Welcome to the Global Village

Here is Part I of the presentation, by project partner Jen Hanson





A word about the photoshopped images from McLuhan's "neighborhood" scenes ... the preceding screenshots were altered through photoshop to show some more differences in living spaces that followers of McLuhan's philosophies and theories would potentially employ. Tools used during the photoshop insertion include, but are not limited to: paths, layers, scale, warp, skew, rasterizing, lighting, shadows, eyedropper, history brush, pen, and perspective.

1. The Living Room – This urban living room features soft, unobtrusive lighting that corresponds with humankind's singular attachment to "nature." The laptop on the counter not only signifies the brochure's claim to provide every citizen with a laptop, but it pokes fun at the advertisement—a symbol reminiscent of the "glyph," which is the foundation of all archived data, and a direct descendent of the digital age. The magazine on the couch is an old copy of Time, featuring Bill Gates holding an old floppy disk on the cover. The poster of McLuhan shows him holding a portable television—an object of fascination and personal rejection.

2. The Shower – There may be a television screen in here, but it's for digitized archives of the news, and for continuous feed of educational and communications material.

3. The Kitchen – Featured here are two symbols that attach the global village to an acceptable form of visual media, which is film and cinema. Film is considered a "hot" form of media, while television, radio, and telephones are "cold." There is also another copy of print media on the counter (news is better than art; it is "artifact"), and the sign in the corner is a joke that plays off of McLuhan's quote, "An advertisement is an advertisement of an advertisement."


Informatics, UIUC, Final Project from Aaron Geiger on Vimeo.



“Welcome to the Global Village”
Lecture II by: Aaron Geiger
Project partner: Jen Hanson
Final Project / INFO 390
Jon Stone, University of Illinois

“The Neighborhood”

McLuhan’s “neighborhood” is really no different from the “frontier.” A car isn’t a car—it’s an extension of the foot. It walks from building to building, as you would walk from sink to refrigerator to bathroom. It is a part of you.

Traffic lights could be considered doors, and each road a hallway, or a footpath in the terrain. McLuhan said, “The road is our major architectural form. The road is a flattened out wheel, rolled up in the belly of an airplane.”

The buildings are extensions of simpler living. They are fractals of technology. Small businesses prevail in the ideal Global Village. The idea of big business was distasteful to McLuhan, even though he died in 1980, just as companies like Wal-Mart were beginning to take foot.

He said, “In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once.” Small businesses promote intimacy and personal interaction. In the Global Village small business architecture grants access to nature through large window openings, grassy rooftops, and comfortable winding interiors.

The most intimate part of McLuhan’s “neighborhood” is the home. Like the frontier home, accessibility to nature and community is paramount. Unlike homes you are used to, here they observe the rules of artifact, archive, and education. McLuhan used to echo the line, “Tomorrow is our permanent address.”

Welcome to tomorrow.

Living spaces are simple and refined, there is no television, there are no phones or radios, and print media is just as important as the Internet.

The balcony is a parapet from which to observe the actuality of living things, of neon lights that represent the foot of man.

The living room demonstrates minimalist settings, “wired” communication through laptops, sculptures and posters vs. television, and print media, which is a source of archived history. The large windows are transparent portals that connect human and nature. Notice the absence of “entertainment centers,” radios, and telephones.

Even the shower can be a source for news and education: “With TV it is not so much the message as the sender that is ‘sent’” (McLuhan, Media is the Massage, 113).

The kitchen shows the natural style of lighting. Soft, relaxing, and replicating the waning rays of the sun, light is a prominent fixture. Like the skylight in the shower stall, humans need the light for health. Also in this kitchen we see the connection to film and cinema—acceptable forms of media.

And with the launch of a folded piece of print media, the metaphorical McLuhan artifact takes flight, taking a viewpoint that crosses “frontier” and “neighborhood,” the terms of “hot” and “cold” media, the accessibility to nature, and the defining creations of humankind.

Thank you.

Yes We Can (Obama's victory speech)

I want to share a part of history with anyone who believes in our new President-Elect. Here is Barack Obama's Grant Park victory speech in its entirety. It was a privilege to be in the middle of a defining moment in history.

Obama’s Grant Park victory speech as heard from the audience

Push button, get bacon

Final Project Proposal (Jen and Aaron)

New Media Theory and Marshall McLuhan

Our remediation of Marshall McLuhan's New Media theory will be by representation of a hypothetical city that has been started by committed supporters of McLuhan's theory. The societal and physical system will be structured after the core values set forth by McLuhan such as the global village, hot and cold media, electronic media and ultimately the town motto of "the media is the massage". The benefits of living in such a society will be highlighted via a photo slideshow with both video clips and photos of various aspects of the city. The housing accommodations along with technology availability within both the urban and rural settings. Also technological innovations which are present throughout the city will be touched on along with their purpose and benefits to the residents.

Handing out tactile material to the audience, such as brochures, have garnered consideration and will be included if they contribute to the overall project's message. The purpose of our final project is to have viable model of a thriving city based on the foundational New Media theory of Marshall McLuhan. Our main considerations will be the city setup and internal structure of the living quarters. Also to focus on how educational, legislation, and community systems would be structured and how they would function. The presentation style will be similar to a development meeting of a potential addition to a city with a voiceover to again highlight the benefits of choosing to live there.

