Youtube Link

Well, the sound doesn't work, but here is a link to my project.

Proposal

Sorry, forgot to post this last week when I finished it.

When I first began looking into Digital Democracy as a theme, I wanted to get down to how it really functions. What impact does the massive snowball increase in technology have on the ways we live our lives? Some of the basic questions surrounding technology involve our adaptation of it into our lives: communication, transportation, information, etc. However, the role which technology has taken in our interpersonal relations is one of the things that I was most interested in investigating.
For example, how does the use of the internet change our systems of behavior and interaction? I want to examine how our connections, primarily via the technology generated from the internet and computers, have changed when translated to the digital sphere. Social networking sites, online gaming, chat and fan sites: all of these things exist uniquely within our perception of the internet, and they each have their own codes of behavior. How does democracy adapt and exist within that shift?
My goal is to work with screen capture technology to create some mini-videos and still frames, along with my own narration, to look at these sorts of internet “meeting places” and find out how all of this has changed and developed. I’d like to investigate primarily the worlds of social networking (primarily via Facebook and Myspace), massively multiplayer online role playing games (by looking at posted videos of World of Warcraft and/or Halo), and the fan sites/discussion boards that have sprung up across the internet (mostly through some of the Harry Potter and Wheel of Time fan groups, along with a hefty dose of IMDB).
I would like to look at the communication processes between people in these various spheres of internet influence, and determine what role that digital influence has had. The various types of slang and acronyms that have sprung up are a great introductory example of what I am planning to look at; the world where these sorts of things exist isn’t exactly the one we are generally thought to inhabit on a day-to-day basis. The internet is a whole different world, to many users, and I want to pick at that phenomenon and look at how and why it works. Common practices here in the “real world” have an established precedent, and by attempting to remediate the original websites and information through my mini-video project, I’m hoping to hypermediate the whole thing in such a way as to look past the conventions we’ve come to take for granted when dealing with the internet.
In the end, the goal here is to examine the internet through a secondary lens of technology. By going in and looking at how behavior is determined as “OK” or “unacceptable”, I want to get back to the first conventions most of us ever dealt with when interacting with other people online. By utilizing different areas of contact between groups (n.b. the vast differences between Facebook and World of Warcraft), I am going to put us back into a learning frame of mind. And, hopefully, by observing that initial interaction, I’ll be able to use that to show the development of a digital democracy between users.

Interactive Media

Well, there are a bunch of things I like to mess with on a day-to-day basis, but the two biggest are probably these: Pandora, and Super Smash Bros.

Pandora is great for a variety of reasons. You get to design the station around something you know you already like, and, with uncanny accuracy, Pandora will find similar artists and music. Should you dislike something, you can ban it from the station, and it'll never be played again. Or, should you get tired of something, you can just temporarily ban a song or artist for a month or so. One of the biggest benefits to something like Pandora, though, is that it finds out what you like, and then searches out artists who have little-to-no recognition at the everyday level, so you're constantly finding new things to interest you.

Smash, on the other hand...well, I'd try to describe it, but the video just sums it up so damn well. That's my paragraph for that.

Response to Crystal

Crystal's first question today is about the cultural impact of immediacy versus hypermediacy. I have to agree that the culture in which the context takes place is the most important part of how that is interpreted. Say that two separate cultures observe the same piece of art, created in the first culture (ie the Africans versus Westerners debate). Only by having a solid grasp of its context can you find a method to evaluate the art within its form of medium. The other culture, however, completely unaware of that art piece's context and meaning, is separated into the immediacy field, because there is no way for them to relate it back; it transcends its medium completely.

Questions Again

1. Do you really think that media must compete with other forms of media, or that they can indeed be isolated?

2. If any given medium must "economically" find its own niche, in order to become successful, then what does that mean for previous types of media? Does this even make sense, seeing as practically every type of media still abounds (not necessarily thriving) despite newer replacements?

3. The discussion of early photographers vs. artistry brings up an interesting point. Is any form of media (such as pictures) really that distinct? Wouldn't ever different use (art vs. documentation, for example) be a different form of media?

