Wednesday 15 February 2012
...handed it in
Two days ago was the deadline for the dissertation. While nothing much new has been added here in the past month, the rest of my research more than paid off. So now that's done, I'm wondering what to do with this blog now that is has outgrown its usefulness...
Friday 3 February 2012
...is a Finker
Online is changing everything. Lots of people are talking about user-generated content and we need to be aware of that - you see thousands of pieces of work being uploaded every hour to YouTube. Even though a lot of the stuff isn't particularly great, people are now able to share their own personal sketchbooks. Everyone can use software like Photoshop or Illustrator, and then upload the result, show it to the world, and get feedback on it.
Graham Fink
Just asked a couple of web authors on permission to use their visual sources for the essay. One said yes and awaiting the reply from the other. Sounds good.
Source of the above pullquote found here. Another supporter of the remix community!: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/interviews/mc-saatchi
Thursday 19 January 2012
...says yesterday's absence was intentional
It's the middle of January and only five classes in on the second semester? Shocking news, but nothing gets more worrying than the potential impact Congress could make with its so-called flawed SOPA and PIPA bills if they come to pass by law. Wikipedia's blackout yesterday was a sound responce to this law (unless you know how to block Java) and a few other sites followed suit including Destructoid, I think (which mentioned 18 US senators opposing hearings for February. Hey, not all senators are videogame-hating jerks they once were).
To be subjective, it's a bad idea to try and attempt to put a blockade on infringing copyrighted information, especially as such activity occurs on the internet every single day and we run into it every time. It's impossible to eradicate piracy with the drop of a hat. We don't want another China, either.
Users like myself do try and make the most of this liberal activity in the way we make social and productive resources thanks to the media we have access to - you know, Wikipedia, social media, and our tools the software packages to work our visual/literal minds out. I just want to make it clear that I oppose the act and support free speech and an open outlet to all the information we us humans have an affinity for.
Saying that, this could make a great opening to my dissertation.
It's already planned out and through its second draft. It was always going to be a daunting task to just even type out the first paragraph but now it's been so much easier to churn out one improvised passage after another each time I get the chance to look at it.
All's going well again! So far...
Now to treat you to an engaging topic from the brilliant TED series of talks:
http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html
To be subjective, it's a bad idea to try and attempt to put a blockade on infringing copyrighted information, especially as such activity occurs on the internet every single day and we run into it every time. It's impossible to eradicate piracy with the drop of a hat. We don't want another China, either.
Users like myself do try and make the most of this liberal activity in the way we make social and productive resources thanks to the media we have access to - you know, Wikipedia, social media, and our tools the software packages to work our visual/literal minds out. I just want to make it clear that I oppose the act and support free speech and an open outlet to all the information we us humans have an affinity for.
Saying that, this could make a great opening to my dissertation.
It's already planned out and through its second draft. It was always going to be a daunting task to just even type out the first paragraph but now it's been so much easier to churn out one improvised passage after another each time I get the chance to look at it.
All's going well again! So far...
Now to treat you to an engaging topic from the brilliant TED series of talks:
http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html
Wednesday 4 January 2012
...and the new voice of the night
Courtesy of IGN:
Is Bane's Audio Getting Remixed?
http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/121/1215595p1.html
There's not yet any truth to this according to the reporter but here's the highlight:
Is Bane's Audio Getting Remixed?
http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/121/1215595p1.html
There's not yet any truth to this according to the reporter but here's the highlight:
My New Year's resolution is to develop superhuman hearing so that I can understand Banespeak. Also, for George Lucas to re-release the Star Wars films yet again, but this time without James Earl Jones' crisp, clear voice. I want to hear Darth Vader as he was meant to be heard: Muffled behind a mask. Actually, David Prowse's Vader is far more understandable than Bane...
Tuesday 3 January 2012
...knows it's 2012
Hi there, and happy new year for 2012!
It's been slow but now's the time to prepare once more for college year... or what's left of it. I have already made progress on the dissertation but have nothing new to show off in this blog. :( At the meantime I'll be making a new blog here as a makeshift website for my portfolio until I'm done with Dreamweaver.
:P
It's been slow but now's the time to prepare once more for college year... or what's left of it. I have already made progress on the dissertation but have nothing new to show off in this blog. :( At the meantime I'll be making a new blog here as a makeshift website for my portfolio until I'm done with Dreamweaver.
:P
Thursday 15 December 2011
...promises, promises and promises
Some preliminary notes on the disseration are coming up soon. I promise that after overcoming the last few days in my uni term, I can concentrate on this project once more. At the meantime, however...
WHY STAR WARS SHOULD BE LEFT TO THE FANS. Tell 'em, Marcie:
It goes without saying that allowing key directors to make strong changes to their own films in terms of length/special effects/dialogue/fanservice is a movie buff's nightmare. In conjunction with the first ever release of the complete saga on bluray (correct?), the BBC article from September seems to lean towards this fact as opposed to celebrating four decades of the most lucrative over-expanded sci-fi universe ever! LOL
*ahem* In my honest opinion, the internet has proven that the fan community of this trend has become more accessible than ever. If one, or as many as a hundred people could pool in and just try finding the ORIGINAL 1978-1983 reels from the first saga and distribute them in their analogue CGI-less glory, then justice has been done. It really goes to show that people out there still show commitment to the bygone era of VHS video and hold such material to high regard.
But as film researchers already know, the remix nature of the Star Wars saga is far more complex than the galaxy far away, so let's not go there just yet!
The article explores some semiotic information halfway down and the films are already accessible anyway, so all in all this is pretty relevant to the research.
WHY STAR WARS SHOULD BE LEFT TO THE FANS. Tell 'em, Marcie:
"Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on the one hand, and on the other the spectator who later becomes the posterity... The artist may shout from all the rooftops that he is a genius: he will have to wait for the verdict of the spectator in order that his declarations take a social value and that, finally, posterity includes him in the primers of Artist History."
- Marcel Duchamp
It goes without saying that allowing key directors to make strong changes to their own films in terms of length/special effects/dialogue/fanservice is a movie buff's nightmare. In conjunction with the first ever release of the complete saga on bluray (correct?), the BBC article from September seems to lean towards this fact as opposed to celebrating four decades of the most lucrative over-expanded sci-fi universe ever! LOL
*ahem* In my honest opinion, the internet has proven that the fan community of this trend has become more accessible than ever. If one, or as many as a hundred people could pool in and just try finding the ORIGINAL 1978-1983 reels from the first saga and distribute them in their analogue CGI-less glory, then justice has been done. It really goes to show that people out there still show commitment to the bygone era of VHS video and hold such material to high regard.
But as film researchers already know, the remix nature of the Star Wars saga is far more complex than the galaxy far away, so let's not go there just yet!
The article explores some semiotic information halfway down and the films are already accessible anyway, so all in all this is pretty relevant to the research.
Thursday 8 December 2011
...questions the Time Top Ten
Hard to do even if you're 5 stone. Take off yer shoes!
Only now I've started to toss out some random URLs I have stored for this dissertation. Think I'll start with the Top Ten Internet Memes of 2011 according to Time Magazine website. So here're the top 10:
1. We are the 99 Percent
2. Planking
3. Princess Beatrice's Fascinator
4. #Winning by Charlie Sheen
5. Tebowing
6. Hipster Ariel (HA!)
7. Ted Williams' Golden Voice
8. Paula Deen Riding Things
9. Bronies (YES!)
10. Chuck TestaTake planking. As far as the remixing process goes, it's the idea of looking at one stunt from an individual and 'taking it further' with a weird/dangerous one and sending it viral. But like many oddball memes, chances are it can become a dying trend in a matter of whatever out of the 365.25 days are left in the year:
The best plankers take it much further than that by striking their poses in places that seem incongruous with lying flat as a board. Places like a soccer field, bowling alley, airplane storage bin and even a seventh floor balcony railing... with the risk perhaps only adding to the reward. But as the year winds to a close, planking has already become old hat, with newer and equally inane trends emerging such as owling and horsemanning.
Footnote: apologies for the US-oriented flavour of these findings - half of which are not even on KnowYourMemes I don't think or are remixable - better things to come, I assure you!
Wednesday 7 December 2011
...physically abuses Moe
Those lovable stooges... :)
Video made by ShaneS429
It needs no introduction. Simple video editing, or 'vidding' for you savvy folk, is the practise of condensing entire films made by famous people taken by us normal people just to show the relevant footage to prove a point. Thus using the source material for digging up structural meanings and criticisms found in the chosen scene becomes a hotly debate among fandoms. In the liberal world of the internet however, they can be as experimental or direct as possible whilst providing the intended message to its viewers.
Most of them are blatant derivatives from the same source material like showcasing the slap-happy antics of ill-tempered Moe of the Three Stooges; I believe this is one of the best out there. Rapid-fire editing, an addition of a counter for each slap (no doubt added by the video author) in a short but satisfactory length of time that delivers the LOLS.
Video made by ShaneS429
It needs no introduction. Simple video editing, or 'vidding' for you savvy folk, is the practise of condensing entire films made by famous people taken by us normal people just to show the relevant footage to prove a point. Thus using the source material for digging up structural meanings and criticisms found in the chosen scene becomes a hotly debate among fandoms. In the liberal world of the internet however, they can be as experimental or direct as possible whilst providing the intended message to its viewers.
Most of them are blatant derivatives from the same source material like showcasing the slap-happy antics of ill-tempered Moe of the Three Stooges; I believe this is one of the best out there. Rapid-fire editing, an addition of a counter for each slap (no doubt added by the video author) in a short but satisfactory length of time that delivers the LOLS.