To create an example of such a society, different aspects of the assumed public must be examined. In the case of children and education, for instance, students at "McLuhan Elementary" would quickly learn the concepts of hieroglyphics and ideograms and electronic media at the same pace "outside" children would learn phonetics and the alphabet. In terms of hot and cold media, the citizens will not watch television (a "cold" media), but settle for watching cinematic sequences on their laptops ("hot" media). Radios and newsprint adorn the households. Citizens are enamored with lectures, and attend them daily, however seminars are disdained and physically do not exist.

Due to everyone in this hypothetical city following McLuhan's New Media theory, McLuhan's "Global Village" theory is upheld in a manner reflecting a self-induced paradox. It is also possible that by utilizing the mantra "the media is the massage," citizens are perpetually experimenting with their sources of media. For example, one person takes pictures of the newspaper headline story, and emails the news to a friend, who then prints out the email and creates a silkscreen of the print image and puts it onto a t-shirt that he gives his wife. His wife won't wear the shirt, instead she uses it in place of the American flag. This type of process is prominent within the city and helps to tie together the "global village".

Final project outline

INFO 390 Final Project Proposal
Jen Hanson & Aaron Geiger

Purpose: To challenge the notion of a specific portion of McLuhan's theory as it translates into today's technological society.

Content Options:
*p.9
Indeed, it is only too typical that the "content" of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium.

*p.15
And it is only on those terms, standing aside from any structure or medium, that its pinciples and lines of force can be discerned. For any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary. Prediction and control consist in avoiding this ubliminal state of Narcissus trance. But the greatest aid to this end is simply in knowing that the spell can occur immediately upon contact..

*p.17
...literate man is quite inclined to see others who cannot conform as somewhat pathetic. Especially the child, the cripple, the woman, and the colored person appear in a world of visual and typographic technology as victims of injustice.

*p.24
Specialist technologies detribalize. The nonspecialist electric technology retribalizes.

*p.26
However, backward countries that have experienced little permeation with our own mechanical and specialist culture are much better able to confront and to understand electric technology. Not only have backward and nonindustrial cultures no specialist habits to overcome in their encournter with electromagnetism, but they have still much of their traditional oral culture that has the total unified "field" character of our new electromagnetism. Our old industrialized areas, having eroded their oral tradiitons automatically, are in the position of having to rediscover them in order to cope with the electric age.

*p.38
The new magnetic or world city will be static and iconic or inclusive.

*p.46
To behold, use or perceive any extension of ourselves in technological form is necessarily to embrace it.

*p.46
Physiologically, man in the normal use of technology (or his variously extended body) is perpetually modified by it and in turn finds ever new ways of modifying his technology....The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth.

*p.49
In other words, the greatest school had been put out for human use before it has been thought out. Now, this is especially true of our media. They are put out long before they are thought out. In fact, their being put outside us tends to cancel the possibility of their being thought of at all.

*p.51
For the fate of implosion and interdependence is more terrible for Western man than the fate of explosion and independence for tribal man...On the other hand, since consciousness and awareness seem to be a human privilege, may it not be desirable to extend this condition to our hidden conflicts, both private and social?

*p.58
Under electric technology the entire business of man becomes learning and knowing.

*p.59
Perhaps there is a key to some of these problems in the Freudian idea that when we fail to translate some natural event or experience into conscious art we "repress" it.

*p. 64
The new media and technologies by which we amplify and extend ourselves constitute huge collective surgery carried out on the social body with complete disregard for antiseptics. If the operations are needed, the inevitability of infecting the whole system during the operation has to be considered.

*p.68
Electric technology is directly related to our central nervous systems, so it is ridiculous to talk of "what the public wants" played over its own nerves.

Batdog

Tribute to Jon Stone: Photoshop projects that people probably got fired for

This is in response to Jon Stone's fascination with photoshop mistakes. Just the other day I was looking the photoshopped image of Kim Jong-Il that was released by BBC News. He must have smelled the photoshop, because he instantly came over and was intrigued. Apparently Dictator Kim had a stroke, and there's a speculated succession crisis going on. Weird blurry photos have been popping up of the dictator at public events. The picture I posted has three photoshop flaws: the shadow on his legs, the line on the wall behind him disappeared, and his left shoe (on your right) has some color left over from whatever scene he was cut from.

The Craigslist clipping is from PD's blog (which stands for photoshop disasters). The remaining photos were pulled from Oddee.

Bolter response answers

From Glenn:

2. Is a viral campaign, such as the one used by The Dark Knight, a form of media?

I wasn't aware of the viral campaign by the Dark Knight, but in all of the viral campaigns that I have seen (such as the example with the combined cellular phones popping corn) are definitely forms of media. 1. They're communicating to the audience on many levels—visually, with audio, with suggested overtones, and by providing a "Wow!" factor that provokes thought.

A word about Bolter:

I read it, didn't digest it, and have nothing for those of you looking for my questions.

Could it be this simple? (video project)

Ah, the news business

Observations of the weird things that don't matter

—Neatly layered rice cakes in a dog bowl (for the dog to eat) made me wonder, “Is this cruel? Or is this healthy?” At least it was Zen-like and ordered, unlike the slop of horsemeat that comes out of a can. The dog ate some rice cakes and buried the remainder. I thought for a second that I might have stumbled on some new form of environmental art, but then I realized I was being stupid.

