In my last post I touched upon what I hope to get from engaging with a technological artwork. I noted:

"My favourite digital art projects are ones in which technology is de-mystified (or mystified in wonderful way which draws attention to just how dependent we have become on it).

I love it when I come away from an art work:

a) thinking (hopefully in a new way about a technology);
b) thinking I would like to try and make something like that, and
c) thinking I now have some idea of how to go about doing it myself."

I thought it would be fun to track through an example of my 'abc of thinking' in a live example. So here goes...

One of the many things that I have been enjoying over the last two weeks is 'Web 2.0 :The Machine is Us/ing Us' (I even embedded it in my personal blog over at 'betwixt and between'). It is kind of easy to be sniffy about the use of the expression 'Web 2.0' but that quibble aside, I think this piece is excellent ( and I have already shown it to group of students). I like the economy of this video. Michael Wesch provides a semester's worth of provocations (points to discuss?) in just over four minutes. I also enjoyed the way in which the commentary is interlaced into html in one section (like easter-eggs in lines of code).

As you can see, I found myself 'thinking'. I found myself scouring the net for commentary. For example, there is an interesting post by Jess Laccetti . I also found myself thinking 'I would like to try and make something like that'.

I got lucky yesterday because I stumbled across an interview with Prof. Wesch on John Battelle's Searchblog . One of the interesting nuggets tucked away in the comments to this interview is the software, camstudio - used by Wesch to make the screencasts he includes in his video. Now I appreciate that it takes more than just access to software to produce something as elegant as 'The Machine is Us/ing Us' but I can't help thinking that one of the steps on that road is to be able to have a go! Camstudio is released under a GPL licence so that it is effectively free. It is also downloadable. It runs on windows, however, which is good for my home use but not good for the daytime if you work in a Mac-centric department.

It was at this point that I realized that I needed a search term - 'screencasting' or 'screen capture' perhaps so that I could find equivalent software for the Mac. I happened upon a couple of useful blog postings and I was already spoilt for choice. I also had a 'search term' with which to approach the more technically-inclined members of my department. I have often found that it is best to research an issue first so that I can refine my question to the extent that it can be answered in a meaningful way. Suggestions I got back from this 'wetware' search included - Seminar and iShowU . I have yet to try any of these (so please do not consider this a recommendation). However, I am going to try something soon.

I guess the activity described above is the process I was trying to summarize in my last post!