I attended Columbia’s Emerging Technologies Colloquium a few Saturdays ago and delved myself into the virtual reality world for the first time. Even though it was about a little over a month ago now, the experience is still resonant in my mind.

After listening to a talk by Columbia University’s State of AR/VR & the Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Lab, Steve K. Feiner, the colloquium broke for lunch and were invited to check out some of the Virtual Reality simulators that were set up around the room – I couldn’t wait to dive in! 

I have never engulfed myself into VR before, so I was very excited to experience it in an environment that was meant specifically for its exploration and play. There were eight devices set up around the room and the first VR experience I ‘dove’ into was an underwater one. From the computer screen, where you can see what the user is experiencing, it looked like the smoothest game play of all the other VR sets and I was looking forward to interacting with it. As soon as I went in, it was very immersive. I was at a single point a few meters below the water in what seemed like the ocean – what ocean it was though, I don’t have the slightest idea. There were different color coral and species of fish around me and I felt as if I could even touch them. I was trying to move to different spots at first with the controls but was unsuccessful, thinking I could swim around. The visuals were so beautiful though. Something I was able to do with the controls was slow down the scene around me, which was impactful. It made me notice smaller details like the sun’s rays on the shell of a sea turtle that swam by me. Also, the title for this specific underwater experience was “Sea Turtle” and thinking back at this moment reminds me of the Matrix when Neo notices the woman in the red dress – it looked and felt so real. Another title that I saw someone in was “Jelly Fish”. In that one a group of jelly fish pass by. Anyway, while I was immersed, a conversation was brought up about historical pedagogical uses for VR, such as being a witness to the Gettysburg address or some other significant place at a specific time. I was very much enjoying my VR underwater experience, but I couldn’t help but want to engage in the conversation, as well. Being plugged in though, I didn’t feel like I could converse with them about the topic, but when I came out, I discussed my interests in virtual tourism for pedagogical purposes. The handler of the machine was interested in this idea, as well, and told us that Google Earth is a good platform to play in, but while he was trying to change the platform to Google Earth, he informed us he wasn’t patched into an internet connection and was not able to show us at the time. 

Another Virtual Reality simulator I plugged into was a foreign language teaching tool. Once you had the gear on over your eyes and ears you were in a classroom. You are a student at a desk and there is a teacher at the front of the classroom. The teacher informs you about the language you are about to learn and then begins. The tutorial I was in was for Hebrew, but it malfunctioned and was not able to pick up my voice. The handler asked if it was working and I had to tell him it wasn’t and he, even more disappointed than me, took off my headset and told me he had to shut it down for the rest of the day. 

I am very intrigued by the direction VR can go in terms of pedagogical use and looking forward to watching this growth closely and hope to play in it more often, as well.

GC ITP Skills Labs: Intro to Photoshop Workshop
Monday, October 21^st, 2019

Last week I went to the “Intro to Photoshop Workshop” as part of the GC ITP Skills Labs taught by Jessica Brodsky.

As some background, I have never really worked with Photoshop, but I have worked with other photo editing programs such as Lightroom. I had always been interested in using Photoshop to be able to edit photos or create items.

The first thing that we learned about was the differences between vector and raster graphics, which I had heard of before but was never quite sure about. Vector graphics (such as logos) that are made using mathematical formulas. As the image is enlarged the image retains its figure. Raster graphics (such as digital photos) are made up of pixels (units of color information). As the image is enlarged it becomes pixelated.

Next, we went over color theory which showed how colors mixed with print as opposed to digital media. Then we discussed hues (colors) as opposed to saturation (how vivid a color appears. Finally, we went over brightness (how much objects appear to be reflecting light) and contrast (differences in brightness and colors that make image distinguishable). Brodsky also mentioned how working with the different layers in can preserve the original image so that any errors or mistakes can easily be mended or reverted.

We then went over the composition “Rule of Thirds” which discussed how key parts of an image is usually made “dynamic and interesting” when they align with intersecting points of a 3 by 3 grid. I had known of the “Rule of Thirds” previously but did not quite understand how it worked which I am glad we were able to go over.

After learning these items and adjusting an image on our own, we went over the different ways of saving our adjusted image. First saving the file as a photoshop document (ending in .psd), which saves each layer so that everything can still be kept separate, or saving the file as a digital image file (ending in .jpg), which compresses all of the layers together into one image. We also learned how to save a digital image file so that it is of print-quality resolution, which means having at least 300 dpi (dots per inch) / ppi (pixels per inch).

