Transcoding place

This thesis explores a cultural phenomenon called Crude Awakening, which brings to attention a global crisis - our dependence on oil. The case study analyzes a communicative ecology between a live performance and it’s video documentation. The research combines close reading and semantic differentials methods as a means of understanding the relationships between what people posted to YouTube, the system design and the live performance. The goal is to define the dynamics of this communicative ecology as a means of interpreting semantic space, sometimes defined as aesthetics, for understanding how people interpret - meaning. The findings are to provide a framework for designing software architecture that can contextualize information, and define a broader context for discussing the hybridization of technology and culture in today’s digital world. I argue that digital social architecture, unlike traditional architecture, is a fluid system that evolves and changes along side social movements.