First, post a link and/or description of a remix you like.
I think this video remix of double rainbow is hilarious. One of my personal favorites. They remix this dude's double rainbow reaction, with a grown a#$ man crying about a double rainbow. They put two video's on the bottom of the screen at one point. one of a man beating a drum and the other of a clown-like dude singing it looks like. They end with them playing instruments and singing about the double rainbow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX0D4oZwCsA
Next, make 3 specific connections between today's reading and the remix. (eg: This remix illustrates Lessig's point about X. This remix reminds me Lessig's claim that Y. so on...)
Lessig says that remix songs are important in community settings. Well the 4 people who put this one together it was a community effort and the community at Utube was very appreciative of it. The video has had 23,086,415, just a couple million short of the original video with 26,560,632 hits.
Lessig also states that ""whether text or beyond text, remix is collage; it comes from combining elements of RO culture; it succeeds by leveraging the meaning created by the reference to build something new" (76)." The inclusion of the video's on the bottom right hand of the screen in this remix align well with this concept. The drums signal a wind up and then the clown with the rainbow shooting out of his hand signals the rainbow. He then shoots himself in the head and catches on fire. Still not seeing that one entirely but it probably represents the mind blowing experience this dude is having.
Lessig also argues that a remix can better argue the point that the original did. In this case I think the length of the video supports this statement. The original video is long at 3:30 and the remix has been shortened down to 1:58. As a photojournalist, when i do soundslides, I keep them between 1 minute and 2 because people tend to lose patience after 2 minutes and will click off of your sound slides. So in this case, shortening the video allows for the message of the video to get out more completely.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
blog #9
First, describe what you see as Lessig's key argument in the Introduction.
Lessig's key argument in the introduction is that copyright laws are extremely out of date, and companies are allowed to go to extremes to try and make examples out of people. Like the mom who had some music playing in the background when she made a video and put it online.
Second, describe the difference RW and RO culture and why it matters to Lessig's argument.
RO or read-only culture, is where people do not participate, or contribute to their culture, but just consume it. RW, or read-write culture, is where people contribute to their culture as well as consume it. Similar to this blog, we can read others posts to be RO culture, but having a blog that we contribute to makes this a RW community.
Third, why does Lessig use Sousa?
Sousa was up against a lot of adversity when it came to gaining money from his work. He argued that the machines that were copying, were creating a culture primarily focused on RO. Now the machines are creating a RW culture, where people are manipulating to make new stuff out of the old. Surprisingly, the companies are now the ones primarily fighting this phenomena, not the artists.
Lessig's key argument in the introduction is that copyright laws are extremely out of date, and companies are allowed to go to extremes to try and make examples out of people. Like the mom who had some music playing in the background when she made a video and put it online.
Second, describe the difference RW and RO culture and why it matters to Lessig's argument.
RO or read-only culture, is where people do not participate, or contribute to their culture, but just consume it. RW, or read-write culture, is where people contribute to their culture as well as consume it. Similar to this blog, we can read others posts to be RO culture, but having a blog that we contribute to makes this a RW community.
Third, why does Lessig use Sousa?
Sousa was up against a lot of adversity when it came to gaining money from his work. He argued that the machines that were copying, were creating a culture primarily focused on RO. Now the machines are creating a RW culture, where people are manipulating to make new stuff out of the old. Surprisingly, the companies are now the ones primarily fighting this phenomena, not the artists.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Blog #8
The first quote i liked is "We're left with the ability to make our own interpretation of a given framework, and are invited to run with it as a kind of game 'system'" (97) When listening to stories, seeing a hug between people, cooking a favorite food that contains a memory, or petting a cat that looked like ours growing up, everything we associate with has a given framework we have created for ourselves.
another one of the quotes I picked was "the selection of sound becomes a narrative" (85)Music is existential in and of itself. It can mean something different to each of us and not change in its form. Even faster beats will encourage us to get up and dance, while slow beats relax and calm. the 4/4 beat is the closest to the heartbeat and provides comfort we may not even recognize. The sound can then narrate our lives or the words can narrate or influence decision making in regard to our emotions.
