Our assignment was chapter 1 of The Language of New Media: What is new media?  Manovich talks about the new media revolution as a shift to computer mediated interaction and communication.  Essentially, new media involves the digitization of old media or the direct digitization of experience.  Visual and auditory experiences can now be stored on computers, in the form of electronic data.  He lays out a series of principles which he thinks characterizes new media- the mathematical representation of experience in the form of computer code; modularity, or the separation of seemingly singular experiences into distinct elements; the automation of processes out of human hands; and the ability of users to change media, or interactivity.  The fundamental theme running through this is digitization.  I created a video that shows how new media digitizes an experience, in this case it would be the experience of watching bears move around in the snow, and exhibits the various principles that Manovich described.

We decided to put a collection of links on a blog as our project.  Variability and interactivity are significant themes in new media, for Manovich.  The blog itself represents a level of user control, in one’s ability to choose amongst video files.  Then we have a selection of videos themselves.  The info390 video I created specifically for the project.  The other links go to vids from youtube (or somewhere like that) which characterize, primarily, the concept of variability.  These videos are the versions of movies or clips which users like you and me have changed utilizing new media tools.  By showing these various other original:remake clips, we intended to present a concept that anyone and everyone can interact with new media in a variety of ways.

But, since my task was to create our video, I will focus on that piece.  Ultimately, the purpose of the video is to try to unite concepts and expressions of new media behind the idea of digitization.   I begin by altering the clip in simple ways to illustrate variability, again.  I speed it up and slow it down.  Then I use variability to try to allude towards digitization by editing the video beyond what seems like it could be natural or even understandable.  I talked about pushing the limits to show how new media  can seem like old media.  It can represent itself in ways that seem like music, or pictures, or movies.  But in reality, it is something very different, because it can very easily go beyond these media.

By pushing these alterations to their limits, we begin to see how this media illusion produced by new media begins to fall apart.  In this sense, Manovich’s idea of  modularity becomes evident.  What we think appears to be one medium based on perception, is really expressed in terms of another.  For instance, a video is just a series of still images.  Music is just a collection of individual changes in pitch.  However, new media takes these modules or components and breaks them down even further.  The picture is a bunch of pixels.  The pixel is a bunch of codes.  The code is made of  a bunch of binary numbers, and each number represents the physical alignment of a magnetic particle.  I feel that this progression underlines how fundamental digitization is to modern, new media.  All of the ways in which we interact with new media, and even the ways in which media is remediated in the modern age, are underscored by digitization.

It seems interesting to think that digitization is basically finding a way to represent a big experience or idea using a bunch of numbers.  Big pieces to small pieces.  At the same time,  all media is made up of very small pieces to begin with.  The sculpture is made up of molecules and atoms, which are seemingly as much like the sculpture as binary is like a movie.  Obviously, if you want to build a complex structure you are going to need very fundamental parts.  I think that maybe human creativity and ingenuity has pushed the bar down, forcing us to think of more and more complex ways of coming up with new representations.  The computer allows us to represent things that would have been impossible a century ago.  Communication, art, emotion, thought…are all transformed into digital formats in new media.  Yet, at the same time, we are limited to sights and sounds.  There are no mainstream means of remediating smells, tastes, or feelings (accurately) in the digital age of new media.  Perhaps the bar will continue to drop.  Perhaps we will develop ways of remediating touch with ever more complex and fundamental components of such experiences.

Anyway, the last essay is supposed to be a”comprehensive reflective essay on your progress in the class.” I think this class has been mostly about exploration for me.  I have never before worked with video or audio or graffiti.  Nor have I ever tried to create projects with any of these forms.  I thought that the graffiti component was a unique and exciting perspective into the world of artistic expression and communication.  I have seen many of Banksy’s works up close and I remember being awed by them.  I remember thinking, “How does spraypaint on a wall become so powerful?”  While I tried to think about the intricacies of creating such a work, at the time I didn’t really have any of the background information on graffiti as an artform.  That’s where this course stepped in.  It introduced me to some of the theoretical ideas, as well as the technical details, behind creating such a form.

The sequential art piece was interesting as a concept, but I didn’t really get excited by it or “into” it that much.  It just doesn’t seem to play that big of a role in my everyday life (or perhaps I’m just not aware of how much of a role it plays.)  I have mixed feelings about the podcast project.  I’ve never been much of a podcast person myself.  For me, audio is almost always just about music.  (I sometimes watch music videos, just to see what kind of stupid things they do, but otherwise I loathe the experience.  Music, to me, is far too personal/reactive for me to be able to connect with someone else’s video interpretation.  That, and I usually don’t listen to the lyrics, so my own personal daydream is way different than the video.)  Secondly, technology today doesn’t have a very large space for audio without video.  Even the Ipods come with mini tv screens to watch videos on. It seems that I actually have to try hard to find a reason to listen to a presentation or news broadcast or a show without wanting to watch it at the same time.