—While picking up wood for my wood-burning stove, I found sparkling criss-crossing tracks of slug slime that were frozen on the underside of the loosened bark. The slugs in summertime at my place are HUGE and I had a random thought, “Does slug slime freeze at a lower or higher temperature? They die when you pour salt on them, so obviously they don’t have a high slimy salinity measure, and therefore the creatures would probably turn to popsicles before anything else.” I’m still looking for evidence.

—I was looking down at all of the pink and blue chalk signs outside of the English building, but I didn’t really stop to see what they said until I saw Spanish swear words, and I thought the Spanish words for penis and vagina were in the correct corresponding colors of blue for penis (boy), and pink for vagina (girl). “These people are more clever than I thought,” I thought.

—Somebody carved out the word “sex” in a mirror pattern in one of their sneaker soles. I know this because there were tracks in the soft dirt after the last rain, and one of the two sneaker treads had a crude “sex” raised up in the mud every second step. I thought it was juvenile but cool. And then I thought that the person who did this was probably the only one who liked walking in firm mud. So if you see someone deliberately not walking on the concrete paths after a rain, check the right shoe by saying something clever like, “Hey, I think your right shoe just stepped in some gum. Let me look.”

—All of the cigarette butts surrounding the ash tray outside one of the campus buildings looks like a scatter chart in statistics; one that would probably be used to plot laziness and idiocy.

—There is a girl in my creative nonfiction class that wears mismatched shoes. Today she had little cheap deck shoes. One was black with Technicolor flowers; the other was also black and had white cats with long curling tails. She never speaks, but sometimes I think her shoes say more than any words that I speak in class.

—There are these weird little boxes inside the men’s restrooms around campus (like in the English building, and at Burrill Hall). They look like those single-serve boxes of ready-made Jell-o that kids in junior high eat. I always wondered why the BSWs (janitors) never threw them away. Today I realized that they’re scent boxes with a gelatin that disappears after time as it dissipates some industrial fragrance into the air to cover whatever horrible smells that come from men with bad diets. What an irresponsible design!

—Although my truck is almost never parked under trees (I ride the bus and bike, and there are no large trees looming where it sits), I constantly find bird crap on my windows. Like today. I won’t describe the crap, which was pretty foul, even for a bird, and there was no pretty pattern or cosmic golden ratio. All I could think about is how my windows kept getting soiled even though about 2% of their mass is visible from above, and the entire roof of my pickup cab was clean. I mean this bird nailed my driver’s side window, which is next to a tall fence, which meant the bird has better aim than a smart bomb. Note to self: keep windows rolled up, even when there is no chance for rain.

—The previous owner of the house I live in used to think his backyard was some sort of dumping ground. And he had some big dogs that would chew to shreds anything they were given. Given that background, I was walking through the yard today, looking to pick the last of my habaneros and bell peppers before the cold killed them, and something became stuck in my shoe like a pebble when it gets lodged in the neato sport patterns that companies like Nike and Reebok make (note: they don’t put “sex” in their treads, I looked that one up). I stopped to check my shoe, and there was an arm of a GI Joe figure stuck laterally across the middle of my sole. It looked like it was saluting. If I were drunk, I would have probably saluted back.

—While I was looking up some politicians on the news server for a political segment some peers were putting together, I noticed something really interesting: the past presidents of the United States, as well as the current contenders McCain/Palin, and Obama/Biden have hair that stays exactly the same. Every day. All day. McCain never seems to say “I think I’ll part my gray whispys this way today.” Palin must take valuable time tending to her bulbous bouffant—time that could be used to learn the names of important people. Biden’s hair is plaster. Obama’s hair hasn’t changed a micron since he started politics. Why is this? Why did I never notice this before? If George W. Bush buzzed his head, would the world’s economies change on account that they think he’s in mourning, or perhaps they think he finally lost it? Or is the buzzed head image a prelude to a militaristic and fatalistic line of thinking? Why does presidential hair matter so much that the style never changes?

Answers from Ede a la Justin

1) What have been some successes and failures of co-authorship in the past for you? What difficulties/successes have you had with the video project so far in this aspect?

A) In film school I did extremely well by myself when doing flash films with no sound. I hated collaborating. But as we progressed into the senior final film projects, it was essential that we worked in groups of at least 12-20 people. It was very hard to manage everyone, but because of the magnitude and scope of the films, collaboration was imperative. Ultimately the experience was positive, but I wanted to choke some people on some days.

Questions from Ede

1. Do you think it's more important to collaborate or to compete in the realm of the arts?

2. Nancy Mitford's best-seller, The High Cost of Death, was coauthored
with her lawyer husband; however, her publisher said that
two authors would mean fewer sales, and only her name appears
on the title page.-Alleen Pace Nilsen, "Men and Women: Working
Together in Changing Times"

--Why do you think more than one author means fewer sales?

3. Did anybody else think this reading was odd?

A letter from the blue states

Dear Red States…

We’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and
we’re taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren’t aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington,
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. We
believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to
the people of the new country of New California .

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.

We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get Elliot Spitzer.
You get Ken Lay. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. We
get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom. We get Harvard. You get Ole’
Miss.