Although I had not used Photoshop previously, I had enough prior knowledge to quickly grasp the topics covered. For myself, a beginner class may not have been the best fit for me. However, for those who are looking into learning the basics and do not know where to start, I think this workshop was perfect. It was enough information to get a handle on things without being overwhelming.

Our readings for yesterday illuminated these news items for me:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-mark-zuckerberg-political-ads_n_5db0afa6e4b0d5b789454272 , esp. from 1:30, and the response, “Congresswoman, I would say that we’re not the one assessing…” (resonating esp. with Posner’s “See no Evil”).

and https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614487/meet-americas-newest-military-giant-amazon/?utm_campaign=site_visitor.paid.acquisition&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=tr_social&utm_content=keywee_paywall_retarget&kwp_0=1416678&fbclid=IwAR0Q6y3B6ZG100sBJS5QytU4SLBi-D09P3psgeWTa3WjWCQsXaqeUbmJ-6s
Last August, I was among a group of people arrested with an organization called JFREJ, at an event calling attention to Amazon’s role, with Palantir, in supplying surveillance tech to ICE. At a follow-up meeting, the question arose of whether to boycott Amazon. Reading this article led me to think about the likely demographic overlap of Americans who boycott Amazon (on policy grounds like these, rather than the consumption ones we discussed in class yesterday) and those who subscribe to the Washington Post. Bezos and Trump seem so similar and aligned in many ways, even as they perpetuate their public images as political and personal rivals. And as Bezos’ newspaper tries to profess and promote an ethics of care. The invisibility of tech makes it hard to figure out infrastructures, as I think was implied in Star’s article. And makes it harder to identify, and align with, the good guys.

On Tuesday I went to Digital Initiatives workshop on using on using Omeka.net. I’ve only ever interacted with Omeka as a user and didn’t have any experience using the platform. The presentation slides are on the Digital Initiatives website.

Omeka is a content management system (CMS) and publishing platform that is used by many archives, historical societies, and libraries to build digital exhibits and small collections of objects. Omeka focuses more on metadata than WordPress so it’s a good option for collecting higher amounts of data and still being able to organize and present themes and narratives. The presenter went over concerns that should be thought about before choosing a CMS for a project such as:

• metadata standards – what metadata standards do you want to use when importing your digital objects. Omeka defaults to Dublin Core but it can be customized
• file formats – what file formats will be included? There are standards for file formats that you should think about, and this will also help you manage your storage i.e. a TIFF will require more storage than a jpg
• information architecture – how do you envision accessibility and discoverability of your project
• rights and permissions – do you have the rights or permission to use all the objects that will be used in your project?
• sustainability – do you have the time to manage the project and update it when there are new versions of files available or to check compatibility with new media

The next part of the workshop was going through and using our test site to look at the different ways Omeka can be customized (we didn’t use Omeka S because of the cost and the extra features weren’t relevant for an introductory workshop), added individual items to the sites, and created a collection. The collections are comprised of items that are specifically curated to express a theme or narrative. I really liked the comparison that presenter mentioned where the items held in Omeka are the archive, but the collections are similar to pulling items out of the archive for a museum display.

Overall, the workshop was pretty easy and I found Omeka to be pretty accessible. I’ve used more complex CMSs tailored specifically for archives, so a lot of the interface looked pretty familiar. There was mention of an advanced Omeka workshop in the Spring that will focus creating exhibit and focus a bit on sustainability. The exhibits was the portion of Omeka I was particularly interested in so I’m looking forward to that.

Via CartoDB — Williamsburg in Monochrome: A Photographic Map

I. The premise for my mapping project draws its inspiration from our running class dialogue about the complicated ways in which we must all negotiate our subjectivity when leveraging digital software and tools to design and build maps. So, in approaching the praxis mapping assignment, I found that my core aim was to wrestle with the interplay between subject/object by integrating cartographic methods with monochromatic photography, in turn juxtaposing the overhead vantage point of traditional cartography with the first-person standpoint and embeddedness of photography. Intending to embrace a more reflexive and intimate approach to mapping, in other words, I wanted to challenge traditional cartography by considering the means by which a series of photographs could invite viewers to craft their own personal visual narrative about a geographic space. While I feel as though my project involves more aesthetic ways of knowing than the propositional or analytic epistemologies of traditional mapping methods, I still want to recognize the fact that this approach nevertheless depends on those same cartographic conventions, otherwise I wouldn’t have a prearranged map of Williamsburg to plot each of my black and white photos. I also want to note that while I cannot wholly unlearn the biases or inclinations of my eye as an amateur photographer, I did make a self-conscious effort to capture a wide array of material, ranging from traffic lights and church spires, to convenience stores and ripped fliers, to flagpoles and local graffiti. Taking the urban landscape of Williamsburg as my priority, and with late-stage gentrification as a key thematic focus in my daily routes, I ultimately elected not to embed any photographs of people, if only because I did not want to exploit their likeness for the sake of my project or its associated narratives. (Admittedly, I am also not too skilled at portrait photography.)

II. With the vast majority of us having combed through our fair share of Google Street View, I think I can speak for most people when I say that these photos are decidedly austere in their ~25,500TB attempt at rendering an “immersive geography” of the world, which is to say, the industrial world. To some extent, given the parameters of Google’s on-the-ground approach to cartography, this spare style is understandable and even somewhat expected, but I nonetheless feel as though it is important to the note that the Lovecraftian deity of Google did not shoot these photographs wholesale; rather, these interactive VR panoramas are only possible due to a process called image stitching, in which computer software quilts together an overlapping array of adjacent photographic images. Part of the inspiration for my map plays on this Big Data concept of global mastery — i.e. via capturing and showcasing a three-dimensional rendering of our local “street view” experience of the world — by photographing and mapping Williamsburg through the subjective vision of a single digital camera.

III. The offer a visual overview of my photographic map of Williamsburg, built more specifically with CartoDB, I’ve embedded three annotated screenshots below in order to demonstrate the visual identity of my map as it stands now.

IV. I see this project as a continual work-in-progress — one without an end in sight. In my mind, it is iterative, open to any and all collaborative efforts, reserved to a running state of flux and revision. As we seem to recognize as a class, maps are never subject to completion because the mere concept of “completion” in cartography is a representative fiction — or, better yet, an ever-persistent fantasy of corporate, colonial, and/or national hegemony. As far as my efforts go, in other words, I see this map as a draft in its beginning, ever in process and never quite complete.

I used this praxis as an exploratory step in what I hope will become a larger project and potentially my thesis/capstone work. Recently I had the opportunity to walk the area of downtown Manhattan that was known during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, roughly 1880-1940, as Little Syria with GC historian and president of the Washington Street Advocacy Group, Todd Fine and music historian Ian Nagoski. I have not lived very long in New York City, so going in my knowledge of the history of this area and people who had lived there was rudimentary at best. That being said, I wanted to learn more about this group of immigrants from the Eastern Mediterranean and their role in the history of New York City, especially as the perception of immigrants from this part of the world remains so highly contentious. I have a background in Islamic/Middle East Studies and Arabic language and have been looking for a bridge to connect my current study of the digital humanities with my previous work in the Middle East. I think this project may just be that bridge.

“I believe that you have inherited from your forefathers an ancient dream, a song, a prophecy, which you can proudly lay as a gift of gratitude upon the lap of America.”

– Khalil Gibran, I Believe in You (to the Americans of Syrian origin)

The walking experience of Little Syria was an incredible dive into the physical history of the area which was located on Washington Street, just south of the 9/11 memorial to Battery Park, but it was also an auditory exploration of recordings created by its residents, provided in the form of  a playlist by Ian Nagoski. The name Little Syria, can be a little misleading as it refers to the region of Greater Syria, which in the late 19th/early 20th century included parts of Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, and was given to the area because it was the origin point of the majority of the population who lived there. Most of the buildings in Little Syria were demolished when the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel was built in the 1940s, with just a few buildings remaining, including the St. George Chapel (white building on the right in the picture below, which was designated a New York City landmark in 2009 and is now home to the St. George Tavern).

This walking experience got me thinking about the past and how I might explore the intersections of the history of Little Syria, the history of New York City, the experience of the immigrant’s “American Dream”, and our relationship with immigrants, all within a hauntological (“always-already absent present”) framework (simple, right?!) and could I use some sort of map to do it? I knew that I would not have time to build anything even close to what I envision for a final project, but as with any project, you have to start somewhere.

I have experience mapping using many of the applications that we read about in “Finding the Right Tools for Mapping” and I was not sure which would be the best for this project but first I needed some data. I must admit that I fell down many of the same “rabbit holes” that I have fallen down in the past, including spending far too much time looking for data resources, learning there were none and then having to find and build my own datasets which (I knew from past experience) requires a ridiculous amount of time, though I do seem to always underestimate just how long it takes.

I began by playing around a bit in Mapbox with a very small dataset that I built of the locations of Syrian Periodicals in New York based on information from The Syrian American Directory Almanac (1930). It turned out to be nothing particularly exciting so I decided to build something in Storymaps, which was not particularly exciting either.

In the end, I am still not sure what direction this project is going but it was an interesting exploration with mapping applications.