Category: Assignment 5: Digital Identies 2

Assignment 5: Digital Identies 2

  • Use your tutor’s feedback on Assignment Four to help you develop your digital identities project to the point of resolution.

The method of presentation that you choose for your project should be appropriate to, and complement, the work you make. Your work may suit a print-based submission, or it may be appropriate to present your work in a book, audio-visual form, web-based project or installation.

Your project should involve substantial artistic investigation, and the method of presentation should do your efforts justice. You should view the project as the culmination of the Digital Image and Culture course.

Include a 500-word text that contextualises your project and provides a self-evaluation.

TUTOR EEDBACK

The initial plan was to use assignment 5 to collect material and to start to think about presentation and for assignment 6 to be the refinement of this presentation. It may be that the project does not reach a final conclusion but you rather reach a stopping point. You outlined that was similar to your current experience with assignment 2.

LINKS FROM TUTOR:

These links are helping me with ideas of how to arrange my work when I have it assembled (1,2):

  1. Tate. 2019. Taryn Simon: ‘A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters’ – TateShots | Tate. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/taryn-simon-11458/taryn-simon-living-man-declared-dead-and-other-chapters. [Accessed 10 August 2019].

2. Tate. 2019. Wolfgang Tillmans: 2017 – Exhibition at Tate Modern | Tate. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/wolfgang-tillmans-2017. [Accessed 10 August 2019].

My tutor also provided two movies of more conventional book presentations one by Homar Sykes and another by Harry Borden My preferred presentation is Tary Simon but I also like Wolfgang Tillmans.

HOW DID WE GET HERE ON THE DIGITAL SUPERHIGHWAY?

ARTIST STATEMENT:

The reasons I chose this project are many and varied. Having looked at and researched my own digital self I began to think about how all this Internet connectivity started.

My husband was one of the first graduates of Information Science in 1969. The whole area of information collection and distribution fascinated him. He was asked by the Irish Government to represent Ireland on the original EU committee set up to discuss how information could be shared in Europe.  He went on to head the team which set up the first European network.

Another reason for doing this project was that my grandchildren are unaware that their grandfather played such a pivotal role in the origins of the Internet.

Finally I wanted  to try to understand why my husband is not an active participant in most social media platforms.

Collecting the information:

  1. ….the ABC (C0MPUTER) began development by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry in 1937. Its development continued until 1942 at the Iowa State College (now Iowa State Universi

 

 

 In 1941 Hedy Lamar, the Hollywood film star, and George Anthiel invented a system of manipulating radio frequencies between transmission and reception which meant messages could not be decoded. Many years later this ground breaking ‘spread spectrum’ technology  formed the bases of digital communications.(1)

  • Computers that could run stored programmes soon followed. IBM’s computer appeared in 1953. Computers with Random-access memory (RAM) followed in 1955.
  • The first minicomputer appeared in 1960 and the desktop in 1964(2).
  • 1971 Intel produced the first microprocessor. It was designed for use in calculators, automated teller machines and cash machines.
  • 1975: The first portable computer (PC).
  • 1985: We bought our first PC was a Commodore PET

The Internet Timeline

  • During the 50s, 60s and 70s researchers, both in  Europe and the USA, were seeking ways of sharing relevant research.
  • 1966 Dr Toy Kent, a UK zoologist and ornithologist, wrote programmes to retrieve text based chemical paper information from databases. He was distributing this information to chemists and assessing the value of the results of his retrieval program.
  • 1968: We moved to London and my husband, Barry Mahon, started his MSc in Information Science in City University.
  • 1969: Barry wrote his MSc thesis. The title was “Selective Dissemination of Information” (3) Once material was indexed and could be retrieved it was then necessary that computers could be linked and could talk to one another and users could access the data on these computers. The information had to be in such a form that it could be carried from one computer to another independently of what type of computer it was or what software was being used.
  • Some mechanism for shaking hands between the computers and transporting the information was necessary. The ‘shake hands’ mechanism is called a Protocol and the information transportation is called Packet Switching.
  • Circuit Switching: Before Packet Switching information was transported by circuit switching. The “circuit” is dedicated to the two communicating devices it connects for the duration of that connection. It was more suitable for voice than data.
  • 1964: Packet Switching: Packet switched networks are networks that send and receive data in the form of packets. When a document is sent, it is broken up into a series of packets that make usually contain around 1,000 or 1,500 bytes of information. (4)  Baran in the US and Donald Davies in the UK were both working on package switching networks at the same time.

