Aesthetics of contradiction [multimedia]

Over the last year a plethora of papers, articles, and an increasing number of scientific videos crossed my desk for review. Most addressed the problem of automatic retrieval of syntactic and semantic data from audio-visual media as a way to overcome the information glut. However, providing all of this new information on how to automate data retrieval really seems to solve new problems with old solutions and that only furthers the crisis. As a culture, the multimedia computing community may also perpetuate myths arising from the inherent contradictions between human and machine. These contradictions influence the shape of our work, a good enough motivation to step into the minefield of myth identification. There might be more myths to be addressed, but I merely discuss multimedia myths under the following categories, all of which are interrelated: handling content that is relevant; learning to deal with meaningful content that is concealed; and the meaning of content through the user´s perspective.