Although we do not technically have to post on "Made In Secret," I wanted to express a few of my thoughts on the film since I will not be in class on Monday.
Upon finishing the film, I wasn't really sure what to think. Admittedly, the inability to classify the film into a traditional genre did bother me: Could it be considered a documentary (albeit a documentary made by the organization itself)? Or was it a mockumentary (in the same vein as "The Office")? Surely, the movie couldn't be considered a "real" documentary - there were too many staged events. (For example, everyone actually WANTED Geoffrey to be filming them; and there was no crisis concerning whether or not to attend a film festival.) Then again, the crew did actually create pornography. Furthermore, most actors only played exaggerated versions of themselves. Does this mean the group literally became The East Van Porn Collective?
I don't really think so. I think that, while the film isn't "mockumentary" in the satirical, comedic way that "The Office" is, it's still certainly fiction. Whenever actors take on a new role, they must prepare themselves for that role. This may include traveling to a foreign country, speaking in a different dialect, or educating themselves on a certain time period. To some extent, actors must always disengage from their routine life in order to practice living the life of their character. The reason why this appears to be different for the creators of "Made In Secret" is firstly, that they are not professional actors (and so do not habitually have to "practice" for such roles), and secondly, that they practiced as a group instead of individually (so it blurred the line between preparing for their roles as and actually becoming the East Van Porn Collective). The reason why the film caused so much uproar is precisely that it wasn't made in the traditional satiric, comedic mockumentary style. In my opinion, the only true pieces of documentary in the film are the special features of cast interviews.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Social Media Literacy
A pretty interesting article came out of the Barvard Business Review last week that I figured was rather pertinent to some of the work we've talked about recently.
It's time for social media literacy to enter mainstream education.
Learning to use online forums, be they social network services like MySpace and Facebook, blogs, or wikis is not a sexily contemporary add-on to the curriculum - it's an essential part of the literacy today's youth require for the world they inhabit.
How do you find out anything you want to know by entering the right question into a search engine? Equally important - how do you determine whether the answer returned by a search engine is true?
What kinds of privacy protection should a student keep in mind when setting up a Facebook profile?
How can blogs be used to advocate positions on political issues?
These are not strictly technological questions, nor are they confined to a narrow discipline. The way today's students will do science, politics, journalism, and business next year and a decade from now will be shaped by the skills they acquire in using social media, and by the knowledge they gain of the important issues of privacy, identity, community, and the role of citizen media in democracy.
I started teaching social media to Berkeley and Stanford students five years ago when I realized that the answer to the question I've been asked by readers, critics, and scholars about my own work over the last 20 years - "are personal computers and Internet-based communications good for us as individuals, communities, democracies?" - is "it depends on what people know about how to use these tools." Whether digital media will be beneficial or destructive in the long run doesn't depend on the technologies, but on the literacy of those who use them.
When I first faced students in a classroom, I was surprised to discover that the mythology I had believed about "digital natives" was not entirely accurate. Just because they're on Facebook and chat online during class and can send text messages with one hand does not mean that young people are acquainted with the rhetoric of blogging, understand the way wikis can be used collaboratively, or know the techniques necessary for vetting the validity of information discovered online. Just as learning the alphabet requires further education before a literate person can compose a coherent argument, learning the skills of effective social media use requires an education that today's institutions and teachers are ill-prepared to provide.
Last year, I was awarded a small grant by the MacArthur Foundation to develop an easy to use online tool that integrates forums, blogs, wikis, and other social media. The free and open source "Social Media Classroom," accompanied by curricular material for teachers who want to use social media to teach students about social media issues and literacies (and other subjects) is now available online , along with a community of practice where educators can teach and learn from each other. We don't have time for institutions to change, which is why I've worked to provide tools for those educators who are using social media to prepare students for the 21st century.
About the Author
Recipient of the 2008 MacArthur Knowledge-Networking Grant, Howard Rheingold has a proven record of accurate technology and social forecasting over two decades of syndicated columns, bestselling books, and pioneering online enterprises. Among his five books, Smart Mobs was named one of the "Big Ideas books of 2002" by The New York Times. Howard's frequent television and radio appearances range from Good Morning America, to CNN, to NPR, to MacNeil/Lehrer.
It's time for social media literacy to enter mainstream education.
Learning to use online forums, be they social network services like MySpace and Facebook, blogs, or wikis is not a sexily contemporary add-on to the curriculum - it's an essential part of the literacy today's youth require for the world they inhabit.
How do you find out anything you want to know by entering the right question into a search engine? Equally important - how do you determine whether the answer returned by a search engine is true?
What kinds of privacy protection should a student keep in mind when setting up a Facebook profile?
How can blogs be used to advocate positions on political issues?
These are not strictly technological questions, nor are they confined to a narrow discipline. The way today's students will do science, politics, journalism, and business next year and a decade from now will be shaped by the skills they acquire in using social media, and by the knowledge they gain of the important issues of privacy, identity, community, and the role of citizen media in democracy.
I started teaching social media to Berkeley and Stanford students five years ago when I realized that the answer to the question I've been asked by readers, critics, and scholars about my own work over the last 20 years - "are personal computers and Internet-based communications good for us as individuals, communities, democracies?" - is "it depends on what people know about how to use these tools." Whether digital media will be beneficial or destructive in the long run doesn't depend on the technologies, but on the literacy of those who use them.
When I first faced students in a classroom, I was surprised to discover that the mythology I had believed about "digital natives" was not entirely accurate. Just because they're on Facebook and chat online during class and can send text messages with one hand does not mean that young people are acquainted with the rhetoric of blogging, understand the way wikis can be used collaboratively, or know the techniques necessary for vetting the validity of information discovered online. Just as learning the alphabet requires further education before a literate person can compose a coherent argument, learning the skills of effective social media use requires an education that today's institutions and teachers are ill-prepared to provide.
Last year, I was awarded a small grant by the MacArthur Foundation to develop an easy to use online tool that integrates forums, blogs, wikis, and other social media. The free and open source "Social Media Classroom," accompanied by curricular material for teachers who want to use social media to teach students about social media issues and literacies (and other subjects) is now available online , along with a community of practice where educators can teach and learn from each other. We don't have time for institutions to change, which is why I've worked to provide tools for those educators who are using social media to prepare students for the 21st century.
About the Author
Recipient of the 2008 MacArthur Knowledge-Networking Grant, Howard Rheingold has a proven record of accurate technology and social forecasting over two decades of syndicated columns, bestselling books, and pioneering online enterprises. Among his five books, Smart Mobs was named one of the "Big Ideas books of 2002" by The New York Times. Howard's frequent television and radio appearances range from Good Morning America, to CNN, to NPR, to MacNeil/Lehrer.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Wrap up and next week(s)
Hi all,
I had a great time hearing about your projects today. Great work, all. Some great material that could definitely be explored further.
For next week:
- The Barthes reading is optional. Interesting, but optional.
- Please watch MADE IN SECRET (on library reserve) including the "Making Of" DVD extra(s). We will talk about it in class next week, but you DO NOT need to blog about it (focus on writing really kickass proposals for your final projects).
- Bring hard copies of your proposals to hand in, and also be prepared to share your ideas with the rest of the class. Write about 500 words on (i.e.,) your project goals, work schedule, how you will involve others (and what's in it for them!), technical or aesthetic goals, things you need to learn / get better at to achieve it, questions you are hoping to answer, etc.
See you then.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
The Collaborative Practices of "Learning to Love You More"
According to the website, "Learning to Love You More is both a web site and series of non-web presentations comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher". The work is not only a collaboration between two artists (July and Fletcher), but encompasses work made by the public at large.Internet collaborations like "Learning to Love You More", "offer themselves not as finite works which prescribe specific repetition along given structural coordinates but as 'open' works, which are brought to their conclusion by the performer at the same time as he experiences them on an aesthetic plane". (Eco, P.21) Because Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher's project is so infinitely collaborative, it is constantly changing shape. Other 'open works", like "Man With the Movie Camera Re-Make" and "The World's First Collaborative Sentence", can never be complete works of art. Because of this, the experience of art is derived from both the progression of forms these websites take on and from the individual experience of the work.
Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher's web project is also indicative of Brian Holmes' "oppositional device". Because July and Fletcher rely on public participation for "Learning to Love You More", they reverse the "coercive structures" of traditional art practices of how art 'ought to be'. By giving people a platform to creatively express themselves, they challenge the idea of a single "artistic identity", thereby 'stimulating anxiety' within, what Holmes calls, the "extensive institutional programmes" of the art circuit. (Lind, P.16) "Learning to Love You More" is an "oppositional device" in that is cuts through "the wave-pattern" and opens up "the possibility for moments of public speech". (Holmes, P.41) The power of publicly viewed creative expression is returned to the public themselves.
(The above picture taken by Susy of Hamburg, Germany for July/Fletcher Assignment #39: Take a Picture of Your Parents Kissing.)
Monday, October 20, 2008
Control This
Let's look at examples of artists using the internet as a platform for "working with others." What kinds of problems/issues/exciting developments come up when artists bring ideas of collaboration into their work?
The most pressing issue I see coming up in the idea of collaboration in artwork comes in the idea of control.
Eco claims that works are open ane "quite literally 'unfinished.'" The fundamental issue must then become who controls what creates the "finished" product. Holmes says
Control, in hyper-individualist societies, is a function of the way your attention is modulated bt the content you freely select; but it's also a function of the direction into which your behaviour is guided by the larger devices in which you participate.
This description of social control has very real consequences, and instead of governments or czars, artists have the power to do as they please with the work. If the artist is in control of the device, the artist is in control. A look at "Suns From Flickr" shows this interaction. Umbrico decided to limit the pictures of suns to those found in the search "sunset," even though "sky" or "sun" would have yielded even more options. This may not be practical, but it is an exercise of control over the "collaborative" project. "Crying, while eating" falls into the same ability to control, given those who want to contribute have to send in their submission to the webmaster and get it put on that way.
Lind brings up something that is also pertinent to this discussion: collaboration versus cooperation. Collaboration involves "more than one participant," but cooperation "emphasizes the notion of working together and mutually benefiting from it." The artist also controls whether the artwork is merely collaborative (i.e. "Suns from Flickr") or has cooperation involved (i.e. "Crying, while eating"). Normally an artist has an idea of a target audience or message though it cannot strictly limit interpretation or control how things are perceived. To have control over the depth of partipation, however, truly creates a new dynamic in artwork.
The issue of control on the internet, with YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, and other public venues, is then one of the most pertinent issues facing art and life currently and in the future. You may not be able to tell how things will play out once they are in the public sphere, but by controlling the participation and content of art, artists are playing with a great deal of the story involved.
Collaborative Art
Eco talks about the way Pousseur addresses the idea of openness of collaborative work as a positive aspect of the production, "recasting the work so as to expose it to the maximum possible 'opening'. This statement to me is extremely powerful. The notion that artists' works are their finished product and that by adding anymore elements or removing anymore elements is a matter of destruction is one rigid view of art production that we have been engineered to take as the truth. We also have learned to see art production as a controlled, meticulous process. Collaborative art is the rebel that intends to break down our stereotype and expectation of art.
Collaborative art is not laziness or meaningless chaos; it is not an open canvas that is a freebie for anyone who wants to participate. Collaborative art takes the inescapable element of art, which is openness, into its hand and utilizing it to the benefit of the art work. For example, the Jackson Pollack website is not an open, meaningless canvas, even though it may seem like so in the beginning. The amount of the black paint that is allowed to come off the mouse is calculated and controlled to achieve potential aesthetics and an experience that simulates Pollack paintings. Like real paint brush, there is not an unlimited amount of ink that will keep coming off the brush (or your mouse, in this case). Best of all, the participants can experience the effect of motion on paint.
Most importantly though, is that collaborative art uses the inescapable "limitless interpretation" into its benefit and the scope of the artistic intentions. The Sheep Market is an example of such change in artists' view of 'openness'. Instead of creating the one perfect "sheep with the muzzle facing left," Aaron Koblin expends the project to an open source of creativity, letting collaborators offer their interpretations at a reward of 2 cents. Although Koblin is later criticized for exploitation by selling the sheet drawings at a price of $20, and I do not applaud the commercial intentions behind collecting the drawings, Koblin was able to turn the frustrating aspect of art that people can interpret a piece in thousands of ways into an additional source of creativity for his project.
Collaborative art is not laziness or meaningless chaos; it is not an open canvas that is a freebie for anyone who wants to participate. Collaborative art takes the inescapable element of art, which is openness, into its hand and utilizing it to the benefit of the art work. For example, the Jackson Pollack website is not an open, meaningless canvas, even though it may seem like so in the beginning. The amount of the black paint that is allowed to come off the mouse is calculated and controlled to achieve potential aesthetics and an experience that simulates Pollack paintings. Like real paint brush, there is not an unlimited amount of ink that will keep coming off the brush (or your mouse, in this case). Best of all, the participants can experience the effect of motion on paint.
Most importantly though, is that collaborative art uses the inescapable "limitless interpretation" into its benefit and the scope of the artistic intentions. The Sheep Market is an example of such change in artists' view of 'openness'. Instead of creating the one perfect "sheep with the muzzle facing left," Aaron Koblin expends the project to an open source of creativity, letting collaborators offer their interpretations at a reward of 2 cents. Although Koblin is later criticized for exploitation by selling the sheet drawings at a price of $20, and I do not applaud the commercial intentions behind collecting the drawings, Koblin was able to turn the frustrating aspect of art that people can interpret a piece in thousands of ways into an additional source of creativity for his project.
Collaboartive Art--An Oppositional Device In and Of Itself?
Art History 101 Aspects of Western Art, and I assume 102 because I haven't yet taken it, is a class in which you are inundated with sublime iteration after iteration of individual artistic production. When learning how to identify a given work, you are told to reference the period, the date, and the artistic author of that work. You hear countless historical anecdotes about how geniuses like Donatello and Michelangelo were able to manipulate their respective media in ways that baffled their fellow contemporaries. However, collaborative art, in its very conception marks a departure from this individualized artistic epistemology. Instead of emphasizing the superior role of the singular artist, his vision, and his skill, collaborative art disrupts the hierarchical binary categorizing the separation between the artist and his audience. Or as Lind writes, “collaboration has again proved to be a good instrument with which to challenge artistic identity and authorship and therefore to stimulate anxiety.” In this way it seems that collaborative art by its very nature serves an oppositional function in so far as it opposes the primacy lent to individualist artistic production. However, Holmes wants to be more specific than this and affords the classification of oppositional to only certain iterations of collaborative art. I think the difference between the sort of artistically self-reflective, conceptual opposition I have tried to formulate and the specific and practical opposition to which Holmes refers is an important distinction to make. As we see in certain examples like Jacksonpollock.org, this difference in categorization proves quite salient.
Jacksonpollock.org is a wonderfully interesting and fun website. It allows you to mimic the methodology of the hugely influential and famous artist after whom the website is named. It is clear that the site would not substantively oppositional in Holmes estimation, but is it in fact conceptually oppositional? When you visit the site you are immediately thrown into artistic production, almost unknowingly. You could spend an endless amount of time moving your mouse back and forth to creating streaming lines of color and emotion along with forceful and jarring blotches of disruption. However, once you've completed all of your mimicry (which in and of itself somewhat mitigates the collaborative aspect of this art), you press a button and then appears the website creators name, written on top of a work of art that once belonged to you. As such it is clear, that although you spent the time creating the work, your authorial identity is displaced by that of the webcreator, confirming instead of challenging the individualistic authorial relationship between artist and viewer. Even if that viewer contributed to and indeed created the visual production, the artist-website creator claims the work as its facilitator. Accordingly, can this work be properly called oppositional, even conceptually, and therefore collaborative? I think no.
Other websites listed here appear to be more explicitly oppositional in nature, but it seems that this opposition may mitigate some of their more collaborative qualities. Take for example blackpeopleloves.com and rentanegro.com, these two websites are intensely oppositional on a subject that is often dismissed in American political and social discourse--race relations. However, the only real aspect of the websites that allows them to be engaging with their audiences is the fact that viewers can comment or send in letters about the websites. As such it seems that the viewers don't have any real direct agency in changing the substance of the art, but instead can only discuss it. Should these works then be considered interactive and not collaborative? I think yes. At least in the examples provided here, it doesn't appear that any examples of direct political opposition in art is explicitly collaborative. The VirtualGuantanmo project is more interactive like the other two examples I mentioned as the viewer engages an already completed software apparatus. Another question (on which I will finally end) then arises for me: must political oppositional artistic production be closed off in substantive ways to ensure that it is not co-opted by status-quo enforcing impulses?
Jacksonpollock.org is a wonderfully interesting and fun website. It allows you to mimic the methodology of the hugely influential and famous artist after whom the website is named. It is clear that the site would not substantively oppositional in Holmes estimation, but is it in fact conceptually oppositional? When you visit the site you are immediately thrown into artistic production, almost unknowingly. You could spend an endless amount of time moving your mouse back and forth to creating streaming lines of color and emotion along with forceful and jarring blotches of disruption. However, once you've completed all of your mimicry (which in and of itself somewhat mitigates the collaborative aspect of this art), you press a button and then appears the website creators name, written on top of a work of art that once belonged to you. As such it is clear, that although you spent the time creating the work, your authorial identity is displaced by that of the webcreator, confirming instead of challenging the individualistic authorial relationship between artist and viewer. Even if that viewer contributed to and indeed created the visual production, the artist-website creator claims the work as its facilitator. Accordingly, can this work be properly called oppositional, even conceptually, and therefore collaborative? I think no.
Other websites listed here appear to be more explicitly oppositional in nature, but it seems that this opposition may mitigate some of their more collaborative qualities. Take for example blackpeopleloves.com and rentanegro.com, these two websites are intensely oppositional on a subject that is often dismissed in American political and social discourse--race relations. However, the only real aspect of the websites that allows them to be engaging with their audiences is the fact that viewers can comment or send in letters about the websites. As such it seems that the viewers don't have any real direct agency in changing the substance of the art, but instead can only discuss it. Should these works then be considered interactive and not collaborative? I think yes. At least in the examples provided here, it doesn't appear that any examples of direct political opposition in art is explicitly collaborative. The VirtualGuantanmo project is more interactive like the other two examples I mentioned as the viewer engages an already completed software apparatus. Another question (on which I will finally end) then arises for me: must political oppositional artistic production be closed off in substantive ways to ensure that it is not co-opted by status-quo enforcing impulses?
Lind states, “collaboration has again proved to be a good instrument with which to challenge artistic identity and authorship and therefore to stimulate anxiety,” and I think this is particularly relevant to the “Black People love Us” page. In the letters section on this site, there are those who support the work and those who are offended by it. The fact that there are gatherings of white and black people in the photographs does not necessarily mean they are original. Photos can always be manipulated by someone (and it is also not clear if the white or black people are the main characters/artists), therefore it is not clear if collaboration between the two groups really happened, which may produce the two types of responses seen in the letter section. In either case, I think the site succeeds because it receives responses at length, but those too may be fabricated; there is really no way of knowing and further creates anxiety in the viewer. Still, the two main responses where one supports the raising of awareness and the other accuses the white people of ignorance and racism perhaps must affect the artists. If the two groups are indeed collaborated, then they created the site knowing that people would respond largely in these two ways and will now carry some sort of label with them relating to those two. This must have required that the artist be flexible and prepared to deal with remarks directed at them from viewers.
At length, this site qualifies as an oppositional device, as described by Holmes, because it opposes someone’s views. In any case it brings the issue of some sort of disconnect (or not) between the two groups, which will get people thinking in those terms regardless if they are in favor or opposition.
Virtual Guantanamo is arguably more in step with general ethics whereby ordinary people may be opposed to the types of torture that went (go?) on in the institution. It is designed to give participants a chance to live a “second life” in which Guantanamo is a possible destination for them so as to experience first hand what it may be like to be a prisoner. Obviously, this oppositional device opposes the institution’s methods, which have been directed by powerful personnel in some branch of the federal/military government. I would assume that if Guantanamo’s leaders wanted to terminate the virtual project, they would find a way. For now, the project is raising awareness through simulated experiences and free speech and does not pose a serious threat. Projects like these, I think, underscore the way people rise up against injustices, through creativity, flexibility, and if shut down, through even more of that.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Does a “collaboration” imply art, bar-none? While much of what we see under the projects to review and respond to does not fit the mold of explicit “art” in the sense of the manipulation of a physical medium into a representation of an idea, still I found a commonality between many of the more intriguing collaborations in the fact that they attempt to unsettle the viewers and participators. Maria Lind put it well when she stated that,
“Collaboration has again proved to be a good instrument with which to challenge both artistic identity and authorship, and therefore stimulate anxiety.”
I found this especially true of the “oppositional devices” such as “Black People Love Us” and “Rent a Negro,” whose satirical content comes solely from the viewer’s responses to the page/pages. As with “Black people Love Us,” the sight is designed perfectly so that as you surf from the Home page over to “Your Letters,” the author’s intentions become more clear after viewing other’s responses, which range from confused, to upset, to infuriated, to downright panicked.
Perhaps some of the other projects aren’t as overtly preachy as the ones about racism, but they certainly speak to the nature of human interaction in one way or another simply due to the fact that they either promote, showcase, or dissect how people act toward one another when playfully pushed (or forced) into the realm of collaboration. I see the online collaborative process as a means for great potential social transformation if used properly, for it forces the viewer/participator not only to react to the situation presented, but to introspectively match their response to that of other collaborators, thus promoting not only the response but the examination of the response and its implications as well.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Collaborative Art
One aspect I found to be characteristic of collaborative artwork was its utility. While individualistic artwork has the ability to serve a function or use in society, it seems that it more often is created simply for aesthetics. For example, when you visit a museum and view great Renaissance art, you are merely viewing a series of paintings. Of course, one can argue that these pieces of artwork serve the function of educating the public about another time period or cultivating the public's artistic sensibilities. These functions, however, seem rather trivial in comparison with the functions that most collaborative artwork tends to serve. As Lind states in "The Collaborative Turn," the purpose of individualistic art is often to show the world as it is, while the purpose of collaborative artwork is often to create new situations in which people can interact.
As Lind describes, for example, people often use collaborative artwork as a form of activism. Technology has aided the potential for collective activism by allowing a greater volume of opinions to be assembled in a shorter window of time. Furthermore, by working collectively, it is easier for artists to gain "collective autonomy," separating themselves from other spheres of society. I was especially interested, however, in Homles' explanation Foucaut's "Panopticon" and Guattari's concept of the "anti-asylum." (We recently read "Panopticon" in my sociology class.) Based on the panopticon model, people internalize discipline because they fear they are always being watched. As a result, without using direct punishment, society can lead individuals to obey social norms and laws. However, this model can apply to any institution, even the world of art: People adhere to certain norms because they fear being observed deviating from society's prescribed standards. Collaborative art, however, often breaks this model by parting from prescribed standards and creating art that envelops an entire community.
Collaborative art often blurs the line between creators and receivers of art, often creating a more broad category of "participation." JacksonPollack exemplifies the blurring of this distinction: Who is the creator of this piece of art? Is it the team who constructed the website, or is it the thousands of visitors who use the site to make their own creations? Or is it, in fact, that this particular piece of art can be attributed to both sets of people, for it would not exist without the webmasters but would serve no purpose without the visitors? Additionally, to whom can we attribute the art present on Miranda July's "Learning to Love You More"? Is it the creators of the website for developing the concept and the "assignments," or is it the visitors to the website who submit their own creative answers to assignments? Surely, both groups harbor some level of participation in this creative process; however, it is more difficult to tell who, in a sense, "owns" the artwork. In this way, collaborative art often takes away the idea of ownership and instead creates art that is open to the public.
As Lind describes, for example, people often use collaborative artwork as a form of activism. Technology has aided the potential for collective activism by allowing a greater volume of opinions to be assembled in a shorter window of time. Furthermore, by working collectively, it is easier for artists to gain "collective autonomy," separating themselves from other spheres of society. I was especially interested, however, in Homles' explanation Foucaut's "Panopticon" and Guattari's concept of the "anti-asylum." (We recently read "Panopticon" in my sociology class.) Based on the panopticon model, people internalize discipline because they fear they are always being watched. As a result, without using direct punishment, society can lead individuals to obey social norms and laws. However, this model can apply to any institution, even the world of art: People adhere to certain norms because they fear being observed deviating from society's prescribed standards. Collaborative art, however, often breaks this model by parting from prescribed standards and creating art that envelops an entire community.
Collaborative art often blurs the line between creators and receivers of art, often creating a more broad category of "participation." JacksonPollack exemplifies the blurring of this distinction: Who is the creator of this piece of art? Is it the team who constructed the website, or is it the thousands of visitors who use the site to make their own creations? Or is it, in fact, that this particular piece of art can be attributed to both sets of people, for it would not exist without the webmasters but would serve no purpose without the visitors? Additionally, to whom can we attribute the art present on Miranda July's "Learning to Love You More"? Is it the creators of the website for developing the concept and the "assignments," or is it the visitors to the website who submit their own creative answers to assignments? Surely, both groups harbor some level of participation in this creative process; however, it is more difficult to tell who, in a sense, "owns" the artwork. In this way, collaborative art often takes away the idea of ownership and instead creates art that is open to the public.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Purple Valley Films Animation and Multimedia Performance This Friday
Sorry to spam the blog, but I figure I'd write to see if anyone is interested in the following event the film club is throwing:
A night of mind melting tripped out animated videos and interactive psychedelic multi-media performances presented by Portland, Oregon musical group Hooliganship.
The 2008 AMRCAN Fall tour is an 80-minute travelling roadshow including shorts by artists Bruce Bickford, Shana Moulton, Adrian Freeman Takeshi Murata, Paper Rad and more. Alongside this cartoon theater will be a performance by Hooliganship a grunge rock inspired dance-off duo that combines highly orchestrated cell phone tunes with freak-out animations for a sensory-overload multimedia party.They will perform their most recent piece entitled Realer in which audiences strap on a pair of 3D glasses to watch them wreak 3D havoc with a televised parade. This program provides a rare opportunity to see videos by emerging and internationally known artists.
SPECIAL EVENT: CARTUNE XPREZ FALL 2008 Tour
Where: Paresky Theater
When: Friday, October 17th 2008, 7:30pm
A night of mind melting tripped out animated videos and interactive psychedelic multi-media performances presented by Portland, Oregon musical group Hooliganship.
The 2008 AMRCAN Fall tour is an 80-minute travelling roadshow including shorts by artists Bruce Bickford, Shana Moulton, Adrian Freeman Takeshi Murata, Paper Rad and more. Alongside this cartoon theater will be a performance by Hooliganship a grunge rock inspired dance-off duo that combines highly orchestrated cell phone tunes with freak-out animations for a sensory-overload multimedia party.They will perform their most recent piece entitled Realer in which audiences strap on a pair of 3D glasses to watch them wreak 3D havoc with a televised parade. This program provides a rare opportunity to see videos by emerging and internationally known artists.
Cartune Xprez: http://www.cartunexprez.com/
Hooliganship: http://www.hooliganship.com/
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Collaborative web-based art
Something that sets the below projects apart, and that stems from their participatory nature, is the varying balance between the artist and collaborating participants in determining the polemic of the project (where/to what, etc it is directed).
When Huyghe and Parreno purchased AnnLee, when Oliver Laric created 50/50 or, more so, biceps, and particularly with a project such as sheep market, the artist or artists seem to be manipulating input from the (sometimes pretty nominally) 'collaborating' public. This is also quite apparent, and a bit more functionally transparent, in Sam Brown's Exploding Dog. In projects such as JacksonPollack and the collaborative sentence, the artist is in the role of enabling input from the collaborating public (not more definitively collaborating). Other projects fall in between: Man With a Movie Camera, The Continuum of Cute.
The obvious connection here is that degree to which a given project can be classed as an "oppositional device" (Holmes, 36) is directly related to how polemical the project is, and that this in turn is related to the degree to which the artist funtionally and directly intends and acts upon creating that polemic. However, I find a more perfect oppositional device in the simply medium-specific openess of JacksonPollack.
In some ways, and particularly with the internet, the artist's appropriation of images and content created by untwitting users is a sort of forgone conclusion: the artists 'subverts' the objects of images of the lives of 'ordinary people' in such a way as to make a statement while refusing to spell out exactly what that statement might be (link). And while the meaning (the point) of the work with both peel and with JacksonPollack is nominally evanescent, only in the latter case does this sort of 'nothing' thesis actually synergize in a self-consistent way with the work and the medium itself.
When Huyghe and Parreno purchased AnnLee, when Oliver Laric created 50/50 or, more so, biceps, and particularly with a project such as sheep market, the artist or artists seem to be manipulating input from the (sometimes pretty nominally) 'collaborating' public. This is also quite apparent, and a bit more functionally transparent, in Sam Brown's Exploding Dog. In projects such as JacksonPollack and the collaborative sentence, the artist is in the role of enabling input from the collaborating public (not more definitively collaborating). Other projects fall in between: Man With a Movie Camera, The Continuum of Cute.
The obvious connection here is that degree to which a given project can be classed as an "oppositional device" (Holmes, 36) is directly related to how polemical the project is, and that this in turn is related to the degree to which the artist funtionally and directly intends and acts upon creating that polemic. However, I find a more perfect oppositional device in the simply medium-specific openess of JacksonPollack.
In some ways, and particularly with the internet, the artist's appropriation of images and content created by untwitting users is a sort of forgone conclusion: the artists 'subverts' the objects of images of the lives of 'ordinary people' in such a way as to make a statement while refusing to spell out exactly what that statement might be (link). And while the meaning (the point) of the work with both peel and with JacksonPollack is nominally evanescent, only in the latter case does this sort of 'nothing' thesis actually synergize in a self-consistent way with the work and the medium itself.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Links from Andrew Lynn
More links from Andrew Lynn (watched/talked about and unwatched)
http://stillweridethemovie.com
SWR on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNR-SwvzdMA
http://mysurvivalkit.tv/MSKTV
http://animationworkshop.blogspot.com
http://troybikerescue.org
http://mediasanctuary.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whirl-Mart
whirl video: http://www.archive.org/details/WhirlMart
opening access video: http://www.archive.org/details/openingaccesstelevision
Art Not Terrorism...
http://mediasanctuary.blip.tv/file/797691/
and then theres this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sMDG_bpBAk&feature=related
which i hadnt really planned on talking about.
http://stillweridethemovie.com
SWR on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://mysurvivalkit.tv/MSKTV
http://animationworkshop.
http://troybikerescue.org
http://mediasanctuary.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
whirl video: http://www.archive.org/
opening access video: http://www.archive.org/
Art Not Terrorism...
http://mediasanctuary.blip.tv/
and then theres this....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
which i hadnt really planned on talking about.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Wrap up & next week
Hi all,
Thanks for a good class today. Have a good day off next week!
Here is the media center Andrew & I work with. And as promised, here is the very silly PSA I made for the Sanctuary late one night from whatever random video documentation I had on my laptop (Andrew did the animation). If you explore the site a little, you can get a sense of what we do (film screenings, music, production workshops, organizing, etc.) We even had a pretty crazy censorship scandal last spring (the City shut us down for over a month). Of course, we made a video about it, as a collective, very very quickly (that was my spring break, last year).
The next time we meet, we will have another guest artist, Adam Frelin.
If you want to talk about your projects (or anything else), a reminder that my office hours are Tue 4-6pm.
FOR NEXT CLASS (10/20):
"Open" participatory works (some repeats from last week):
Thanks for a good class today. Have a good day off next week!
Here is the media center Andrew & I work with. And as promised, here is the very silly PSA I made for the Sanctuary late one night from whatever random video documentation I had on my laptop (Andrew did the animation). If you explore the site a little, you can get a sense of what we do (film screenings, music, production workshops, organizing, etc.) We even had a pretty crazy censorship scandal last spring (the City shut us down for over a month). Of course, we made a video about it, as a collective, very very quickly (that was my spring break, last year).
The next time we meet, we will have another guest artist, Adam Frelin.
If you want to talk about your projects (or anything else), a reminder that my office hours are Tue 4-6pm.
FOR NEXT CLASS (10/20):
Let's look at examples of artists using the internet as a platform for "working with others." What kinds of problems/issues/exciting developments come up when artists bring ideas of collaboration into their work? Referencing Lind, Holmes and/or Eco, use at least two examples from the list below to anchor your response.REQUIRED reading (note changes from paper syllabus!):
- "The Collaborative Turn" (Maria Lind)
- “The Poetics of the Open Work” (Umberto Eco)
- "The Oppositional Device" (Brian Holmes)
"Open" participatory works (some repeats from last week):
- Crying, While Eating
- Learning to Love You More (Miranda July & Harrell Fletcher)
- Exploding Dog
- The Continuum of Cute (Nina Katchadourian)
- The Sheep Market
- ...and a review of The Sheep Market
- The World's First Collaborative Sentence (click on "Enter Project" after reading description)
- Man With A Movie Camera re-make (open source filmmaking!?!?)
- JacksonPollack
- Flickr Sunsets (Penelope Umbrico)
- 50/50 (Oliver Laric)
- Peel (William Boling)
- Black People Love Us
- Rent-a-Negro
- Improv Anywhere (many of their missions involve the creation of flashmobs)
- GWBush.com (one of the earliest projects of The Yes Men)
- Virtual Guantanamo (a project in Second Life)
- Work With Me!
Juicy Campus
Penny, it's funny you mentioned that gossip page you encountered in college today in class. Right about the same time we received the instructions for our next project last week, Williams College campus was buzzing about this new site Juicy Campus. Like we discussed today in class, once anonymity is granted to a collaborative community, the credibility of information is lost. The vast majority of the site is complete garbage, but something interesting does occur in the most recent entries. A small group of unidentified people, in what seems to be an attempt to kill the gossip flow on the site, began posting things like historical quotes, encyclopedia entries, and a number of other items under misnomer titles, essentially flooding the site with disinformation. Certain people felt that Juicy Campus was bad for campus prestige, it seems, and in a collaborative effort killed the site chatter.
This was actually my original idea for our project, but someone, it seems, beat me to it so now I have to think of something else...
This was actually my original idea for our project, but someone, it seems, beat me to it so now I have to think of something else...
Community media projects to Web 2.0 apps and beyond
As the information superhighway continues its ever expanding quest to connect every person on Earth, community-based sharing has become increasingly simplified, thus much more expressive. Like we saw at Willinet, the goal of the community-based network is to provide assistence for anyone seeking an outlet to spread information. With the emergence of YouTube and the like (Break, Vimeo, etc...) the messages individuals wish to share with the world become instantly accessible. New and exciting possibilities for the exchange of ideas have opened, and with them, too, comes opportunities to capitalize for profit unlike anything previously witnessed.
In increasing the size of collaborators in a given community, is there danger for proliferation of disinformation? I submit that yes, as the "Myspace Generation" delves further into the world of metacrap, we must be wary of those who would try to control the information we see. The most striking difference between a community based network, such as Willinet, and the online community is the idea of anonymity. With accountability essentially made irrelevant, little stands in the way for a certain party to act concededly in their own interests, be that concealing information, manipulation of sharing systems such as "Google bombing," or capitalistic ventures launched off the efforts of countless faceless internet producers such as is "Sheep farm."
The elimination of accountability results in two polar opposite effects: (1) The art expressed becomes unhindered by social constraints, or (2) the information presented loses all credibility. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be prevailing more and more, while simultaneously contributing to the demise of the community-based networking systems.
In increasing the size of collaborators in a given community, is there danger for proliferation of disinformation? I submit that yes, as the "Myspace Generation" delves further into the world of metacrap, we must be wary of those who would try to control the information we see. The most striking difference between a community based network, such as Willinet, and the online community is the idea of anonymity. With accountability essentially made irrelevant, little stands in the way for a certain party to act concededly in their own interests, be that concealing information, manipulation of sharing systems such as "Google bombing," or capitalistic ventures launched off the efforts of countless faceless internet producers such as is "Sheep farm."
The elimination of accountability results in two polar opposite effects: (1) The art expressed becomes unhindered by social constraints, or (2) the information presented loses all credibility. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be prevailing more and more, while simultaneously contributing to the demise of the community-based networking systems.
Arbitrary? Hardly.
How does Youtube (or other online social networking/collaborative platforms) compare to public access TV or other community media projects we've looked at? Use the example of Youtube and at least two other examples from the links below to anchor your response to this question. Bonus question: Who benefits and who is in control?
There are a variety of differences and similarities between public access TV (and things like it) and Web 2.0. While both provide an outlet for information, creativity, and knowledge to flow between individuals, the discrepencies that exist between the mediums are glaring.
First off, Youtube was bought by Google for more than the entire national public access TV budget. Assuming Google was reasonable in their expectations of Youtube, they did this because Youtube was a viable source of revenue. Why? Audience. Youtube attracts a wide variety of people-- bored students, amateur pundits, people showcasing their houses-- in a simpler and more efficient way than Public Access ever did. Also, people love to see themselves, and Youtube allows for a program/video to be pulled up on command. No waiting, no missing a part of the program. This means that it's sheerly more convenient for people to use. When the Everything is Miscellaneous reading talks about "tagging leaves," the same principle applies. At your convenience, whenever you want, you just pull up things of interest. It's less laborious to type in 12 letters than to retrieve a book and flip through the pages.
Part of this inherently is due to the increase in technology and the Internet, but part of it is also that using the camera built into your laptop to send a video through your laptop to watch on Youtube via your laptop is easier than what public access initially required. The "Metacrap" article also hits on this point, talking about the ease with which people do things, but the lax behavior exhibited when they fail to make it easy for anyone else to decipher (i.e. UNTITLED.DOC).
The article titled "User-Generated Censorship" provides insight to the negative side of this. It's also much easier to make a poor comment on a Youtube video or flag someone's blog than it is to call and complain to your local public access station. Also, I would argue that most of what it on Youtube, in the blogosphere, on Urban Dictionary or Wikipedia, or through other expressions on the internet caters to niche markets and a fair proportion of people on the Internet simply do not care. That is why some videos have 3 views and some have 3 million-- it's not that big of a deal. One would argue that public access TV also caters to niche markets. I would not disagree with this, but your market through TV expands only through your metropolis, so your niche is incredibly small, which goes back to the issue of audience. The niche on Youtube is the aggregate of the same niche across all of the geographic areas, which makes it incredibly large relative to public access TV, even for specific ideas.
So who is in control? The user. You control what you watch and pay attention to, what you search for and what you contribute. Who benefits? Everyone. You have an outlet, regardless of how miscellaneous or arbitrary your contribution seems to others, and your audience may just gain some insight in the process.
Corporate Co-optation?
Definitionally speaking, it would seem that the online community spaces provided by such web-based applications as youtube and facebook have the potential to take the democratic and public aspirations that began with the inception of public access television to a new and broader level. Take youtube for example, whose leading mantra is "broadcast yourself." Ostensibly this slogan flies in the face of the hierarchical structure imposed by a consumer society that reveres and depends on its corporate elite. However, youtube's explosion of popularity has made it a prime and formerly untapped market of an entirely new generation of consumers. Thus it seems, like the free market economy in which smaller based operations have to struggle to survive, in the free market of ideas provided by spaces like youtube, individuals have to struggle to be seen.
When I clicked on the community page on youtube, I expected to be taken to a space where videos of small children singing songs in their underwear were juxtaposed next to videos of large sweaty men spouting off their conspiracy theories in a dimly lit broom closet. However, I was instead met by a flood of video contests that were almost all sponsored by large corporations attempting to interactively sell their products and group pages that represented similarly economic interests. It seems like somehow youtube has lost the spirit in which it was conceived where broadcasting yourself means competing with gigantic corporations braodcasting their products. Indeed this seems to be the case with other seemingly community focused sites like myspace and facebook where one cannot visit without being bombarded by various advertisements catered to the information you've made public about yourself. Is public access television one of the few spaces that has not completely been co-opted by corporate interests? It seems like a possible answer to this question and an antidote to this cynicism lies in three crucially important issues: locality (as in the case of public access), specificity, and popularity.
If we look at some of the other links provided here, like vimeo and crying while eating, we don't see the same sort of coporate representation found on sites like youtube. I think perhaps this is due to the comparatively small scale at which these sites operate. Until today I had never heard of vimeo (perhaps this might have something to do with the fact that it has never been used as a space for submitting questions in a presidential election...). Crying while eating is not only comparatively smaller, like vimeo, but I think maybe its specificity makes it a less enticing space for corporate interests. I'm sure that Mc Donald's or any other giant food corporation could find a way to intervene with a little product placement, but having someone crying while they use your product may not be the best representation of quality.
All in all it seems to me that with popularity comes a loss of individual user agency and therefore a loss of a site's explicitly public spirit. Perhaps if youtube wants provide a space in which individuals can really broadcast themselves, they should cease allowing corporations to be considered "selves" (even though corporations are individuals legally speaking...) and leave that designation to the people who are really seeking an online community as opposed to an online consumer market.
When I clicked on the community page on youtube, I expected to be taken to a space where videos of small children singing songs in their underwear were juxtaposed next to videos of large sweaty men spouting off their conspiracy theories in a dimly lit broom closet. However, I was instead met by a flood of video contests that were almost all sponsored by large corporations attempting to interactively sell their products and group pages that represented similarly economic interests. It seems like somehow youtube has lost the spirit in which it was conceived where broadcasting yourself means competing with gigantic corporations braodcasting their products. Indeed this seems to be the case with other seemingly community focused sites like myspace and facebook where one cannot visit without being bombarded by various advertisements catered to the information you've made public about yourself. Is public access television one of the few spaces that has not completely been co-opted by corporate interests? It seems like a possible answer to this question and an antidote to this cynicism lies in three crucially important issues: locality (as in the case of public access), specificity, and popularity.
If we look at some of the other links provided here, like vimeo and crying while eating, we don't see the same sort of coporate representation found on sites like youtube. I think perhaps this is due to the comparatively small scale at which these sites operate. Until today I had never heard of vimeo (perhaps this might have something to do with the fact that it has never been used as a space for submitting questions in a presidential election...). Crying while eating is not only comparatively smaller, like vimeo, but I think maybe its specificity makes it a less enticing space for corporate interests. I'm sure that Mc Donald's or any other giant food corporation could find a way to intervene with a little product placement, but having someone crying while they use your product may not be the best representation of quality.
All in all it seems to me that with popularity comes a loss of individual user agency and therefore a loss of a site's explicitly public spirit. Perhaps if youtube wants provide a space in which individuals can really broadcast themselves, they should cease allowing corporations to be considered "selves" (even though corporations are individuals legally speaking...) and leave that designation to the people who are really seeking an online community as opposed to an online consumer market.
Web 2.0s Versus Wilinets
Online collaborative platforms (i.e Youtube) and community media projects (i.e Public Access TV) relate in that it is a community that directly contributes to and absorbs the production of the whole. Beyond that, these two mediums differ greatly in how they influence and act on the community at large.
Cable Access TV and other community media projects are aimed at people in their surrounding community. Wilinet, for example, is programed for the people in the small Williamstown area. Media projects, like the “People's Video Theater” were made to have an even smaller specific audience.
Online collaborative projects, on the other hand, have a larger specific audience. This audience is based not on geographic closeness to the media production, but on interests. I doubt that “Crying While Eating” would have gotten nearly as large an amount of entries if it were a show on Wilinet. Online social networking sites make it easier for people with obscure creative interests to get together and make something more accessible for the world.
Cable access is, furthermore, limited in that it is not as simple for the audience member to choose what they are watching. The only way to choose is to make your own programming. However, with web 2.0 sites, users can choose what they are absorbing and when they are going to absorb it. As David Weinberger writes in “Everything is Miscellaneous”, “users are now in charge of the organization of the information they browse.”
The extreme example of this can be found in the new Ever Note program which allows users to gather as much information they like from the Internet, in the similar “tagging” manner that most Web 2.0 applications allow for.
Cable Access TV and other community media projects are aimed at people in their surrounding community. Wilinet, for example, is programed for the people in the small Williamstown area. Media projects, like the “People's Video Theater” were made to have an even smaller specific audience.
Online collaborative projects, on the other hand, have a larger specific audience. This audience is based not on geographic closeness to the media production, but on interests. I doubt that “Crying While Eating” would have gotten nearly as large an amount of entries if it were a show on Wilinet. Online social networking sites make it easier for people with obscure creative interests to get together and make something more accessible for the world.
Cable access is, furthermore, limited in that it is not as simple for the audience member to choose what they are watching. The only way to choose is to make your own programming. However, with web 2.0 sites, users can choose what they are absorbing and when they are going to absorb it. As David Weinberger writes in “Everything is Miscellaneous”, “users are now in charge of the organization of the information they browse.”
The extreme example of this can be found in the new Ever Note program which allows users to gather as much information they like from the Internet, in the similar “tagging” manner that most Web 2.0 applications allow for.
Online 2.0 and Public access television
The main effect I got from reviewing the links to these online platforms is that they are probably visited by more teenagers/young adults, perhaps at college or preparing to enroll than by full blown adults. A lot of the themes border on the miscellaneous, for example on the community channel on YouTube there are advertisements by circuit city, oreos and home depot as well as calls to end poverty among other special interest programs. I didn't get the sense of community found in say TigerTV or Willinet where you know the programs are directed by and to the immediate community.
Also, from the additional required readings, I did get the sense that free speech is at higher risk on the online world, specially if blogs/videos are targeted by mobs who dislike a particular user. I don't foresee this sort of thing happening in public access TV unless the specific program is really offensive. Of course, you could signup as a new user on YouTube and begin with a new identity, but I think people may discover that quickly if you beat around the same issues, in which case you will be knocked off the grid. Then again, you could get your own mob and target those targetting you--but then it becomes a war between the two sides and no messages will get across to the community in the end. Public access feels more personal, and it's definitely more accessible. I mean, it's on TV as apposed to online. Who doesn't have a TV? To have internet access means that there is enough money to go around to be purchasing the service in the first place. Therefore, wealthier individuals seem to have access to these online platforms while the less wealthy fall behind. The benefits, as the readings pointed out, are that people get a sense of community when allowed to create their own videos/blogs/etc., which in turn allows them to connect to others, albeit in a very inpersonal way. Public access has the potential of bringing people together more efficiently, for one because the distance is presumably shorter, and two, events can be planned for "next week," for example, and really stir people together.
What online users are doing unconsciously, it seems, is to increase the revenue for those internet giants like google who buys out popular sites like youtube as soon as they capture enough online attention. Working for free by tagging images on a google site feels a little uneasy, to say the least.
Also, from the additional required readings, I did get the sense that free speech is at higher risk on the online world, specially if blogs/videos are targeted by mobs who dislike a particular user. I don't foresee this sort of thing happening in public access TV unless the specific program is really offensive. Of course, you could signup as a new user on YouTube and begin with a new identity, but I think people may discover that quickly if you beat around the same issues, in which case you will be knocked off the grid. Then again, you could get your own mob and target those targetting you--but then it becomes a war between the two sides and no messages will get across to the community in the end. Public access feels more personal, and it's definitely more accessible. I mean, it's on TV as apposed to online. Who doesn't have a TV? To have internet access means that there is enough money to go around to be purchasing the service in the first place. Therefore, wealthier individuals seem to have access to these online platforms while the less wealthy fall behind. The benefits, as the readings pointed out, are that people get a sense of community when allowed to create their own videos/blogs/etc., which in turn allows them to connect to others, albeit in a very inpersonal way. Public access has the potential of bringing people together more efficiently, for one because the distance is presumably shorter, and two, events can be planned for "next week," for example, and really stir people together.
What online users are doing unconsciously, it seems, is to increase the revenue for those internet giants like google who buys out popular sites like youtube as soon as they capture enough online attention. Working for free by tagging images on a google site feels a little uneasy, to say the least.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Web 2.0 is so cool
How does Youtube (or other online social networking/collaborative platforms) compare to public access TV or other community media projects we've looked at? Use the example of Youtube and at least two other examples from the links below to anchor your response to this question. Bonus question: Who benefits and who is in control?
Public access television offers itself to be a wonderful platform for communities to communicate with each others. But this form of communication (between the maker of whatever is put on TV and the viewer) is one that is predominantly a place to share and inform then a place to engage in interaction and dialogues. For PAT, communication begins with one person/group's idea to advertise something or communicate something (perhaps through making and displaying a film), but it remains mainly a monologue. What's wonderful with web 2.0 is that it enables interaction with either friends through sites such as facebook or even strangers through website such as Vimeo where viewers can comment and ask questions about the videos. The most fascinating web 2.0 from our list to me is certainly the Lunchtimers. It brilliantly provides a platforms for collaborative doodling. Being able to create and response some stranger's creativity is extremely satisfying. The web creates a sort of intimacy (although temporal) for people to imagine a human connection. Just like web-based video games, viewers can pretend that they belong to a community of interactions. The virtual community can even grow to a point when it can demonstrate societal norms such as the natural separation of leaders and followers. Web 2.0 works has its advantage of preserving the anonymity. I as a participant of Lunchtimers feels the increased freedom to draw whatever comes to mind as my name and my identity is not exposed.
Anonymity is a fascinating ingredient in the web 2.0 world. During my playtime on Lunchtimers, I was able to see how the article "Metacrap" rightly identify the weaknesses of web 2.0. "Metacrap" describes how people lie and can spam a search site or even your e-mail. But I would say that there is also the case when people are simply trying to be destructive. When I was happily doodling on Lunchtimers, my anonymous drawing buddy decided to write "Child Porn" and "Free Child Porn" all over our screen. He/she definitely got my attention as I change to another drawing "chat room" because I felt uncomfortable seeing his/her message all over the place. Except, the stranger was already in another chat room spreading his incredibly distasteful comment. I would assume that the stranger simply wanted to mess around, and in turns ruined my desire to go back to the site. The abuse of anonymity is a weakness of web 2.0. My experience on Lunchtimers gave me a good understanding of how the web 2.0 system can be abused and attract user generated censorship, coined by Annalee Newitz.
Public access television offers itself to be a wonderful platform for communities to communicate with each others. But this form of communication (between the maker of whatever is put on TV and the viewer) is one that is predominantly a place to share and inform then a place to engage in interaction and dialogues. For PAT, communication begins with one person/group's idea to advertise something or communicate something (perhaps through making and displaying a film), but it remains mainly a monologue. What's wonderful with web 2.0 is that it enables interaction with either friends through sites such as facebook or even strangers through website such as Vimeo where viewers can comment and ask questions about the videos. The most fascinating web 2.0 from our list to me is certainly the Lunchtimers. It brilliantly provides a platforms for collaborative doodling. Being able to create and response some stranger's creativity is extremely satisfying. The web creates a sort of intimacy (although temporal) for people to imagine a human connection. Just like web-based video games, viewers can pretend that they belong to a community of interactions. The virtual community can even grow to a point when it can demonstrate societal norms such as the natural separation of leaders and followers. Web 2.0 works has its advantage of preserving the anonymity. I as a participant of Lunchtimers feels the increased freedom to draw whatever comes to mind as my name and my identity is not exposed.
Anonymity is a fascinating ingredient in the web 2.0 world. During my playtime on Lunchtimers, I was able to see how the article "Metacrap" rightly identify the weaknesses of web 2.0. "Metacrap" describes how people lie and can spam a search site or even your e-mail. But I would say that there is also the case when people are simply trying to be destructive. When I was happily doodling on Lunchtimers, my anonymous drawing buddy decided to write "Child Porn" and "Free Child Porn" all over our screen. He/she definitely got my attention as I change to another drawing "chat room" because I felt uncomfortable seeing his/her message all over the place. Except, the stranger was already in another chat room spreading his incredibly distasteful comment. I would assume that the stranger simply wanted to mess around, and in turns ruined my desire to go back to the site. The abuse of anonymity is a weakness of web 2.0. My experience on Lunchtimers gave me a good understanding of how the web 2.0 system can be abused and attract user generated censorship, coined by Annalee Newitz.
While the world of online video and community access television are quite similar but also differ greatly. The missions of both of these mediums (?) are relatively the same : give a voice to the community that they serve by allowing them to create the programming themselves. Community access television is largely limited to the community in which it is broadcast. While a few films shows and videos may be shown widely, either via satellite or ”sneakernet”, the amount of productions that are available are minimal when compared to the plethora of videos that are available on websites such as YouTube.com and Vimeo.com. The advent of these websites created a community of millions rather than a community numbering in the thousands or hundreds of thousands. These online communities are highly participatory, allowing users to comment on videos and actively engage the community and the filmmaker. Community based television does not allow for this immediacy of interaction with the filmmaker and the greater community. The largest contrast between the online video world and community based television seems to be one thing: profit. In many ways it seems as though the world of community access television is largely non-profit. The films and videos that are uploaded to sites like Youtube and Vime are ,in effect, being sold. The user is “working” for free by uploading content and the websites sell advertising space (that can be highly specific depending on if a user tags their videos or not).
Interestingly Current.tv is an attempt to bring these two worlds (community based television and the world of internet video) together. Current.tv allows users from around the globe to upload their videos and have them voted onto their television network, which is available around the world. These two communities work seamlessly together as user created content appears on both on the television network and online. Viewer created content accounts the vast majority of the programming giving the program a “community” based feel. Even if the videos are not broadcast online they are still available on the channel’s website for all to view and comment on keeping with the participatory spirit of online media.
Interestingly Current.tv is an attempt to bring these two worlds (community based television and the world of internet video) together. Current.tv allows users from around the globe to upload their videos and have them voted onto their television network, which is available around the world. These two communities work seamlessly together as user created content appears on both on the television network and online. Viewer created content accounts the vast majority of the programming giving the program a “community” based feel. Even if the videos are not broadcast online they are still available on the channel’s website for all to view and comment on keeping with the participatory spirit of online media.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Social networking sites offer a greater chance for public participation in information sharing. This benefits the individual because, as internet access is generally more available than public access TV and community media projects (i.e. nearly every town has some sort of internet provider, but not all towns have community media organizations), the individual can more relay their ideas to an audience.
However, preference of social networking sites over community media projects largely depends on what the individual would like to accomplish. On one hand, information websites make it easier for individuals to find a specific piece of information. The "Google Image Tagger," for example, helps make images more accessible to individuals by tagging them under multiple categories. Cognitively, this is much how concepts are represented in the human mind: under multiple categories and network connections of keywords. Thus, just as in the mind, it is easier to recall a piece of information with the more connections and "tag words" one related with it, it is easier to find a piece of information on the internet the more tags you can use to search for it.
If your purpose is not to search for a piece of information, though, but rather to create a participatory project, community media may be a more useful outlet (depending on your audience). The website "Crying While Eating" makes it very easy for individuals to submit their own clips and be published on the website. However, as it enlarges its sense of 'community' to the global community, there is a possibility that the site will get lost among the multitude of sites on the internet and not reach its intended audience. With community media and public access TV, there is a greater chance that the members of one community will all view the project. NOTE: This is a bad example, though - there's little chance that the majority of people in a local community will be interested in "Crying While Eating"; the site probably does gain its optimal audience on the web. A better example might be discourse about a city initiative.
Finally, some of the required reading on the internet talked about the sort of majority-oppressing-minority censorship that occurs online, such as with flagging. These authors seemed rather cynical and, in my opinion, overestimated the amount of harmful flagging that actually goes on. Additionally, while making one's information hard to find on the internet does censor it in a way, most information is pretty hard to find as it is. It would be interesting to see in a study how such flagging and attempts at "censorship" actually did affect visitation to a site. For the most part, I believe that the internet is a great place for free expression, given that an individual knows where to look. A good example of this is the Whitney's "World's First Collaborative Sentence." Such a project would not have been possible anywhere but the internet, where it is much easier to process and store such a vast amount of information.
- Katie
However, preference of social networking sites over community media projects largely depends on what the individual would like to accomplish. On one hand, information websites make it easier for individuals to find a specific piece of information. The "Google Image Tagger," for example, helps make images more accessible to individuals by tagging them under multiple categories. Cognitively, this is much how concepts are represented in the human mind: under multiple categories and network connections of keywords. Thus, just as in the mind, it is easier to recall a piece of information with the more connections and "tag words" one related with it, it is easier to find a piece of information on the internet the more tags you can use to search for it.
If your purpose is not to search for a piece of information, though, but rather to create a participatory project, community media may be a more useful outlet (depending on your audience). The website "Crying While Eating" makes it very easy for individuals to submit their own clips and be published on the website. However, as it enlarges its sense of 'community' to the global community, there is a possibility that the site will get lost among the multitude of sites on the internet and not reach its intended audience. With community media and public access TV, there is a greater chance that the members of one community will all view the project. NOTE: This is a bad example, though - there's little chance that the majority of people in a local community will be interested in "Crying While Eating"; the site probably does gain its optimal audience on the web. A better example might be discourse about a city initiative.
Finally, some of the required reading on the internet talked about the sort of majority-oppressing-minority censorship that occurs online, such as with flagging. These authors seemed rather cynical and, in my opinion, overestimated the amount of harmful flagging that actually goes on. Additionally, while making one's information hard to find on the internet does censor it in a way, most information is pretty hard to find as it is. It would be interesting to see in a study how such flagging and attempts at "censorship" actually did affect visitation to a site. For the most part, I believe that the internet is a great place for free expression, given that an individual knows where to look. A good example of this is the Whitney's "World's First Collaborative Sentence." Such a project would not have been possible anywhere but the internet, where it is much easier to process and store such a vast amount of information.
- Katie
Friday, October 3, 2008
Public Acess Vs. Web 2.0
Ostensibly, both Public Access Television, and Web 2.0 applications such as Youtube and facebook, would allow one a platform through which to freely broadcast their ideas. However, it is clear that there has been a radical break in the tradition of community media with the policies, business plans, and objectives of many of the most popular of the Web 2.0 applications.
The corporate slogan of Youtube is 'Broadcast Yourself,' is seemingly identical to what Ms. Dane urged our class, and continually urges Williamstown, to take part in. A few key differences, though, can illustrate the conceptual divide. Most importantly, Willinet is not-for-profit, while Youtube and the vast balance of other popular (YT's founder references them with the term "killer" [link]) applications are public or private corporations with multi-million-dollar or higher net worths. Others differences include the focus on entertainment of Web 2.0 vs. the focus on community of Willinet; it should also be noted that Web 2.0 apps utilize the rhetoric of a community-based focus (eg. "Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected." [link]) and the associated ethos. That ethos is actually acted upon, and indeed one of the pillars of the public access movement. Finally, other differences include (ref. above) the high saturation of advertisements on Web 2.0 sites (often targeted to a user's various demographics through the obligatory data mining that is a contractual part of sites such as facebook [link]) versus the non-commercialism of public access (as well as the relative simplicity of its contracts).
Censorship is an area of particularly marked differences between Web 2.0 and Public access; public access near-to, or completely without, censorship of any kind in terms of both the content it airs and the access to technology is provides. Web 2.0 utilizes at least two distinct kinds of censorship, the first being user-generated and the second being application or company generated. As Newitz notes, these two modes are interlocking, so that users censor each other with the express permission, help, and encouragement of the managers of a given app (link).
Web 2.0 applications that avoid the pitfalls of misleading collaborative rhetoric, unwitting user exploitation, and a market-based approach are a rarity, but not altogether absent from the internet. One site (that is arguably a Web 2.0 app) of this genera is Craigslist.com, a worldwide classified listing and discussion board provider. However, even Craigslist, a paragon of user-oriented collaboration, utilizes the same flagging system of peer censorship seen on more conventional sites. Also, it should be noted that although Craigslist is nominally non-monetized, users working for free, as Scholtz notes, are the generative force behind its profit margins.
The corporate slogan of Youtube is 'Broadcast Yourself,' is seemingly identical to what Ms. Dane urged our class, and continually urges Williamstown, to take part in. A few key differences, though, can illustrate the conceptual divide. Most importantly, Willinet is not-for-profit, while Youtube and the vast balance of other popular (YT's founder references them with the term "killer" [link]) applications are public or private corporations with multi-million-dollar or higher net worths. Others differences include the focus on entertainment of Web 2.0 vs. the focus on community of Willinet; it should also be noted that Web 2.0 apps utilize the rhetoric of a community-based focus (eg. "Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected." [link]) and the associated ethos. That ethos is actually acted upon, and indeed one of the pillars of the public access movement. Finally, other differences include (ref. above) the high saturation of advertisements on Web 2.0 sites (often targeted to a user's various demographics through the obligatory data mining that is a contractual part of sites such as facebook [link]) versus the non-commercialism of public access (as well as the relative simplicity of its contracts).
Censorship is an area of particularly marked differences between Web 2.0 and Public access; public access near-to, or completely without, censorship of any kind in terms of both the content it airs and the access to technology is provides. Web 2.0 utilizes at least two distinct kinds of censorship, the first being user-generated and the second being application or company generated. As Newitz notes, these two modes are interlocking, so that users censor each other with the express permission, help, and encouragement of the managers of a given app (link).
Web 2.0 applications that avoid the pitfalls of misleading collaborative rhetoric, unwitting user exploitation, and a market-based approach are a rarity, but not altogether absent from the internet. One site (that is arguably a Web 2.0 app) of this genera is Craigslist.com, a worldwide classified listing and discussion board provider. However, even Craigslist, a paragon of user-oriented collaboration, utilizes the same flagging system of peer censorship seen on more conventional sites. Also, it should be noted that although Craigslist is nominally non-monetized, users working for free, as Scholtz notes, are the generative force behind its profit margins.
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