Cybernetics and Inauguration Photos

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share this amazing photo synth tool I found on CNN. Here's a link to an article about the CNN photo synth to give some background. Read it and check out the tool, then share what you think of the experience and how it might be viewed from one of the communication traditions in our reading for chapter four.

I'll start us off by thinking about the tool from a cybernetics point of view. Cybernetics sees communications in a very technical way, which makes sense since it was founded by Norbert Wiener of M.I.T. "to describe the field of artificial intelligence" (Griffin, 2008, p.43). It's interesting to view such a human act as something so scientific. This photosynth tool takes pictures taken by thousands of people and combines them to make a virtual, visual experience that can give you almost any view of the event. Cybernetics views communication as a balance of uncertainty and information, which is simply the reduction of uncertainty. The whole time I was watching the inauguration on TV, I was wondering what it would really look like if I was there. I thought the same thing every time they showed people in the crowd. What would it be like to see it from their perspective? What would it be like to be able to move my head and choose what to see? So, this tool seems to balance that uncertainty about how the event really looked with loads of information. The tool expands on Shannon and Weaver's model of communication to make the information sources anyone with a digital camera who took snapshots (seemed to be everyone there) and uploaded them to CNN (the transmitter part. CNN then uses the software to create a signal from all the sources and send it to Internet receivers. I get the signal, but I get to move around to change the message to address any uncertainty I have with new info. That is just too cool!

There is a lot of noise in the communication, though. The tool is kind of jumpy and jittery. I bet they'll be able to work those bugs out of the system eventually though--that seems to be the whole goal of cybernetics according to Griffin.

I wonder how this technology will effect people though. I mean, why would I go freeze my butt off there if I can see more at home, from any angle I want? It's like, more real than really being there. I think that happens with sports sometimes also. I mean there will always be the fun of being in a crowd of excited people, but you can see the game so much better on TV. I also wonder what it would feel like to know your photos contribute to an event like this, to the history, to the journalism. Makes me a little jealous.