"the sense of living in a racially divided culture that has lost the ability to think about anything but media entertainment"(109).
This is really true. We are more concerned with the quick dollar through being involved in the money making entertainment industry and all of the fame associated with it. It is interesting to note how we have our 'token' characters however, that are supposed to represent the different ethnicity's. So in some small way it may unite us, but only if the standard of living is equalized between the races. When we have an equal amount of diversity on each ends of the spectrum, then i think we will be equal. However, the focus on entertainment, does not solve these problems. I think they create a false sense of idea that we are all considered equal in this country, through equal media and entertainment representation. Some may argue this isn't even true.
It is not a surprise that Miller like Duchamp and his famous urinal fountain. The Urinal represents everything Miller is trying to convey. Existentialist thought and Miller are alike in that they seek to question the status quo and redefine what is considered acceptable. Duchamp sought to question what art really is and push the boundaries of what is considered a conventional art movement. I think it really is art because he was the first one to think of it and prompt the question, what makes REAL art?
The song i chose to look at was Cupid's Chokehold by gym class heroes. It is a pretty much direct sampling of Supertramp's 'Girlfriend'. The words are even the same, with a tweaked beat. The chorus
Take a look at my girlfriend
She's the only one Igot
Not much of a girlfriend
Never seem to get alot
and Gym Class Heroes
Take a look at my girlfriend
She's the only one I got (ba ba da da)
Not much of a girlfriend
I never seem to get a lot (ba ba da da, ba ba da da)
Ya. They are pretty much the exact same, except for some Badadada's and an 'I'. It is brought up to date but gets more detailed than the classic supertramp version.
another one of the quotes I picked was "the selection of sound becomes a narrative" (85)Music is existential in and of itself. It can mean something different to each of us and not change in its form. Even faster beats will encourage us to get up and dance, while slow beats relax and calm. the 4/4 beat is the closest to the heartbeat and provides comfort we may not even recognize. The sound can then narrate our lives or the words can narrate or influence decision making in regard to our emotions.
"the sense of living in a racially divided culture that has lost the ability to think about anything but media entertainment"(109).
This is really true. We are more concerned with the quick dollar through being involved in the money making entertainment industry and all of the fame associated with it. It is interesting to note how we have our 'token' characters however, that are supposed to represent the different ethnicity's. So in some small way it may unite us, but only if the standard of living is equalized between the races. When we have an equal amount of diversity on each ends of the spectrum, then i think we will be equal. However, the focus on entertainment, does not solve these problems. I think they create a false sense of idea that we are all considered equal in this country, through equal media and entertainment representation. Some may argue this isn't even true.
It is not a surprise that Miller like Duchamp and his famous urinal fountain. The Urinal represents everything Miller is trying to convey. Existentialist thought and Miller are alike in that they seek to question the status quo and redefine what is considered acceptable. Duchamp sought to question what art really is and push the boundaries of what is considered a conventional art movement. I think it really is art because he was the first one to think of it and prompt the question, what makes REAL art?
The song i chose to look at was Cupid's Chokehold by gym class heroes. It is a pretty much direct sampling of Supertramp's 'Girlfriend'. The words are even the same, with a tweaked beat. The chorus
Take a look at my girlfriend
She's the only one Igot
Not much of a girlfriend
Never seem to get alot
and Gym Class Heroes
Take a look at my girlfriend
She's the only one I got (ba ba da da)
Not much of a girlfriend
I never seem to get a lot (ba ba da da, ba ba da da)
Ya. They are pretty much the exact same, except for some Badadada's and an 'I'. It is brought up to date but gets more detailed than the classic supertramp version.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Blog #7
First, briefly summarize the overall argument(s) of the deBourgoing piece.
That hip hop is an oral tradition that needs to embrace female rappers to even out the playing field. The article provides tips on how to become a hip hop artist. It suggests branding yourself at open mic nights, be authentic and marketable, keep the unity within the business with your peers, and collaborate with other artists.
Second, briefly describe any connections you see between her argument(s) and the things we discussed in the first half of the course.
Weinberger said 'hoarding knowledge diminishes power'. Collaboration is a trait that the hip hop groups are embracing so they can promote themselves and each other to benefit the business and get their name out there. When they say “We were scholars before colleges” i think of the oral tradition as being passed down in a historical sense, this ties into convergence culture, because now people are writing down the lyrics and recording these songs, therefore they are changing and adapting to new forms of media. This way when they embrace social media and online presence to promote themselves.
Third, the Miller book is a bit tough to read, but do your best to summarize his key argument(s).
It seems, after all the fancy words that miller is trying to state that present considerations for art are influenced by the past and everything we base what we know of now, is essentially collective intelligence. Essentially he relates this to DJ'ing and sampling because basing a new form of intelligence, or a new song, off of what has previously been done is considered ok when it comes in everything else academic, such as quoting, like he does a ton with goethe. However when you apply it to music it somehow becomes not ok.
Lastly, make any connections you can between deBourgoing, Miller, and any of the topics we've discussed in class so far.
Miller talks about the “battle to control and distribute culture” This is like the political nature of information and how those who control this information, control the politics of what is produced and distributed. This control can be harnessed through the use of tags and key words.
That hip hop is an oral tradition that needs to embrace female rappers to even out the playing field. The article provides tips on how to become a hip hop artist. It suggests branding yourself at open mic nights, be authentic and marketable, keep the unity within the business with your peers, and collaborate with other artists.
Second, briefly describe any connections you see between her argument(s) and the things we discussed in the first half of the course.
Weinberger said 'hoarding knowledge diminishes power'. Collaboration is a trait that the hip hop groups are embracing so they can promote themselves and each other to benefit the business and get their name out there. When they say “We were scholars before colleges” i think of the oral tradition as being passed down in a historical sense, this ties into convergence culture, because now people are writing down the lyrics and recording these songs, therefore they are changing and adapting to new forms of media. This way when they embrace social media and online presence to promote themselves.
Third, the Miller book is a bit tough to read, but do your best to summarize his key argument(s).
It seems, after all the fancy words that miller is trying to state that present considerations for art are influenced by the past and everything we base what we know of now, is essentially collective intelligence. Essentially he relates this to DJ'ing and sampling because basing a new form of intelligence, or a new song, off of what has previously been done is considered ok when it comes in everything else academic, such as quoting, like he does a ton with goethe. However when you apply it to music it somehow becomes not ok.
Lastly, make any connections you can between deBourgoing, Miller, and any of the topics we've discussed in class so far.
Miller talks about the “battle to control and distribute culture” This is like the political nature of information and how those who control this information, control the politics of what is produced and distributed. This control can be harnessed through the use of tags and key words.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Blog #6
What are the key points/terms from Jenkins?
The key points from Jenkins are about the youth of each generation building social networks in the mediums of the radio, the internet etc. to impact and have a voice as youth. One example is of the bowling leagues of the 1950's. Bowling was the central hub of social life and networking. Nowadays games like World of Warcraft, Fifa connections, Farmville for example is a community that people interact on. A place of exchange does not always need to be rooted geographically. Protests in China are being conducted on the internet in space where they can protest. This is all great for civic engagement as Jenkins points out, but is scary times for journalism and the truth of information. Harry potters army is a good example of youth challenging the newspapers and the government of the time. Aaang Ain't white is another great example of how young people are recognizing the white washing of characters of other nationalities, and how hollywood continues to cast white characters. Another great one are people dressing up as the Navi, from James Cameron Avatar to represent oppression and genocide.
Key terms are ones such as Participatory Culture, which needs the attributes of 1.relatively low barriers for engagement 2. strong support for sharing creations with others. 3. informal mentor ship 4. members believe there contributions matter 5. Care about others opinions of self and work. Most importantly all must feel free to contribute, even if they don't continually, they must feel that when they are ready, what they contribute will be appropriately valued.
How do they (or do they) connect with the key points from Weinberger?
This does relate to weinberger because he states that classifications are political. The fact that many schools, businesses and those of the older generation want to keep facebook and myspace out of kids hands is harming their connection to a cultural phenomenon. Therefore the way many young adults networked at the bowling alley, many kids are finding there civic engagement via the internet and these social networking sites. The fact that we can have things like collective intelligence and the fact that it is not being embraced by schools, that are places of learning is odd. So many teachers do not let you cite sources on the internet, but as we progress i know the internet is going to be the main place for many people to go to obtain information for schooling, research, social, buying power etc.
The key points from Jenkins are about the youth of each generation building social networks in the mediums of the radio, the internet etc. to impact and have a voice as youth. One example is of the bowling leagues of the 1950's. Bowling was the central hub of social life and networking. Nowadays games like World of Warcraft, Fifa connections, Farmville for example is a community that people interact on. A place of exchange does not always need to be rooted geographically. Protests in China are being conducted on the internet in space where they can protest. This is all great for civic engagement as Jenkins points out, but is scary times for journalism and the truth of information. Harry potters army is a good example of youth challenging the newspapers and the government of the time. Aaang Ain't white is another great example of how young people are recognizing the white washing of characters of other nationalities, and how hollywood continues to cast white characters. Another great one are people dressing up as the Navi, from James Cameron Avatar to represent oppression and genocide.
Key terms are ones such as Participatory Culture, which needs the attributes of 1.relatively low barriers for engagement 2. strong support for sharing creations with others. 3. informal mentor ship 4. members believe there contributions matter 5. Care about others opinions of self and work. Most importantly all must feel free to contribute, even if they don't continually, they must feel that when they are ready, what they contribute will be appropriately valued.
How do they (or do they) connect with the key points from Weinberger?
This does relate to weinberger because he states that classifications are political. The fact that many schools, businesses and those of the older generation want to keep facebook and myspace out of kids hands is harming their connection to a cultural phenomenon. Therefore the way many young adults networked at the bowling alley, many kids are finding there civic engagement via the internet and these social networking sites. The fact that we can have things like collective intelligence and the fact that it is not being embraced by schools, that are places of learning is odd. So many teachers do not let you cite sources on the internet, but as we progress i know the internet is going to be the main place for many people to go to obtain information for schooling, research, social, buying power etc.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Blog #5
Weinberger, relying on German philosopher Heidegger, says that "the meaning of a particular thing is enabled by the web of implicit meanings we call the world" (170). First, describe what he means by this.
Weinberger means that the web is a world unto itself and the meaning of individual tags, links etc. is something tangible to the world of the web. To take it out of the world would not mean what it does within. We could call going to the grocery store a link, or a hit on the location, but it does not have the same affect as going to amazon.com and buying something lets say. Meaning such as metaphor is tangible to us because we understand the hidden meaning. The internet has its own hidden meaning implicit within it that we cannot translate into this world. A Hammer, as was the example, may not be relevant to your understanding of the world, so you break down the potential uses of a hammer. Meaning for each person is individual, the reason why i look wonderwall is not the same reasons why you like or dislike the song. We may connect the hammer to nails... nails to wood, wood to a tree and the list of associations go on and on.
Second, explain how this is relevant to the third order of order.
The third order of order is bound by the physical so we do not need metadata like a card catalog. When we google a phrase, we are able to add multiple meanings to it. Kind of like ho a toaster can also be a toaster oven, but times like 10. We can do this with our own personal meaning also.
Third, draw/sketch/photoshop the following: choose a song that is important to you in some way. Draw the implicit web of meanings that make this song important to you. That is, make the implicit explicit. Ask yourself: what would a computer need to know in order to understand the relevance of this song in my life? (yes, a computer)
"Wonderwall"
Today is gonna be the day
That they're gonna throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you gotta do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do about you now
Backbeat the word was on the street
That the fire in your heart is out
I'm sure you've heard it all before
But you never really had a doubt
I don't believe that anybody feels
The way I do about you now
And all the roads we have to walk along are winding
And all the lights that lead us there are blinding
There are many things that I would
Like to say to you
I don't know how
Because maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You're my wonderwall
Today was gonna be the day?