We get 85 percent of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You
get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states
pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian
Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of
single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war,
and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you
need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re
apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they
don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets
coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs
turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s
Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent
of the country’s fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and
lettuce, 92 percent of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95 percent of
America’s quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners),
90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of
the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors,
all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal
Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88
percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs),
92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes,
90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists,
virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones
University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was
actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless
we’re discussing the death penalty, 44 percent say that evolution is
only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61
percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals
then we lefties.

By the way, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt
weed they grow in Mexico .

Peace out,

Blue States

Responses to Hampe a la Justin

1) Hampe says 'editing is at the heart of documentary.' Since editing is obvious done post-shooting, how does this separation take away from a actual depiction of reality? Or could this editing enhance it?

Great question, Justin. Thanks for being vague so I have a chance at sounding like I know what's going on... :)

Editing is by far an enhancer, in my opinion. Without it, life would be drearily realistic, and video production is a means to interpret our perception. Without editing, where would we be? Probably in some state of philosophical denial of self-nature. Editing can be wielded improperly, like taking a person's quotes out of context, and can become a powerful too. So it's important to engage the editing process with a set guideline of ethics and purpose.

The actual depiction of reality is meant to be manipulated and conformed to art.

Hampe questions

1. On interviewing: Hampe makes a case for, in one instance, PBS relying too heavily on interviews. Why do you think an interview-laden documentary would have a negative or limited effect overall?

2. When interviewing a subject, when do you think it's better to have previously crafted questions? What about asking questions when 'shooting from the hip?'

Abu-What?

George W. Bushism "Abu-What?"

It's all about the timing

The road:

I've rarely used Garageband, and although I have access to recording equipment, I decided to put myself through the Garageband process to learn more about the program. I hope to utilize it to generate Podcasts in the future. Additionally, I have already familiarized myself with Audacity, as it comes with M-Powered Pro Tools.

In my previous broadcasting experience, I have focused on other people, only inserting my voice to keep content flowing; to change direction when the audio clips of those interviewed are lacking "connective" dialogue. I also used my voice to explain certain situations or to define something in particular. But in all I find it's much better to let the sources do the talking. They're much more credible. And I feel like I sound pretentious in an unambiguous sort of way when I try to do all of the narrating.

In this line of thinking, I went ahead and tried new areas that I'm absolutely not used to: Garageband, personal storytelling, humor, comedic soundtracks, and timing—all on a story on the misadventures of bad timing.

I had originally hoped to make an excerpt out of a creative nonfiction piece that I'm writing to sell on the market, but after a few short scripting attempts, I found that I couldn't get the dialogue down below eight minutes. I then decided that since I had to work on my timing, I'd decide to do a personal narrative on one of two incidents I've experienced that involved a fast sequence of events where everything went wrong.

The challenges: since I used a script, I basically only used it for cues in order to keep my voice in a storytelling mode, but even after a few attempts at certain sections, it's obvious that I'm reading during some point. I tend not to use scripts when doing audio journalism, but I certainly see the benefits. And even after getting my recording down, and knowing where I was going to break up the monotony of the storytelling with music, I had to meticulously go second-by-second on my monologue to remove short pauses without making any odd transitional effects apparent. In all I made 71 cuts to my voice pauses.

The other difficulty stemmed from the music soundtrack. I abhor sound effects in the setting that I chose, and I didn't want to have only one soundtrack. So I went to the library and found a bunch of CDs, brought them back, and went through them one-by-one to find the right ones for the job. At the beginning, when introducing the power businesswoman, I inserted "Trouble Blues," an upbeat blues song by Johnny Lee Hooker that does a little storytelling on the trouble with women. The lyrics are barely discernible, save a couple of spots, but anyone who enjoys the music, and plays the song by itself, should delight in the irony. The second song, "Rollin' and Tumblin'" by Muddy Waters is an oldie, but is also upbeat, keeping the frenetic pace of the story going. Again, the lyrics aren't discernible, but the music is inserted at a point where all is going wrong, and people are falling down and 'rollin' and tumblin'.' Finally, the last song is "Fox Musette" by Les Primitifs du Futur, who were featured on "All Songs Considered," and I thought the song not only made a fun, classic radio closing, but it paid homage to This American Life.

Utilizing "Trouble Blues," I wanted to time the music a little better, and since it had a repetitive blues beat, I did a little cutting and pasting to lengthen the opening blues riffs to time the singing to happen just as I was making a pause for a shift in storytelling. Did you hear the transitions? I hope not, because I tried really hard to blend the cuts.

And (insert sigh), yes, I did go over by almost a minute. But it had to be done for the sake of the story. I cut the story down to its basic elements, and I eliminated the personal pauses to keep the story going, and to keep the pace up. But I had to make a few musical pauses and dramatic stops just to try to make this silly story work. It really was pretty funny when it happened, but to try and retell it is pretty difficult.

I hope you enjoy/ed listening to my project even a fraction as much as I had making it.



Aaron Geiger's audio disease "It's all about the timing"

An Event Apart, Chicago 2008 || Part the first

(Pictured above: Curt Cloninger; friend Kacey Nelson takes a break at "An Event Apart" in Chicago; Kacey talks design and comics with Welshman design honcho Andy Clarke; the Godfather of CSS – Eric Meyer – sits down for an interview)

This past Monday and Tuesday I Amtrak'd my caboose to Chicago to attend a web and multimedia design conference (An Event Apart) for my job. On back-to-back days two friends and I were immersed in about 13-14 seminars that featured graphic design and artistic icons like Curt Cloninger, the comic enthusiast Welshman Andy Clarke, the Godfather of CSS Eric Meyer, and many other top professionals in their fields.