 

 

 

 

 

  • Many different protocols were being created in different research centres  and proprietary ones by computer manufattureres in both USA and in Europe.
  • 1971:  The Council of Ministers of the European member states agreed to create a Network, later named EURONET, for the collection and distribution of Scientific and Technical Information (STI) in the European Community. A European wide launch team was formed, with Barry as head, to make this happen

 

 

 

  • 1973: In the USA Vint Cerf and Robert Elliot Kahn worked to introduce ARPANET. It was funded by ARPA and the Department of Defence. Four University computers were connected originally, California in Los Angeles, the Stanford Research Institute, the University of California in Santa Barbara and the University of Utah. This was called the Internetting project and the system of networks which emerged from the research was known as the “Internet.” (5)
  • 1976 CERNET: In  Europe CERN (CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research) had created  its own network – CERNET – to circulate their own research information.
  • 1980: Unlike in the USA it was decided that it would be impossible to achieve this type of network using private enterprise, in Europe.Therefore it was decided to try to get the PTTS(Post & Telecommunications)  to work together to provide  this network. The data communications network was based on the French TRANSPAC software. Nodes or exchanges were set up in Frankfurt, London, Paris and Rome and ‘user terminals’ in Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Dublin and Luxembourg. EURONET used X.25 package switching for its network. It was launched in Strasburg in 1980 by Simone Weil and Roy Jenkins.
  • Once established it was decided that the PTTs could privatise EURONET.
  • DIANE was the name given to the content that could be accessed through EURONET.
  • X-25: X.25 is the name given to a suite of protocols used for packet-switched wide area network (WAN)communication. Defined by the International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee in 1976, X.25 had the original purpose of carrying voice signals over analog telephone lines.(6) This network uses packet switching with physical links consisting of linked lines, telephone cables or ISDN connections. This was the network protocol used originally in 1970 by the PTTs. X.25 was used for EURONET DIANE. The European communities funded a number of development projects with mainframe computer manufacturers to create X.25 interfaces. X.25 was used widely internationally  throughout the 80s and 90s covering a large amount of the globe. It was the first international and commercial packet switching network. It was complicated and heavy weight. It is only used today for ATM machines and credit card verification. X.25 was slow and was eventually replaced by another protocol TCP/IP
  • 1973: TCP/IP: A system, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). was being worked on by Robert Elliot Kahn and Vinton Gray “Vint” Cerf, in the US, which is the system still being used today on the Internet. The first version of this predecessor of modern TCP was written in 1973, then revised in 1974.Today’s IP networking represents a synthesis of several developments that began to evolve in the 1960s and 1970s, namely the Internet and LANs (Local Area Networks), which emerged in the mid- to late-1980s, together with the advent of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s.(7)
  • By 1986 networks were becoming commercial

World Wide Web

1989 Tim Berners Lees put his idea of HTML (which was first described in a paper by Vannevar Bush in 1945) pages to his boss in CERN.(8).] This is the first World Wide Web idea. Berners_lee’s boss thinks the idea is vague but has potential. Berners Lee works on the idea and puts it to a meeting in Paris. Barry was there. No one seemed very interested in Berners-Lee’s idea. He continued to work on his idea using HTM which is the language for writing Web pages. It consists of elements to describe things like a paragraph.