But they'll never throw it back to you
By now you should've somehow
Realized what you're not to do
I don't believe that anybody
Feels the way I do
About you now
And all the roads that lead to you were winding
And all the lights that light the way are blinding
There are many things that I would like to say to you
I don't know how
I said maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after all
You're my wonderwall
I said maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me ?
And after an
You're my wonderwall
Said maybe
You're gonna be the one that saves me
You're gonna be the one that saves me
You're gonna be the one that saves me
Monday, January 31, 2011
Blog #4
Weinberger says that "And we college students had it right. We were just ahead of our time. The best digital strategy is to dump everything into one large miscellaneous pile and leave it to the machines to find exactly the table setting we need for tonight's dinner." This quote matches with web 2.0 because it is all about information flow. That is what was so monumental and continues to be monumental about the internet. It is a constant flow of linked in words and pictures that flow seamlessly and endlessly among one another. According to the Web 2.0 article there are more than 9.5 million citations in Google. That is a TON of referencing and books/scholarly journals etc. getting on the web. Web 2.0 states, "Google, by contrast, began its life as a native web application, never sold or packaged, but delivered as a service, with customers paying, directly or indirectly, for the use of that service....it was just a massively scalable collection of commodity PCs running open source operating systems."
This is why google succeeded so well and why others like Netscape failed, because they wanted to control the market and jack up prices.
The internet has to be classified some way and we do it through a sorting program like Google which links keywords. These classifications are political because the person who controls the means of classification controls the whole system. Weinberger stated that when we try to 'organize' our systems and plug things into boxes that match, we will inevitably leave out more than we include. He mentioned cupcakes and hard candy as dessert, but now you have eliminated carbs. This is where tags let us bridge the gap and simultaneously labels both. In Web squared they touched on collective intelligence and how it leads to, "“crowdsourcing,” meaning that a large group of people can create a collective work whose value far exceeds that provided by any of the individual participants." Weinberger mentioned he see's this as the end of gate keeping, or the filtering of 'slush' that is considered unworthy. I would argue that as we move forward there will be different web locations for the 'slush'. There are now, we have good wordpress blogs, and bad wordpress blogs. This is determined by you. It doesn't mean we can delete them off of the internet, but we will probably choose to stop reading them. Its like someone on the side of the road protesting and yelling. You will probably walk away, they still may be there, and garner negative attention, but the very idea of crowd sourcing means you must interact with peers to gather intelligent thought. So they will stand as islands of one. I would argue that among the generations my age now that myspace has become 'slush' there is a collective intelligence at work that ended their success. Why? We probably could break it down, but the point is at some time, the majority stopped crowdsourcing myspace.
This is why google succeeded so well and why others like Netscape failed, because they wanted to control the market and jack up prices.
The internet has to be classified some way and we do it through a sorting program like Google which links keywords. These classifications are political because the person who controls the means of classification controls the whole system. Weinberger stated that when we try to 'organize' our systems and plug things into boxes that match, we will inevitably leave out more than we include. He mentioned cupcakes and hard candy as dessert, but now you have eliminated carbs. This is where tags let us bridge the gap and simultaneously labels both. In Web squared they touched on collective intelligence and how it leads to, "“crowdsourcing,” meaning that a large group of people can create a collective work whose value far exceeds that provided by any of the individual participants." Weinberger mentioned he see's this as the end of gate keeping, or the filtering of 'slush' that is considered unworthy. I would argue that as we move forward there will be different web locations for the 'slush'. There are now, we have good wordpress blogs, and bad wordpress blogs. This is determined by you. It doesn't mean we can delete them off of the internet, but we will probably choose to stop reading them. Its like someone on the side of the road protesting and yelling. You will probably walk away, they still may be there, and garner negative attention, but the very idea of crowd sourcing means you must interact with peers to gather intelligent thought. So they will stand as islands of one. I would argue that among the generations my age now that myspace has become 'slush' there is a collective intelligence at work that ended their success. Why? We probably could break it down, but the point is at some time, the majority stopped crowdsourcing myspace.
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