Each guest speaker contributed a unique perspective on the realm of interactive media and design: there were lectures on history, art aesthetics, business models, coding, group collaboration, critique, etc.

I could write a novel if I tried to encapsulate the watershed of information, but I found a couple of neat-o things that were directly applicable to Monsieur Stone's informatics and media mad dash.

First, for an overload of Korean flash animation, check this site out: Xiiin. I selected "Idol" to give you an example of what the top industry gurus think is one of the best sites they've ever seen. You don't have to understand Korean to appreciate the animation.

Second, for those who are unfamiliar with Curt Cloninger, he's an Informatics icon. Just by going to his site, lab404, you can see the amazing array of topics that he brings up, like Web geeks spontaneously creating art using Flickr.

Note on the opening page of lab404 you'll see a boldly patterned background. This is for a reason, and if you explore his work, he'll tell you why. Cloninger preaches that we should merge the macrocosmic with the microcosmic. "I had to consider chiefly the following things: the paper, the form of the type, the relative spacing of the letters, the words, and the lines; and lastly the position of the printed matter on the page," said Cloninger.

Oh yeah, and Cloninger is apparently a performance artist, too, exemplified in this video.

Linkage exercise

This is the test link to the WAM Syllabus. Click on the link below:

link

Ira Glass dies (spoof)

Shipka response/answer

3. both students created a pamphlet to go along with their 'cd'; do you think this took away from the point of creating a 'sound experience'?

It's hard to say. When altering the direct methods of art by using other forms of communication, there is definitely a 'loss' of purism and, in this case, a 'sound experience.' But when purism is not the intent, rather communication, then the pamphlet, again in this case, is used, it can actually enhance an experience. Other factors can be keyed in as well, such as financial gain, or future endeavors.

The Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator

You can find your name, if you were born to Sarah Palin, here.

You Suck at Photoshop tutorials

Photochop

Um, my projects are lame, but I learned a lot from them, and I had fun doing it, so hopefully that will account for something. I actually did two, because I got frustrated with the first one (The Bush/Cheney one).

The first picture I took in Sterling, Illinois of Sarah and her horse, Bill. Things just seemed too serene, and I came across another photo I took of my ADHD nephew when I took him to the Orpheum on his visit from Texas. The velociraptor seemed a fine addition to the pastoral scene with Sarah and Bill. 

The challenges in this project were not the lassoes or image placement. I already had some practice at the other project on using the history brush. The hardest parts were dealing with the lighting and angling of where the 'sunlight' was falling, as well as the 3-D grass coming up behind the velociraptor's feet, in between its toes, and in front of the claws. I also realized after I completed what I was doing that I should have made some shadows. 

As for the other project attempt:

Since I work in the news biz, I have an account on an image server, from which I pulled two pictures – one of Dubyah and one of Dick – that are listed above. The third image I took at the Metropolitan museum in NYC around St. Patrick's Day. I created a few layers: one each for the lassoed heads of Cheney and Bush, a master copy layer in the event I messed up (which I did several times), and the final layer was for the text.

For the heads (or 'busts': note the play on words) I had to do some resizing, rotating, and light angling on them. As I put them over the background layer, I zoomed in and used the history brush tool and cleaned up around the edges of the heads. Cheney's glasses were the toughest part. Their heads didn't fit that well on the original busts, so I had to make patch sampling of the background in order to cover up the protruding sculpture, which was on the background layer, and tougher to 'fix.' 

On the text I used the eyedropper to get a compatible color tone that would be cohesive with the rest of the scene. The text had to be resized, rotated, stretched, skewed, and put into perspective. After I rasterized the text, I used a Gaussian blur (at a low rate) to blend the text into the wall.

I wish I could have figured out how to pixellate Cheney's head to blend it in a bit better. The work is severely amateur, I know, I'm not trying to kid myself. But the lessons came in really handy, especially when working with the multiple layers. I also really got to learn the history brush and lighting effects pretty well. As for the text, I know that we were told to use minimal textual interference, but I wanted to practice using it on a 3-D surface that was heading towards a vanishing point (see: Berger/McCloud). I got the angles and stretches pretty close, but the words still look light a slightly crooked picture.

Hey, I'm a writer and an amateur photographer. My strengths are in color saturation and digital development. I think I'll post some of my work in another blog entry. 

Response to McCloud; Berger

Courtesy of Justin:

3) Do you believe the ability to reproduce images has destroyed the uniqueness of art or has it opened the door to innovative art in new forms?

Oooh, an Andy Warhol question. Hmmm, I think this question was best answered when Warhol filled the void of repetitive imagery by making it yet another form of art. The human ingenuity factor will always prevail. The more systematic an image is, the more likely SOMEONE will break the shackles to find an inventive way of overcoming the issue. We're too stubborn a species to let that slide.

Q's for "The Vocabulary of Comics," et al.