I really like working with video, even though it requires robust computing power.  As a photographer, I am very closely tied to the visual communication process.  I feel strongly that human beings are essentially visual animals.  Vision is one of the few areas where humans are not nearly last place among other species (unlike with hearing, smell, or taste).  I can’t really say that I got a chance to truly work with video editing.  Because of my computer, the video editing process was more like audio editing, with a few still frames popping up from a minute’s worth of video.  But I do like the idea of creating this very immediate presentation, putting the viewer inside the scene or story, and then being able to take them back out of it.  I guess the same could be done with any other medium, but it feels more intuitive with video.

I also think that the blog itself has been an unsung hero of this class.  I came here with a hope of being able to start a blog of my own, even though I had no experience.  I had been looking for a way for a freelance photographer who occasionally takes some video to be able to communicate with the world, without having to go through seeming black holes of media like large scale newspapers or news agencies by sending a picture and hoping they publish it.  And even then just hoping they say something accurate about the situation and the story.  I have wanted to be able to tell stories myself, and I think that this course has given me a big step forward on that path.  Now I just need to figure out how to feed and clothe myself along the way.

I think that interactivity, especially on an email site, provides and aura of ownership.  In some sense, when we move into a new apartment, but a new backpack or a new car, or get a new office space, we don’t really think of it as our own until we personalize it.  We go in a modify all of the little tidbits which we are allowed to until we think it suits our liking.  Just like the website, there are many things which we are not allowed to modify on, say, our car.  Either we are not allowed, or don’t know how, or it would just be studpid, there is definitely a standard allowable range of action.  When we move into an apartment, we buy furniture that we like, but we don’t start knocking down walls.  I see the level and types of interactivity in Gmail that allow me to feel like its mine.  I set the background and the filters.  The “look and feel” of it are mine, and that is probably what enables us to get easily attached to it.  We put something of our own into it: our labor.  We all feel that we should own the products of our labor.

For our project, our group decided to do a fake newscast regarding the string of robberies involving change left in vehicles.  The goal was to make the situation seem far more serious than it appears on the surface.  The idea of someone breaking into a vehicle only to take a few dollars worth of money is just rediculous, and we wanted to represent that in our video.  The piece is framed by a newsdesk-style intro and exit, to help give it the feel of a broadcast.  The Hampe article “analogs” talked about how boring talking heads are, and that the key to video was visual stimulation.  Talking heads transfer information, often with only the stimulation of a poorly edited history paper.  We used the “going live” scene to give  a more visually stimulating experience to the presentation by surrounding the reporter with a scene appropriate to the topic.  (Although nothing was going on there.  And the sound was terrible..but thats for the “problems/challenges” section)  The interviews are kind of boring, but theres not a whole lot that we could say about the subject, so I guess the easiest thing to do was to get other people to talkk about it.

Putting together this project was frought with difficulties.  I think that arranging our schedules to actually coincide was the most difficult part.  Working with groups outside of class it always difficult.  I get the feeling that I’ve lost a lot of those-type of skills I had from high school.  Jeff took care of taping himself for the newsdesk and doing the interviews, and we went out as a group to get Camille, in real flak vest and ballistic helmet, on scene in a parking garage.  (I had a nice microphone to get good sound quality in the echo-filled garage, but I forgot to turn the wireless receiver on…) I took care of the editing and compiling, which went surprisingly fast, probably because we weren’t too worried about fancy tricks.

Thinking about it now, I am somewhat disappointed by our project.  We created a fake newscast in attempted comedic affect (although the level humor could be debated).  So, there weren’t a lot of tricks used.  I put a headline bar at the bottom of the screen, resynced the audio for a terrible clip, and reused a news broadcast intro scene (I intentionally did not fix the messed up overlay of the “CCJ” block, because I thought it was humorous.)  I didn’t really do much in terms of editing.  I think that the interviews were far too lengthy and boring.  I don’t think we got enough of a variety of footage.  But even more than that, I just think the idea is not that conducive to the ideas of art and design.  A news broadcast is more about getting people to watch (aka corporate profit) than it is about actually sending an important message.  The presentation format is more about trusting tha tthe talking heads know what they are doing (and are telling the “neutral” truth) than it is about showing people the reality of an experience.  It is a form of remediation, but I think that way to much gets lost in the conversion.  Going from seeing the scene, or even seeing the event, the victims, and the actions to merely talking about it destroys so much information that viewers vitally hold onto.  I think that if I could do this project over again I would do a documentary.  I believe very strongly in the emotional effect that seemingly immediate experiences can have and that these emotions are crtitical aspects of the viewing experience.  I think that by creating a news story in our fashion, we took the power right out of the message.

All of the transitions are quick cuts, but within single shots there are lots of pans.  I think this primarily helps to add to the sense of motion in the film, which makes sense since it is a children’s “action” movie.  The dynamic seems to follow people a lot, emphasizing the importance of the charaters in telling the story.  I also seemed to notice that most of the shots are either close up on individuals/foregrounds, or they are wide angles of the whole scene.  I get the sense that these aspects seem to further reinforce the role that the individual character plays in the tale.

Like most Hollywood films, this one makes dramatic use of music.  All of the fighting/battle scenes contain backgrund music appropriate to the mood.  Other than that, there are only natural sound effects (as natural as would be for talking animals) designed to add realism and believability to the piece

Ok well, this one’s a little out there.  I’m not sure if it even really meets the requirements.  I wasn’t very comfortable recording an audio presentation of my voice talking for five minutes, so I decided to compile an “essay” out of clips, primarily.  The story behind the idea is somewhat random.  I’m a huge fan of the TV show Lost.  I was watching one of the previous episodes I have on DVD, and in the episode, somebody finds an old walkie talkie and the electronics guy rigs up a bigger antenna.  They manage to get it working and when they turn it on they hear random channels fading in an out of perception.  If you’re not familiar with the show, plane crash survivors are stranded on a remote deserted island with some unique properties (namely, it can move/jump through time).  So the background story for the essay is “time-travelling deserted island in the south pacific.”  The audio presentation is essentially what someone on such an island might here were they to tune in their radio.  At first, I didn’t think that the random sort of arrangement of clips could count as an essay in any sense, but thinking more about the show and my podcast analysis (Democracy Now!- The “War and Peace Report”), I came up with a theme: “Fate’s War and Peace report.”  If fate decided to produce an audio essay about war and peace, justice and oppression, what might it look like? (Actually, this isn’t the broadcast.  This is a recording of someone listening to the broadcast.  You can here the ocean, the rain, and the thunder in the background. I even recorded myself breathing for four minutes and subtly added that in.)

I used a compilation of eight major sound clips along with various background noises and sound Fx.  The first clip comes from a news broadcast covering the invasion of South Ossetia by Russian forces.  2: A news broadcast stating the US’s support for “whatever means necessary” by Israel to combat “terror” in Gaza.  3: The prayer from George W. Bush’s address to the nation on the evening of September 11, 2001.  4: A clip from the Daily Show by Jon Stewart where he mocks the coverage of the Gaza crisis in American media.  5: GWBush’s address announcing the start of the Iraq War.  6: Rep. Dennis Kucinich declaring to the House that the Iraq War is all about oil.  7: Former Israeli helicopter pilot from the IAF Yonotan Shapira speaks out against Israeli actions in Gaza.  I concluded with two joined segments of MLKJr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  (The “I have a dream” part plus the “free at last” part.)  I wanted to split them up and put the “dream” at the beginning, but I had already done the other files and I couldnt figure out how to push them back in the timeline as a whole, instead of one by one.  Either way, I think it helps to put recent world events into context.  We’re all still killing each other.

In regard to the sound construction, this piece was interesting because I didn’t have much control over how each segment was created.  The elements of vocal delivery were essentially fixed for me beforehand.  Admittedly, I did not include any music, and I think, now, that that was a mistake.  I believe very strongly in the importance of the emotional component of news media and music is very often ahuge part of that.  On the other hand, I don’t really have any idea what I would have included.  My main effort was focused on arrangement and sound Fx.  Most of the Fx were island sounds.  I included two different types of wave sounds, three kinds of static, rain with crickets, thunder, and a police radio call.  (That last one reminds listeners of how random and unusual the presentation that they are hearing really is.)  I used silence sparingly as a tool.  I tried to follow some of the more striking clips with silence to reinforce them.  On the other hand, I followed some striking clips directly with another clip to focus on contrast of ideas.  Most of the time I tried to includ static or another effect between bites to help reinforce the environment to the listener as a way of helping keep people in perspective.

The show begins with fifteen seconds of foreground funk/jazz music, led by keyboard (I think, it sounds electronic).  After that, the music continues in the background for a minute and fifteen seconds while Amy Goodman gives the outline of the program.  There is a three second gap where the music, led by a light saxaphone, takes the foreground again, before fading off entirely.  The end of the clip contains about 35 seconds of peppy background music, before the clips comes to an end.  There are no sound effects, background sounds, or music during the middle fifty eight minutes of the show.

