Essay Exhibits

I really enjoyed the essay exhibit last week. I thought this concept of going around and viewing other classmates’ work as they viewed mine was very interesting and unique because most of the time classes have their students present in front of the whole class. But this time, through the essay exhibit, I was able to see almost everyone’s presentations, learning about what they are going to present and also how they went about their studies.

After looking at my classmates’ exhibits, there were two that I found most interest. The first exhibit that I genuinely liked was Sam Schmader’s. In his exhibit, he focused on the topic of electronic sports, which I found out was is a competition of sports through electronic systems. The one thing I really enjoyed about Sam’s presentation was its interactivity. Before I has no idea what esports was, but Sam included a video of the competition, ESL ONE that was in Cologne, Germany. Through this video, along with his findings, Sam’s presentation showed me that these competitions gain thousands of people and unlike regular game, where people play on their own time, those who play on esports teams act just like a regular sports team- having coaches, teammates, and team practices.

The other exhibit I enjoyed looking at was Montana Mang’s. In her exhibit, Montana looked at Anonymous, a Hacktivist group that is known for supporting people’s rights to free speech and right of information. Not knowing much about the group Anonymous, I really liked that Montana focused on some of the hacking jobs they have done in the past, such as Project Chanology, which Montana told was a “cyber attack on the Church of Scientology because the church showed interests of censoring the internet,” I also like how Montana went into different aspects behind the group, such as how they developed their group, the meaning behind their masks, and who they can hack.

Overall, I really enjoyed the essay exhibits from last week, especially Sam and Montana’s. I think that Sam and Montana both did an exceptional job presenting their topic and some of their findings to the class. I think that through these presentations, their final projects are both going to be stellar. The only thing is, I hope they include more interactivity in their final projects. Sam did a good job including pictures and the video, however I think it would be interesting if he could find a player’s perspective on the game, since esports is so different from a regular game. I also thought Montana could have input a video into her presentation, I would have liked to watch a video of Anonymous works if she could find one. But overall, I thought both classmates did a great job presenting their exhibits and I learned a lot about esports, Anonymous, and Digital humanities, that I didn’t know before.