1990: By October of 1990, Berners Lee had written the three fundamental technologies that remain the foundation of today’s web

  • HTML (Hypertext Markup Language)
  • HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). In 1991, Berners-Lee outlined the motivation for the new protocol and listed several high-level design goals: file transfer functionality, ability to request an index search of a hypertext archive, format negotiation, and an ability to refer the client to another server.[High Performance Browser Networking. 2019. HTTP: Brief History of HTTP – High Performance Browser Networking (O’Reilly). [ONLINE] Available at: https://hpbn.co/brief-history-of-http/. [Accessed 25 August 2019].]
  • URLS (Uniform Resource Locator)

 

  • by the end of 1991, the Internet grew to include some 5,000 networks in over three dozen countries, serving over 700,000 host computers used by over 4,000,000 people.(9)

Hangout discussions follow-up: Hangout 22 sept 2019:

Kate513940 :

Alan514056
…….
No one predicted the role that pornography would play in driving commerce and bandwidth, for example. And I don’t remember anyone waxing eloquent on the use of the Superhighway for the propagation of spam, spoofing, phishing, bots and fake news. Like most things human, it’s a mixed bag – but the story was pretty one-sided in the early days.

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METHOD of PRESENTATION

Instead of a scroll following a suggestion from Kate in the hangout I decided to use dot matrix paper. I think this will be more relevant and easier to present. My tutor also liked this idea.

The print paper will be protected inside two covers:

The ‘book’ making process:

  1. I sourced and bought a suitable front cover image on iStock.
  2. I printed this on Museum etching paper as I like the dull finish – it was a little too heavy at 350grm.
  3. I then sourced a suitable back cover paper. I chose 200grm black slightly textured craft paper.
  4. My husband cut two covers from hardboard:
  5. I then cut the front and back covers to size leaving about 4cms extra all round.
  7. I glued these on to the board using PVA glue.
  8. These were left to dry under heavy weights.
  9. The inside cover paper were cut from A3 white paper and glued with a layer of the dot matrix paper in  between the cover and the inside cover page.
  10. Made video/audio of the Superhighway story with husband
  11. Cleaned the video off leaving only the audio. Cleaned this audio up.
  12. Left file with printer and decided with him what paper could/shoudl be used(2.4m long)
  13. I folded the printed scroll in a concertina before sticking it to the dot matrix paper.
  14. I used PVA glue but this was a mistake as it was too heavy. I used 3M 75 for the final few pages which worked better. Left all to dry.
  15. Set up lights for  making videos. I made video of turning the pages of the book, I made this while playing the audio of my husband talking on the computer. I had to repeat this several times to try to get the page turning and the audio in sync.

 

16. I exported the video/audio to Vimeo and put it up for discussion on the Side Wide Hangout

THE FINAL PRINT:

The scroll print:

 

 

The video:

https://vimeo.com/373432134

Hangout Discussion on 17th november 2019:

Got some good feedback on hangout from Five, Kate, Alan and Karen. Basically it involved re-working the video which I have outlined in my assignment diary.

Final video version:

HAVE I SUCCEEDED IN MY AIMS WITH THIS PROJECT?

  • With this work I wanted to show the role my husband, Barry Mahon, and his colleagues played in the setting up of the Internet. My aim in doing this was that their story would not be lost in what has become, with the World Wide Web(WWW), an information juggernaut. The project covers a twenty year period from 1969 to 1989. These are the pre WWW days without which the Internet, as we know it today, could never have existed. I feel I have achieved this.
  • From the outset I wanted to make this a visual project. I wanted to make it comprehensible to the youngest of our grandchildren as well as to the least technical person who might view it. I think I have managed to do this with a difficult technical subject.

