Response to "Kuo Hsi’s 'Clearing Autumn Skies'"

I love the detail in these scrolls- they really seem to pull me into the place in the picture.  I have actually collected a few mimic scrolls of this kind to hang in my apartment and room and, while they are not 900 years old, they still hold the same wonder and capture of this orginal "motion pictures."  I found the author of the article to go a little overboard in his writing.  I appreciate his enthusiasm, but spending multiple paragraphs describing every little detail of the scroll took a little bit of the fun out of exploring the location for myself.  But the scroll is a beautiful representation of a location and the author did a good job describing the importance of the medium, as it was back and then and today.

Response to Robert Pleshar's Recording of "A Dip in the Lake"

I'll start off by saying that I wouldn't buy a CD with this music on it, nor do I even think I would listen to much of it for any lengthy stretch of time.  However, the recording process I found very interesting and unique.  I would love to record this piece myself, just to have an excuse to travel around, to see and hear things that I never have before.  I don't know if John Cage intended this to be more of an experience for the audience or for the musician (in this case, recorder and mixer), but I know that personally it would all be about the experience of making the project, not so much listening to the final product.

Project 2 Concept Speculation

The idea of project 2 is to represent a certain landscape, a certain area, through some particular point-of-view.  Instead of simply showing an area, I want to really capitalize on the point-of-view aspect of the project by sharing a particular space through the interpretation of one activity; in this case, unicycling.  To be more specific, trials and freestyle unicycling.  

I have been unicyling for six years, so it has become a major part of me.  When I walk through a park, I don't just see parks benches, picnic tables, stone walls, and open squares.  I see obstacles to climb up, jump over, ride on, and so tricks in.  The world of trials unicycling is a unique one, where any place can become a playground, and I want to try and capture that for the audience of my work.  I've been scouting out a few locations that might be suitable, somewhere that is open and out of the way enough not to get in anyone's way, but also public enough that it is recognizable and relatable.  My top choices so far are the Botanic Gardens, Kelburn Campus, and, probably my favorite, the harbour area.

This idea also leaves a lot of space for unique framing and editing, trying to show the same exact space from two totally different sets of eyes.  Some I do see a few issues that I will need to overcome: 1) acquiring a unicycle.  I'm an exchange student and didn't have baggage space to bring a trials unicycle on the plane.  While this seems like a major setback, I've already found a couple places that sell them for a good price, and I've been wanting to get one anyways while I'm here.  2) since i'll be riding on camera i'll probably need someone who knows how to operate a camera to help me out.  Not a big problem. 3) trying to stay focused on the actual space and not the activity.  While it is the unicyclist perspective I'm going for, I need to make sure to stay focused on the project and displaying the site itself.

So, while there are certainly some kinks to work out, I think the idea is a solid one and a unique take on the project requirements.

Project 1 Wrap-Up and Review

I turned in my final videos and websites today for our remix video project.  This is my first post on this project because I was not aware of the requirement for blogging throughout, tracking my progress and ideas as I go.  I'm an exchange student this semester and am still trying to learn all the little things that most students here already know and have been doing for 3 years.  With that said, I will definitely track my projects' progress in the future and keep a steady blog of my ideas and issues.

My project is on climate change, but more specifically on the debate about climate change.  I took the requirement of 3 iterations not as 3 steps in a progression for one video, but as a chance to express 3 different points of view on the same subject, using all the same source material.  I gathered video and images from archive.org and wikipedia commons and music from my friend Joe Kennerly.  All of this material is under a creative commons or freeware license of some kind and is listed and credited on my project website.  Also, all my videos have been attached with a Creative Commons Public Domain License, as stated in the About This Page section.

http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~csumsky3/remixSite.html

I started off by gathering a wide variety of material, from nature videos to climate documentaries to debate sound clips.  I barely had any experience with Avid and so spent a good 3 hours or so playing around with it, reading some tutorials, and just getting a solid feel for the software.  After that I made my first iteration, which was sympathetic towards the theory on climate change.  This movie says people need to be aware that this is happening and mocks the idea that it is simply a natural cycle that is not affected by humans.  My second iteration went the other way, almost making fun of anyone who would believe climate change is happening.  It states that the earth systems are acting naturally and that the idea of climate change is merely a fear tactic to control.  The final iteration combined audio from both, overlaying them on top of each other much of the time.  The idea for this iteration was to be the outsider, the undecided world citizen.  To these people much of the debate seems not thought and based on speculation for both sides and much of the time discussions get nowhere with both parties thinking they are right and not willing to compromise at all.  Towards the end the video is jumbled and claustrophobic, almost asking how anyone is supposed to decipher facts from such a stalemate of a debate.

Once I taught myself some basic Avid functions I really didn't have any problem with the editing side.  I have used Final Cut Pro for years and the difference in software wasn't too much of an obstacle.  I picked up all the tools as I went along.  The real issue I ran in to was website design, as I have never had to do website design before.  I understand that it is a required class here but at my school in the states I am not required to take any sort of web design.  So I had to do a lot of reading and googling to learn a little about html and Flash.  Most of the sites are quite simple with minimalist approach, but I am pretty proud of how my home page turned out with the interactive changing squares.

But the biggest problem I had was not design, but on the technical side.  I didn't know how to embed a video properly onto a page that I had designed and ended up having to link to an isolated page that the video will play on.  While not the prettiest solution in the world, it works and doesn't look ugly.  I'll attribute it to the minimalist design again. 

So, all in all, I'm very happy with how the project turned out.  The videos do what I wanted them to do, express the appropriate point of view and mood.  The website, while maybe simple and bare, fits into a neutral stance on the climate change debate.  I learned much about Flash and html that will help me in future classes and projects, and I finally got around to really learning Avid, which is something I've been wanting to do for awhile.  While I didn't fulfill the blogging requirement throughout the project, this was mainly do to lack of communication and understand of my new surroundings.  This won't be a problem in the future and, while this doesn't really fill the place of a continuing project notebook, I hope this entry sheds some light on my original ideas, the approaches I took to get there, and the issues I hit along the way.

Remix and Remixability- Response to Lev Manovich's article

I agree with most of the author's points.  Remixing, while not an entirely new concept- almanacs, mixed martial arts, the Beatles' "Revolution 9",  and documentaries, to name a few, have been around for years- is being made increasingly easier and accessible to just about anyone with an internet connection and a freeware editing program.  Probably my favorite recent example in music is Girl Talk, a DJ who takes classic rock, contemporary pop, rap, hip hop, r&b, just about anything and everything, and mixes them all into something all its own.  YouTube is also a stronghold for amateur remixing with examples like the Obama: Never Gonna Give You Up video and countless music videos created from favorite anime shows or video games.

Some things I don't agree with, however, is that a world of complete modularity and public domain would be the best thing.  Ideas like Xanadu and Web 2.0 have been floating around almost since the internet became a practical reality, and I think these ideas are great in theory.  The issue I have is that you can't expect professionals to spends weeks or months or even years producing a work and then have it thrown automatically into a creative commons pool.  Tremendous amounts of money would be lost and the industry could turn into a completely amateur field with not a lot of money coming in, because no one is making any.  With that said, however, I do believe that public access will become the norm and even necessary in coming years and copyright laws will change, perhaps allowing works to go up for public domain after X amount of years under copyright making money.  Imagine if after 10-15 years a movie had to release it's licenses and put it in creative commons.  Most of the money a movie makes comes from ticket and initial DVD sales anyways, so this is a possibility.

Remixing is a massive part of our culture now, and will only get stronger.  I liked this article for the most part and agree that remixing needs to find its proper and permanent place in our modern digital society.