Response to Megan

Megan's final question today ponders the question of media's ability to stand alone. It would seem, to me, that whatever ends up being produced is THE media, whether it incorporates various types or not. Everything has its own little category, and making an assertion that it "requires" more types of media to be complete seems a little absurd. If that's the case, then everything is really a series of different media, because of the idea-creation-interpretation fallacy. Everything, under that thought process, is a variable form of media.

Questions

1. Do you think that everything, as produced, is inevitably a remediation? Because we're trying to create an image we see in our heads?

2. How do you think the rise of videogames, specifically the type mentioned in the reading (first-person adventure/explorations), have effected our perception of the forms of media?

3. Considering the current decline in print journalism, do you think it has fallen to a consumer-based rise in demand for such readily accessible media as video? What's your take on that difference in hypermedia?

Response to Rasheena

One of Rasheena's questions today is about collaboration within our competitive and, ultimately, capitalist world. It seems to me that, while cooperation can provide a lot of great things and valuable insight, most people are motivated to go above-and-beyond the norm because they want to excel. There are always going to be people with different talents, and people better than others, so why not collaborate through competition? It seems like the best way to insure success is to let people do what they're good at, and then put in the stuff that other people are good at.

Ede Questions

1. Do you think that a more collaborative environment would be beneficial to the college educational system? Why (not)?

2. How do you perceive the collaborative structure? Is it really as useful as all these people seem to think? How does it interact with our naturally competitive natures, and what effects do you think it would have in the non-artistic world?

3. Does the Ede piece mean to say that there is no such thing as an "author", per se? Rather, do you think, in light of that work, that there actually are authors, as opposed to communities?

20 Things

-a girl wearing a Northface jacket and furry boots
-my door mysteriously opening
-there was a man at the UGL who looked like a Red Devil mascot
-I was asked to participate in an survey for two guys from a church
-Walgreen's is advertising "theater candy"
-a man was getting a tattoo on his ass when I walked by the parlor
-a homeless man I've seen once before greeted me quite courteously
-Brinks truck stopped in the middle of Green St.
-family taking an incoming freshman's picture in front of the Illini Union Bookstore
-someone attempting to steal a shirt from Gameday Spirit
-two girls trying to lift a keg outside of Piccadilly's
-someone from my other class at Borders
-Ford GT driving through Champaign
-Jon's Pipe Shop
-Bombay grill introducing a grocery store
-Big Mouth's sign outside
-park on Springfield and 2nd is almost finished
-"anti-racism, anti-chief" sticker on a car
-train stopped on the tracks
-twenty guys on motorcycles driving through downtown

Response to Megan

Megan's second question is about whether or not sound evidence is really all that important, if the visual evidence alone can make the argument. In my opinion, it is. The point of structuring a documentary or film so that the visual cues present the same argument as the language isn't redundant, to me. Rather, it simply cements what's happening. We usually wouldn't rely on those visual cues as heavily except for when the sound is off, but when the sound is on, having such strong optical evidence sort of subconsciously affirms what's being said.

Question

1. Thinking about what Hampe says, what kind of advances in film technology do you think represent real breakthroughs? Is there anything done these days that you think is revolutionary compared to previous years?

2. Hampe also alleges that editing is at the heart of communication in a documentary. Do you find this to be the case? What's a good example for/against this?

3. How would you structure an interview to demonstrate the truth (or falsehood) of what that person interviewed is saying?

Response to Dan

Dan's first question is about the development a documentary would need to go through prior to filming and finalizing it. It seems to me that, unless you have a very specific argument to make, it would be a good idea to get an idea, and then go through and film everything surrounding it, before you tried to establish a huge over-arching theme. Take Katrina documentaries for example: it would have been very difficult to say what the film-makers argument would be beforehand, seeing as they had no idea what to expect when they started shooting. In that case, they knew sort of what they wanted to look at, but the real interest drawn into the documentaries only came after really examining the situation.

If, on the other hand, you wanted to create a very specific argument like "An Inconvenient Truth" it would make sense to have a very well-thought-out argument designed for the purpose, and utilizing specific footage to add to that. Though some of this takes place in every documentary, via editing, this is the kind of project where every assertion needs support, something you can't necessarily just hope to find while filming.