Apparently I'm not the only person to make the comparison between Rex Morgan and certain cartoons from Bill Watterson's "Calvin and Hobbes." In our readings from McCloud and Berger, a lot of attention is given to the imposed reality of self, and, in the case of McCloud, why do we identify with cartoons? Knowing what we've read, and taking in the posted cartoons (which I assume are okay to publish on a blog in the quest for academic discourse), here's my first question:

1. What happens when a cartoon takes on a realistic form? In the case of Rex Morgan, as well as other comics like Prince Valiant, etc., how and why do we interpret them the way that we do? In the case of Calvin and Hobbes, why is the selected cartoon all the more hilarious? (Consider the statement that we envision ourselves as cartoons before you answer).

2. McCloud also states, from the mouth of a cartoon, that audience participation is a key to success. Knowing this, what is one technique that you've seen in day-to-day life that barely cartoonizes (yes, I know that's not a word) something in order to make you participate more as an audience member. Remember that only taking away some realistic features is considered turning something into a cartoon.

3. Berger and McCloud allude to some sort of deconstructive effort as well as decentralization. Considering the media that we've been examining (hypermedia, multi-sensory, social networking media), what do you think is one of today's most powerful media tools that you can tie in to the readings, and do you think the media tool is overall a good or bad element to our current socioeconomic reality?

"Save the Chef"

Being from Texas, Hawaii, and California, and a multitude of other places like Mississippi, Florida, and Colorado, I’ve seen battles on the grounds of school mascots, flags, and symbols. In Texas there was a fight over the high school mascot of “The Cotton Pickers.” In San Diego, people fought over the abuse of glorifying the Aztec warrior. In Biloxi, Mississippi, a rule banning confederate flags on shirts and cars in public schools was overturned. Florida has their Seminole mascot; Colorado has their Native American counterparts as well. Hawaii, well, don’t even get me started on their troubles.

And after watching argument after argument, most taking place in a very heated manner, I’ve come to the conclusion that while activism is necessary to help foster dialogue, most people stick with whatever side they’re on and nobody will be able to persuade them otherwise, at least quickly. Change takes time. And it takes some comic relief, too.

Take the Chief, for instance. The fight is just ridiculous. People get so worked up over a symbol that ultimately doesn’t mean someone’s personal pride will be damaged if the “Chief” disappears. Games will still be played, people will still flood the football stadium, and the University of Illinois will most likely continue to be an excellent school. And a bunch of white people who act on behalf of Native Americans (which somehow reminds me of the Weather Underground well-to-do white students trying to speak for the Black Panthers—and being rejected by said Black Panthers) will still have their privileged lives when all is said and done.

My non-academic comments notwithstanding, this business is just silly.

And to court this silliness, I decided to transform Chief Illiniwek into “Chef” Illiniwek. I propose that wherever there are hotbeds of mascot sensationalism—of either side—this image might just force someone to stop and think, “Am I being a little absurd?”

I decided to turn Illiniwek into a chef for a few simple reasons:

1. It’s obviously a play on the word “chief.”

2. People will hopefully stop and think, “Why save a chef? I don’t get it.” Which might transfer to another question of “What does ‘saving’ the chief mean, anyway?”

3. The image of Illiniwek’s face is very apparent to a local. Also visually apparent is the tall mantle of a chef’s hat. The two juxtaposed together should bring immediate and recognizable attention to the message and overall vision. The observer will then notice the “Save the Chef” wording, and then the spoon and fork that used to be Illiniwek’s ear décor.

4. The image is also non-incendiary to either party. It’s not overtly stating that pro-Chief and anti-Chief parties are idiots or diehards, which isn’t my point anyway. The image is supposed to subtly state that there are other worthy causes out there, and there is a sense of humor to the entire fiasco.

5. The image also strips Illiniwek from his damaging properties, such as his headdress, earrings, and chest adornments and frippery.

What do you see when you look at this piece of symbolism? Do you feel like analyzing it? Or does it have a gentle effect, as in the case if you simply noticed it on the sidewalk across from the Illini store in Campustown as you briskly walked to class? Does it make you think about the controversy, or does it simmer your thoughts if you do have a strong opinion to either side of the argument? Do you even care?

Most importantly, does the image make you hungry for stadium food?

Here's something for your Sunday stenciling...

Somehow it feels like Ben Stiller could very well be the lead singer.

WAM dance

MUTO, holy crap!

Week 2 Discussion Answers

Q: Just as with web pages and other multimedia displays, the visual representation in how books are laid out is deemed to be important. Why is that? And what are some of the important aspects for visual representations of books? (Courtesy of Farhanah)

A: With books, the industry has been set up so that when a person is browsing books for sale, he/she should be able to instantly tell, for instance, if the cover of a book says that inside you'll find something as specific as soft-fiction of a religious theme (usually an airbrushed photo of a woman with a bonnet or period-dress costume, or a man with suspenders; the person is superimposed over a pastoral theme; the font is uniform with other books of the same genre for the most part). So it's important to have a type of uniformity in cases of maximum financial gain. It's also important to know in case you, as a writer, would want to change the industry, or to warp a genre to benefit literature as a whole.

Week 2 Discussion Questions

1. I'm fascinated with the way news media is going (in good and bad instances). How do online news sources automatically "tell" the reader what kind of reputation that the particular news source has? (Ex: CNN, TMZ, BBC)

2. Knowing what trends people use to identify what kind of a book you're buying, for example, is it wise to buck the trend financially? For instance, what if you wrote a children's book that didn't LOOK like a children's book. Would you even be published?