I expect that the intro music is supposed to seem lively and energetic, while at the same time being calm and cool.  They want to portray something that is interesting, but academic at the same time.  (It reminds me of how the scent of simple citrus fruits, like oranges, have been shown to increase our energy.  Its the simple sunshine feeling: not cold but not hot and exotic either.)  They also want it to remain relatively neutral and appealing to everyone so that they can attract a wider audience.  (Death metal would not be an appropriate choice.)

However, the key aural factor I notice is the deafing silence.  Thats one main reason why I can’t stand to listen to the broadcast.  The silence behind her voice is simply too artificial, too awkward.  I can’t help but associate it with the irritation I feel by hearing nails on a chalkboard. (Although, I actually get that same feeling by hearing the chalk write on the chalkboard, too…)

(The first circle of pictures is the piece.  The images below are just to show you close-ups of the pictures because WordPress wont let me make the picture bigger.  The images are linked to larger versions.  At least the main sequential piece should be viewed bigger.) For this project,  I chose an assortment of pictures I’ve taken over the past year.  Most were taken over this past summer.  The obvious theme is signs.  I have included a mix of “signs” from road signs to stickers on cars.  Starting at 12 o’clock and moving clockwise, the first picture was taken along a road beside the dead sea, in Jordan.  Interestingly, there were no warning signs written in Arabic, only English.  The second image was taken in Sur, a moderate-sized town  on the southwestern coast of Lebanon.  Sur is bordered to the east and south by Hebollah-controlled territory, while the city itself is protected by a heavy UN military presence.  There are UN convoys, both military and aid, driving around the city 24 hours a day.  The third picture comes from Damascus (Dimashq), Syria, where the President has posted his face on billboards all over the city.  The sign reads “I believe in Syria” in both English and Arabic.  The fourth image shows a sign in the hills to the south of Damascus.  Interestingly, I had just come from the direction of the background of the picture, and there was nothing there except young Syrian couples watching the sunset overlook of the city.  The fifth shot was taken only a few hundred yards from the first picture.  The speed limit sign is made to be “breakaway,” so that it does significantly less damage were somebody to hit it while driving.  The sixth picture was taken in Saida, another coastal town in Lebanon.  The seventh image was taken at the vehicle entrance to the Jerusalem checkpoint at Bethlehem.  It shows two signs, each written in English, Arabic, and Hebrew, the welcome drivers and tell them to get ready for “inspection.”  The final picture was taken outside the gates of Ft. Benning, in Columbus , GA, at the annual SOA Watch protest.  The sign states that photography is prohibited.

My hidden theme in this project was control.  I wanted to look at how the different signs around us influence the way we think and act.  I included the stick figure in the middle to help represent the idea of “me” in a very general way.  While it could represent any person, I think the fact that he is surrounded by clear and crisp pictures makes the viewer feel like they are looking through his eyes, as if they are him.  The idea is to show that these control mechanisms are “all around us” (corny, I know).

I tried to juxtapose similar but different images at opposite sides of this octagon.  The two welcoming signs (Jerusalem and SyrianPres), the two signs designed to help protect us (speed limit and salty water), the two restricted areas, and the vehicle-related images are each at each other’s opposite.  My selection of sign pictures was limited, but I tried to create a sense of variety or to convey the idea that control can come along a sliding scale of different forms.

Images 1 and 5 show signs designed to help protect us; however, most people clearly see 1 as helpful and 5 as antagonistic or controling.  Numbers 2 and 6 both exist to help the sign-bearer.  In the first case, it helps prevent them from being shot, in the second, it helps them make money.  3 and 7 convey very different welcome messages.  The first is said with a smile, whereas the second comes with an evil laugh.  They represent hope and despair, respectively, to the people that likely see them.  The last two pictures represent similar ideas, but in different ways.  The American sign exists on the middle of three consecutive razorwire-topped chainlink fences backed by half-a-dozen M16-wielding guards, while the Syrian sign is stuck on the side of the open road, with no barriers whatsoever.  The first represents a very physical, forcefully-keep-you-out control, while the second is more psychological.

To me, this various juxtaposition of signs talks about power relationships.  Control mechanisms exist in virtually every aspect of our lives.  Some are good; some are bad.  I don’t have to include any of my own text, because the world (quite literally) speaks for itself.  I hope that viewers will think about how our environment influences us, how we as people influence it, and to what degree does this relationship count as control.  No part of our existence lies indepentent of the outside world, so how can we ever identify something as “us” that is separate from it?