History of the Internet, Chess Pieces, Second Life, Ken Perlin

The History of the Internet documentary was very well done. It focused very well on the humble beginnings of the single most important technology of the past century. The film managed to get a huge amount of information and history across within an impressively short time frame. It also managed to explain a lot of technical aspects of the internet, like packet-switching systems, without resorting to too much unfriendly technical jargon.

Upon viewing the Documentary about John Cage's Chess Pieces, I found it to be a pretty heavy lecture, rather stale and void of passion. However, the film did do very well to cement John Cage as an amazing multimedia artist. Through Chess Pieces, he managed to create a piece that was both visually beautiful, but also had an accompanying soundtrack, all achieved through the medium of paint. Whereas a modern artist might use a computer to create a combined audio-visual piece, Cage used traditional media of paint and music composition to create something new through combination.

The articles on Second Life that describe car shows, orchestras, and performers, were really fascinating to me. Though the novelty of second life may wear off after a time, it holds an interesting role in cyberspace. Second Life exists as a virtual land of do-as-you-please, in which any user can create content, given the right skill set. However, this is essentially what the web is all about. In an age where more and more people are computer-literate, the web itself is a kind of second life, where everyone is now creating content and interacting based on that content. What Second Life really offers is a visualization in 3d space of shared content, which in and of itself is actually very important. The appeal of Second Life lies in the fact that it is simply the internet represented in 3d as a landscape. Instead of websites, Second Life users rent "sims", plots of land on which they can place any content they wish. Second Life's success lies in that it take the two dimensional display of a web browser, and brings it into a novel, three dimensional display. Whether it will evolve enough to last is difficult to say.

Seeing Ken Perlin's work first hand, as explained by him was a great view into the mind of someone so passionate about computer technology. While much of his work is related to AI, and replicating human though processes and theatricality, it is clear that he truly believes that computers can make the world a better place, and that technology is key in education. While playing around with the applications on his site was interesting and fun, hearing Ken explain the intent behind them really gave me a deep respect for him and his work