3. As fonts change, how do our attitudes change in society? Why do we hold on to traditional fonts when typing a paper, for example?

This is why our kids are on prescription meds

Just a quick link in the middle of the night. I found the antithesis to "Baby Einstein"; meet Boobah, the missing link between the toddlers of today and the brown-acid eating grandparents of the 60s.

Can Facebook save Kickapoo?

Call me a cynic, but I avoided Facebook like the plague until just a few months ago. What got me excited was that suddenly I had long-lost acquaintances that I made across the country looking me up and "friending" me. But aside from the occasional game of Scrabble, I really didn't have much of a use for it.

Until now.

Last week, Governor Rod Blagojevich made the announcement that he was closing 24 state parks and historic sites. Among them was our beloved Kickapoo State Park, located just east of here between Oakwood and Danville. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the park, it features 22 lakes, hiking, camping, mountain biking, winter sports, trout fishing, canoeing and boating, and even scuba diving. The landing lets you rent equipment, the campsites are maintained, the trails are absolutely scenic, and there are several events that draw crowds on a regular basis. In short, the park is a resource that should not be shut down.

A few years ago I was introduced to Kickapoo when I started working for the Boy Scouts of America out at Camp Drake in Oakwood. I returned frequently to camp with friends, or even to camp and hike alone. From my years of outdoors training and as a survivalist instructor, I've measured the beauty of a place by whether or not I would enjoy it in solitude.

When I heard Blagojevich's news, I was actually stunned. Breathless. I'm not an Illinois native, and I won't use this editorial to rant and rave on Rod's financial antics, but I never have, and never will understand politicians who manage to strip the state of funding for parks, arts, rehabilitation programs, education, and care for elderly; yet they always seem to find money for businesses, reelections, and self-interests. 

Enter Facebook: I commonly write letters to the editor at the News-Gazette, but somehow that didn't seem enough. I saw that the Buzz featured Kickapoo on their latest weekly, but was dismayed to see a small article that was barely feature-length surrounded by pretty graphics. I commend the attempt to help Kickapoo, but I felt like there was something else that could be done. So I plopped down and made a group—"Save Kickapoo State Park!"

Three days later, there were 650 members, and Pam Dempsey from the News-Gazette interviewed me about the group as part of a cover story after she became a group member. I started to merge ideas, petitions, and contact information with others who had similar (and in many cases, better) ideas. I teamed up with Cory Vandenberg, the son of Kickapoo Park Ranger Bob Vandenberg. Cory now lives in Austin, Texas, and he started up another Facebook group of the same name (but without the exclamation mark). :)

"Yeah, I didn't really think too much of Facebook until now. I noticed [last night] that Senator Frerichs was a member of my group," said Vandenberg. Cory's voice is especially important, partly because his father cannot comment on policy.

We decided to grant one another administrative permissions on the groups to share even more information. The general public has been giving us links to online petitions, localized events, and even connections to Flickr that feature photos from Kickapoo. 

There are thousands of people mobilizing on behalf of the park. 

Hilary Valentine, Director of Marketing and Creative Services at Parkland College, has been leading the charge in Parkland to protest the closure of Kickapoo.

A little girl by the name of Ryce Tuggle, 11, started a group called K.I.C.K., Kids Interested in Conserving Kickapoo. Originally her class was involved in writing letters to legistlators, but Tuggle plunged on ahead with her own initiative. 

Tod Satterthwaite, the Kickapoo Landing operator, is a member of the Facebook groups, and has kept us informed of the amount of signed petitions at the park which now numbers several thousand. 

How much help has Facebook really provided?

"You know, I couldn't imagine this happening ten years ago. Could you imagine all of the footwork? You wouldn't have a fraction of the people involved, I'd guess," said Sarah Williams, an online petition coordinator. "I think Facebook and other networking sites have more power than people think; just ask the politicians running for office right now."

As I write, Vandenberg's group has around 2,000 members, and my group has over 1,500. We've spotted some of the community's elite, as well as high school kids that are banding together in groups rarely seen in high schools—or let's be truthful—community colleges and universities. 

I'm all about hard work, but I can't sit here and claim to say I did anything more than research, make a few phone calls, churn out a few hundred emails, and make events and groups on Facebook. I'm absolutely floored by the number of other people working so dilligently to face this problem, and for a park, nonetheless, which should tell something of the allure of Kickapoo.

The real question is, will Facebook help save Kickapoo? Thousands of people have virtually typed, "Yes."

Remediation Answers

Farhanah sez: "Does photography really make the artist obscure like the author says? Can photography and real art i.e. paintings, sculptures, etc. be compared with the likes of photography? Are they really trying to achieve the same results.

Man, that's more than one question, Farhanah. First of all, photography can, and does, obscure the photographer, but only if the photographer has the intent to remove his or herself from an environment. Photojournalism places the photographer at the scene, whereas many versions of artistic photography serve to remove the photographer from the setting. Photography also can serve similar functions in terms of other art forms; the problem in this relation is that art is such a widely functioning term. I could take a picture of the letter "i." Could I call that art? Absolutely. It depends, however, on the vehicle in which I'm attempting to create something new utilizing functional structures around my own sphere of life. 