HOW I ACHIEVED THIS

  • My first step was to discuss the project with my family. I searched our own family archives to see what material we had retained from the period. Because we have moved frequently during our lifetime and because we have a policy of travelling light we had not retained a lot of material. Most of what I needed was in our heads. I made contact with a number of my husbands ex colleagues. Most of them are approaching or are already in their eighties. Only two of them showed any interest in the project. I contacted the European Parliament Communication department to see what archived material they had retained. I was a little shocked at the lack of material. They did send me some photos which were of peripheral interest but not central to my story. They promised to digitise Simone Weil and Roy Jenkin’s official opening of EURONET, for me. I am still waiting for this.
  • I met up with a gentleman in Dublin, John Sterne, who has set up a technology archive online. His main interest was the part played by Ireland and Irish researchers during this period. His input, especially about the ‘Protocol Wars’, was interesting and useful, if somewhat biased.
  • I researched the papers and books my husband and his colleagues had written on the subject. Most were too technical to be considered. I tried to find interesting or amusing images of the time but these were serious researchers and did not bother making pictorial records of their work.
  • Having collected as much material as I thought I might need I cut out a sort of highway from material. I attached this to my studio wall and made a sort of timeline. I attached development dates and images to my timeline. This helped to visualise how the Internet had developed and how my project might do so.
  • I considered many different methodologies of presenting the work(10). I presented it twice for discussion at side wide hangouts. My original idea was to make a series of individual images. I rejected this in favour of making a book. I then discussed putting the work on a scroll with my peer group from the hangout. Finally on a prompt from one of my fellow students I decided to attach the printed work to dot matrix paper.
  • I had to make the audio and video separate and getting it synchronised proved extremely difficult and I do not think I have succeeded very well in this.
  • I again put it up for discussion at a Hangout and got invaluable help with hw to improve my first video attempt.
  • I feel I have succeeded up to a point with this project. Because the subject is so vast and often too technical I was unable to include much of the material I had researched. The subject is totally open-ended so I decided to limit my project to a twenty year time frame. This means the project is unfinished.

TUTOR FEEDBACK

OCA Mahon 2DIC05 25 Nov 19

 

REFERENCES:

  1. Hedy Lamarr: Invention of Spread Spectrum Technology. 2019. Hedy Lamarr: Invention of Spread Spectrum Technology. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.women-inventors.com/Hedy-Lammar.asp. [Accessed 14 August 2019].
  2. When was the first computer invented?. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm. [Accessed 10 August 2019].
  3. Selective dissemination of information was a concept first described by Hans Peter Luhn of IBM in the 1950s. Selective dissemination of information – Wikipedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_dissemination_of_information. [Accessed 13 August 2019].)
  4. Packet Switched Networks – Introduction to CIS. 2019. Packet Switched Networks – Introduction to CIS. [ONLINE] Available at: https://sites.google.com/site/cis115textbook/packet-switched-networks. [Accessed 15 August 2019].] Paul
  5. [Internet Society. 2019. A Brief History of the Internet & Related Networks | Internet Society. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet-related-networks. [Accessed 21 August 2019].]
  6. [Techopedia.com. 2019. What is X.25? – Definition from Techopedia. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/5791/x25. [Accessed 16 August 2019].]
  7. [TCP/IP – Complete History of the TCP/IP Protocol Suite. 2019. TCP/IP – Complete History of the TCP/IP Protocol Suite. [ONLINE] Available at: https://history-computer.com/Internet/Maturing/TCPIP.html. [Accessed 15 August 2019].]
  8. [cern.info.ch – Tim Berners-Lee’s proposal. 2019. cern.info.ch – Tim Berners-Lee’s proposal. [ONLINE] Available at: http://info.cern.ch/Proposal.html. [Accessed 25 August 2019]
  9. [[Internet Society. 2019. A Brief History of the Internet & Related Networks | Internet Society. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet-related-networks. [Accessed 21 August 2019].]
  10. wikiHow. 2019. 3 Ways to Make a Scroll – wikiHow. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Scroll. [Accessed 09 September 2019].

YouTube videos on the History of the Internet:

Sound references:

Text references: