ability to simulate the details of any
descriptive model means that the computer, viewed as a medium
itself, can be all other media if the embedding and viewing
methods are sufficiently well provided. Moreover, this new
“metamedium” is active—it can respond to queries and
experiments—so that the messages may involve the learner in a
two-way conversation.”


Foundation of the Networked Information
Economy
- networked, ubiquitous, compatible metamedia
- infinitely flexible, continuously evolving, individually
customized, zero material cost, global, shared design platform


Driven by pragmatic economics and efficiency
Digital technology brings dramatic increases in efficiency. Most
systems and structures in society will eventually take advantage of
this. It becomes expensive and solitary to not go digital.
The convergence of all kinds of activities and applications in the
same equipment, and the special characteristics of software, make
this development fast and pervasive.
Digitalization influences all people and all areas of life; also those
who want to choose not to get involved. Strong dependencies are
created; opportunities and competitiveness are at stake.
People need to be able to make a living and take advantage of the
digital potential and design their own digital lives.

Digitalization of the Media Environment
Digitalization and the global, ubiquitous network bring about
fundamental structural transformations also for the media
environment.
The rigid hardware based channels of the past turn into flexible
software structures in the digital dimension, a global
metamedium.
-> From channels to a space – the Mediaspace


Key characteristics of the Mediaspace

hard boundaries  soft boundaries
one-to-many  many-to-many
consumer/receiver  creator/distributor
mass media  diverse media


Media is where society thinks
The society negotiates its beliefs and designs in the various media
that its members share.
Redesign of the media environment leads to redesign of the
societal thinking process.


Mediaspace potentials
Open Changing Individual
Unbounded Reconfigurable Shareable
Available Redistributable Software

Addressable Interconnected
Structured Navigable
Semantic Organizable


Potentials 1
Open Unbounded Available
Everyone has Due to digital The Mediaspace is
access to the flexibility, media a memory system
Mediaspace as user is freed from its that keeps media
and creator, as containers and available if we can
editor and packaging identify it, either
distributor with identity or
metadata


Potentials 2
Addressable Structured Semantic
Media of interest Media entities Metadata describes
can be identified have internal media content and
with an address structures that meaning in
that makes it make it possible machine-readable
available and to address and way, either within
linkable. refer to their it or externally
parts. linked to its
structures. Makes
media findable,
searchable,
organizable.


Potentials 3
Changing Reconfigurable Redistributable
Programs can Media can be Media can be
change and evolve reconfigured by redistributed by
dynamically; anyone at any anyone.
creators and time to create new
communities can versions.
design their media
for managing and
exploiting such
change.


Potentials 4
Interconnected Navigable Organizable
Any program or Media is not Media can be
fragment of media constrained to organized by
can be connected linear formats, it anyone, by giving
in unlimited ways, can be designed as it new layers of
and using multiple a navigable space metadata, and
strategies, to any where directions these organizations
other media; of movement can can be selectively
connections are be offered by connected to the
designed, random, multiple media and shared.
or software strategies.
created.


Potentials 5
Individual Shareable Designable
Digital flexibility Media can be As a new form of
makes it possible shared with digital software,
for everyone to anyone who is media is now
configure their connected to the designable in
view of the Mediaspace. content, form and
Mediaspace – the Software based function. Software
Personal sharing strategies powered media
Mediascape – in a form powerful can be designed to
completely tools for evolving support and
individual way. communities. facilitate complex
practices.


Examples
Digital television
- None of these potentials, expect when media is captured and
moved to the Mediaspace
P2P file sharing
- availability, semantic at a file level – files can be found based
on their names, that have a semantic encoding
YouTube
- provides universal availability and addressability and semantic
support with tags
- no internal structure – the clip is the limit of granularity – no
support for reconfigurability


Examples
Sharing Media
I watch news and see something I want to share with my friend.
I should be able to simply send him a link with the address of the
pre-structured and pre-annotated news program.
Anyone in any social media (Twitter etc.) should be able to quote
and comment with such a link and also get access to the original
media.


Examples
Collection management
I should be able to easily manage my media collections, both
video that I create myself and the video I see. Metadata could be
attached to any video when it is made, and my systems of
viewing video could maintain a personal metadata history of what
I have seen – according to my preferences, of course.
Access management
I need sophisticated control of who can access my personal
videos and the metadata I connect to media. Some of these I
want to share with anyone, some with various groups, and some
with no-one.

Concerns of closedness
Centralized servers
What happens to my media, my community, my history, my
social network (substitute any X), if the service Y
- does something with my material that I do not like?
- goes out of business?
- changes its terms of service?
- stops supporting a feature I rely on?
- is bought and moves its servers and data into a country whose
laws do not protect me?


Software Powered Media
- media is increasingly media data, dynamic metadata and
software functionality combined – not just static data files
- e.g. software combines videos or songs based on tags and
recommendations into individually customized program
streams
- the digital flexibility of software powered media makes it
possible for new design to be applied externally without
touching the original design (e.g. mashups, social enrichment)
– the more so the more open the original design is


Designability as Openness
- increasingly, software powered media are embedded in
everyday life and its practices
- increasing sophistication and importance of practices creates
increasing need and interest for custom design
- design moves closer to users
- designability becomes increasingly important
- designability depends on designs, capabilities, and skills
- open modifiable designs, toolkits, metadata driven software
- designability is a good measure of openness – openness is
design potential


Key Potentials for Openness
Structured
- internal structures that address also fragments of media
Semantic
- ways to describe meaningful media and fragments
Addressable
- universal addressing across applications and systems
Designable
- tools for building software powered media applications that
can take advantage of these potentials and can reconfigure
media according to strategies designed by users, to support
the practices they invent

Concrete wishes for the Open Mediaspace
- most popular video formats and editing software
infrastructures and platforms are not open and ubiquitous
enough and have constraints for realizing the key potentials
(e.g. QuickTime, Flash, MPEG-4, YouTube)
- open developments and standards hopefully recruit enough
developer and user community to provide more open and
sustainable designable alternatives
- design for designability – facilitate design by others
- challenge large institutions (broadcasters, publishers etc.) to
consider the potentials, upgrade their media and environments


Thank you!

Kari-Hans Kommonen,
Media Lab, University of Art and Design Helsinki TAIK
khk@taik.fi


Mediaspace Potentials / Open Video Conference / 19.6.2009

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