Are you trying to make this  a philosophical question out of the ten minutes that we have to answer it? 

Remediation Questions

1. What are the strengths of retaining roots of "old media?"

2. What are some reasonings behind deconstructing the use of new media space?

3. What new advantages can we gain from blending new media formats in a social setting? How about a political setting?

Dream cars of C-U

I sincerely agree with my colleagues when we discuss the "uniqueness" (aka "freak factor") of Champaign-Urbana. Although I do have to make a bifurcation here: California is the home of the freak show, and Venice Beach is the capital; I should know, because I lived in SoCal prior to moving here. However, there is quite a myriad of what my friends and I call "teammates" in C-U (see me for more details on this social game in person). And they're not just townies. I've seen some grandmothers, professors, blue-collar workers, students, and a large portion of Rantoul express their freakness.

One way that the "team game" is played is to call out "team cars." There are some examples listed below that elaborate on the above pictures.

#1. Okay, the qualifying elements for labeling this a "team car" are as follows: note the signage that says 'Gangsta Granny.' While I'm not one to lean towards racial profiling, the following must be deduced—when was the last time you saw somebody who was 'gangsta' driving a PT Cruiser? And when was the last time you saw a 'gangsta' who put a decal on their back window stating their professed underground occupation in life? I also must let the reader know that this picture was taken in spring at Prairie Gardens, the home of gangsta landscapers. Oh, and it must be noted that I live in an all-black neighborhood, and I know none of my neighbors would be caught dead in a PT Cruiser. In fact, one of my gay friends says he wouldn't dare drive "one of those 'fairy-mobiles.'" My apologies to anyone who does drive one, or has parents who do.

#2. The next car has a license plate that says, "Jhihad," either a misspelling of "Jihad" or was the second person in Illinois to try to get the original spelling, but lost out to some other morally responsible individual. Fact: the Illinois Dept. of Transportation has an extensive list of license plate letter/number combinations that are not allowed to be used on vanity plates. I'm surprised that either "Jihad" or "Jhihad" is not on the list. Again, it must be noted that the person that got out of this car was a white student at Parkland College. What?

#3. Manrod Electric is a real company out of Rockford, Illinois. This particular company vehicle was parked outside of the Champaign Chevy's restaurant. Depending on who you ask, "Manrod" can either be a name of historical esteem in Ohio, or, as according to the Urban Dictionary, a term for, well, you can just click on the link.

Want to join me in finding the team cars of C-U, or even around the nation? Send me your photos. I'll give credit where it was due.

All photos above are property of Moot Caroo.

da illest

After the conversation we had in class regarding bathroom graffiti, I remembered that I obsessively take pics with my phone of three things: weird stuff in other people's houses; funny license plates and/or weird cars; odd graffiti that mostly appears in bathrooms. 

It looks like there's a web site just for people like me who enjoy the latter of my camera-phone hobbies: graffiti projects.

But there's a new site I found not too long ago that also condenses my amusement with unique urban art, and combines my enjoyment of all things outdoors. It's all about green graffiti. 

I also used to be part of a movement that used a form of posterized graffiti, which was more crude than the post-modern sophisticated UK ideas that are posted here. It started with blown-up heads of Jeff Goldblum taken from "The Fly." Underneath the poster heads was printed the line, "Jeff Goldblum is watching you poop." We posted the "heads" on the backs of bathroom stalls; all of this was the brainchild of one of my peers at the University of North Texas, where we went to film school together. The original web site is gone, but you can find an example of the Goldblum posters here.

Next post I think I'll upload some of my pics from the cell phone. 

Whozeewhatten

My life is essentially that of a writer pretending to have a real sort of life. I currently have three writing classes, I work for a newspaper, and I’m a project leader on several poetry areas on WEbook. All of this is to help facilitate my degree in creative writing (poetry). Today in the English building’s restroom, I read some graffiti: “English majors are future McDonald’s employees.” I beg to differ. English majors are capable of any number of jobs at the mall. In addition, I agree with my mathematics teaching assistant when he said, “I shouldn’t make fun of you, you might help me edit my dissertation.” Which may be true, but it’ll be after I get off of work ringing up books at Borders. 

In my previous years I served as a search and rescue operative in the US Navy, and I worked hurricane sorties as a rescue swimmer, as well as a counter-drug auxiliary. But I’m talking about tons of cocaine, not joints.  Now my body is used up and slightly broken, so I just sit and type. Which helps, because I have to do a lot of it this year.

I’m also an avid fan of gonzo journalism. More like rabid, actually—at least before I got all my energy out in the Navy. I was enamored with the gonzo concept so much I took to hitchhiking across Mexico, which in turn is not a wise move because you might end up with the following : Amoebic Dysentery; a mother who has a panic attack when she receives a call asking to look up a location in the Sonora outback when she thought her son was somewhere in Texas visiting a friend; or getting punched in the face by two Frenchies that were riding a bus with me and decided to get the upper hand when we stopped in a tiny town that only had one room available for the night. At least I made the ten-day trip on less than $80, and I lost twenty pounds from Amoebic purging. I'm sure I was quite charming as I crossed the border into San Diego, toting bottles of tequila, a backpack, soiled clothes, and a torn woven blanket that was supposed to have been a gift for my panic-stricken mother.