Friday 2 December 2011
...embraces his human documents
I had to toss my other graphics work aside for a new blog; what is the world coming too? D:
Other than worrying about how my next post would be relevant to the dissertation research (which, by the way, had already started), I have found one thing this week which hits the mark. It's also relevant to another project I'm currently working on. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is...
A HUMUMENT
Or is that A HUMAN DOCUMENT?
So, what is it?
Back in the 1960s, a British artist named Tom Phillips (b. 1939) was attracted to a not very well-known Victorian,era book titled A Human Document, written by W H Mallock (1849 - 1923). Whatever reason he was fascinated by the novel so much, he bought it and within a few years before the first publication date in 1973, he drawn, painted, stamped, collaged and disfigured all of its 367 pages. Some of the original text was shown through the illustrations and in the process, a brand new story was made with those few words that the human eye was allowed to follow.
For example, we can see already that the old title was defaced to create a new title. Punky... Within the book though, the protagonist in Mallock's original version was called Grenville - here in Phillips' 'remixed' rendition of the human docu- humument, he is called Bill Toge. As in 'together'. A heroine called Irma was added in by Phillips. Because of his rampant selection of limited texts, the scope of the story became a more abstracted retelling of Phillips' imagined character going through all sorts of scrapes and spiritual malarky. It really does make more sense if read alone. :)
Moreover, this is yet another example of remixing long before the internet-ruling era by two deacades, and the book has been praised for its Pop Art-esque manipulation of old media and post-modernist approach to our history. A Humument is actually still revised to this day by Phillips himself and even became popular enough to download as an phone app. The complete iBook for £4 in case you wanted to know. Extract below:
Wikipedia asks, when is a magazine a book? This is how A Humument is helping me with another project I'm tackling right now. Take care!
Other than worrying about how my next post would be relevant to the dissertation research (which, by the way, had already started), I have found one thing this week which hits the mark. It's also relevant to another project I'm currently working on. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is...
A HUMUMENT
Or is that A HUMAN DOCUMENT?
So, what is it?
Back in the 1960s, a British artist named Tom Phillips (b. 1939) was attracted to a not very well-known Victorian,era book titled A Human Document, written by W H Mallock (1849 - 1923). Whatever reason he was fascinated by the novel so much, he bought it and within a few years before the first publication date in 1973, he drawn, painted, stamped, collaged and disfigured all of its 367 pages. Some of the original text was shown through the illustrations and in the process, a brand new story was made with those few words that the human eye was allowed to follow.
For example, we can see already that the old title was defaced to create a new title. Punky... Within the book though, the protagonist in Mallock's original version was called Grenville - here in Phillips' 'remixed' rendition of the human docu- humument, he is called Bill Toge. As in 'together'. A heroine called Irma was added in by Phillips. Because of his rampant selection of limited texts, the scope of the story became a more abstracted retelling of Phillips' imagined character going through all sorts of scrapes and spiritual malarky. It really does make more sense if read alone. :)
Moreover, this is yet another example of remixing long before the internet-ruling era by two deacades, and the book has been praised for its Pop Art-esque manipulation of old media and post-modernist approach to our history. A Humument is actually still revised to this day by Phillips himself and even became popular enough to download as an phone app. The complete iBook for £4 in case you wanted to know. Extract below:
Now I am well over seventy and still revisiting and revising its pages, I find further layers of hidden texts and buried messages. Like the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, chance pairs of pages, taken together and interpreted, act as a guide and cryptic commentary on life in word and picture; a not-too-serious oracle which I now share with you.Does it have any relevant meaning in the internet age like it did with the artist's book time in the last half century? I sure hope it does, what with the giving-and-taking approach from different creators and the subjects are being kept alive in our post-mordernism societies. Coming from an artist who promptly gave credit when credit is due, it proves that new works of art can always be recycled and replicated but the more memorable ones would never interpret directly from its source. No infringements, either.
Wikipedia asks, when is a magazine a book? This is how A Humument is helping me with another project I'm tackling right now. Take care!
Sunday 20 November 2011
...has graffiti this time
Want some? These ones kick ass, coming from a recent London exhibition called Lock Up II. I'd give examples but this was done up with Javascript.
Why these? Why not the timeless ones we come to relate to so well, narrowing the scope to what's so mainstream about graffiti? Trying to keep it contemporary and offer an up-to-date selection on content, that's why. Now everyone can see these for the first time and make comparisons to how art of this form has evolved over the decades. Deep stuff, that. :)
Why these? Why not the timeless ones we come to relate to so well, narrowing the scope to what's so mainstream about graffiti? Trying to keep it contemporary and offer an up-to-date selection on content, that's why. Now everyone can see these for the first time and make comparisons to how art of this form has evolved over the decades. Deep stuff, that. :)
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