Technology has had a different role in
our project compared to most of the other projects
of
our multimedia classmates. Although we certainly use
a huge amount of it, we did not want it to be the central
focus.
Technology to us was a set of tools to be evaluated
based on the goals that we set for the project, not
the other way around.
At the inception of our project group, we proposed an
interactive video project using the newly announced
MPEG-4 technology. Although the implications of this
format were (and still are) very exciting, the idea
never felt solid. This is largely due to the fact that
project ideas were coming based on how we could use
MPEG-4, and not an idea that demanded its use.
So as the group abandoned interactive video in favor
of more personal interests, technology started to
take a
bit of a back seat in favor of more artistic and social
motivations. It is this focus on the more humanist
elements
of the multimedia field that the BetaSpace group never
lost.
If the Web was going to be our project media, then
we needed to choose formats that were accessible for
delivery;
the obvious choice for a multimedia presentation on
the Web was Flash MX-- probably the only piece of
technology
that lasted through the whole project.
Additionally, we tried to embrace the spirit of the
Web when choosing our technologies as well. We were
all
initially excited about using ColdFusion MX, but quickly
found that because the Internet world embraces open
source technology with great intensity, our greatest
hopes lay elsewhere. Hence the group's decision to
go
with the PHP MySQL combo-- a somewhat harder technology
to use but one that has much broader acceptance than
ColdFusion.
Although the decision to constantly keep technology
as a subservient element to the overall project has
been limiting at times, the idea of always bringing
the conceptual and social aspects of the project to
the fore was something every group member felt strongly
about. The tenacity with which the BetaSpace team
has
held on to the idea that technology is subservient
to human interests has bred a project that we not
only
feel strongly about, we are thus more dedicated to
it as practitioners of this media.
e believe that current
Web authoring technologies have not yet been used to their fullest creative
potential. There have been so many advances in the Web
development industry in the past few years that artists have scarcely had
the chance to catch up to the limitless possibilities that the current multimedia
authoring tools provide. 