Hampe Questions

1. What do you think is the best way to capture "truth" in a documentary? Hampe says it's not a matter of just showing the truth, but making the viewer empathize with it, so how would you do that?

2. Do you agree with Hampe's assertion that stories are what matter?

3. What kind of documentary would you prefer to make? Do you think more can be achieved with a documentary than with the simple presentation of facts? Why or why not?

Audio Project

Well, here's my audio project, in all its miserable glory.

And this is a slightly louder version that will hopefully work better.

What I've Learned Link

http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/ESQ0806WIL_134?click=main_sr

Response to Crystal

One of Crystal's questions about Shipka's work is about your own experiences with a multi-modal project.

Personally, I had to do a project for a Shakespeare class freshman year, involving designing a web-page sort of thing for a production. What we ended up doing was making a Facebook page, to apply most easily to the students, since Facebook is so popular. We created pictures and wrote on them, in order to refer to the play, and then posted a couple videos of the scenes we'd performed.

Questions

1. Shipka talks about how the choice of particular words/ideas affects what is produced. How do you change your style of writing when you're putting a post on your blog?

2. The project of "Oblivious Ed" was one student's method of pursuing a "cool" project with advice from his peers. If you were going to follow their advice, and create a project based on something you love, what do you think you would try to take from the class?

3. What styles of media do you think you would choose to model your hypothetical project on? More to the point, what specific examples (particular shows, books, etc.) would you like to use as a frame of reference?

Further Reflections on Slideshow Projects

HK's Slideshow: I took this as a look at the mockery that modern society is. The images of real protests, real struggles against oppression, are contrasted with images of sarcasm and mindless pursuit of fame and fortune. It really hits on the insensitivity of the present.

Dan's Slideshow: The difference between the random and ordered versions of this slideshow was really interesting. Watching the random one first, I had sort of gained the impression that it was about watching the Main Stacks open in the morning, or possibly shut down. Afterward, watching the ordered view, it was more obviously of a person searching through the stacks for a book, but I still had this sense of it being an opening. I liked it, but I felt like some of the blurred images were pointless; at least, I didn't really gain much from them.

Crystal's Slideshow: Honestly, I was a little lost when watching this slideshow. There were a lot of possible topics covered, and I wasn't sure what the theme was (or if there was one). The only things I could think about were the "signs" we're shown in everyday life, that give us contextual clues, but that seemed to blur as the pictures progressed.

Aaron's Slideshow: At first glance, I took this for just a simple walk-along-the-beach sort of narrative, but then I realized that it was really looking at objects in the context of a beach setting. I really liked the different things that were there; it did a good job of highlighting the things you see and take for granted.

Podcast Analysis

I listened to an episode of “This American Life,” one called “The Cruelty of Children.” There are three passages going on about that subject. One that I noticed, in particular, for its use of sound was a piece of original fiction by Ira Sher called “The Man in the Well.” It tells the story of children speaking to—but never helping—a man trapped in a well. The narrator's voice stays somber throughout, as serious as the subject matter entails; moreover, he has a quality of depth and reflection in his voice and tone. Throughout the telling of the story, very little emotion is ever displayed—only the sad reflection and pauses of a person emphasizing certain events, without necessarily being caught up in them.

Interestingly, the background has a sort of relatively high-pitched tribal-sounding music. I'm not sure what the meaning of that is, but it lent an unearthly quality to the piece, and effectively brought out an eerie sense of funereal dirge that went well with the story. In fact, I think maybe my perception of the narrator as so somber and somewhat sad is that music, which only starts about a minute into the tale.

Reflecting on Slideshows

Susmita's Slideshow: I took the slideshow as a narrative of a night playing poker. The clock pictures showed time passing, and the multiple pictures of the chips detailed that this was a big tournament.

Rasheena's Slidesow: This was like an exposition about the different perspectives between an adult and a child; not only is there a size difference, obviously demonstrated by taking pictures of objects before hand and then with both herself and the kid, but also a difference in use. Rasheena drank from the glasses, the toddler played with them. Also, the black-and-white emphasis on the "adult" pictures (that is an awkward phrase) shows a sort of grown-up feel, to me.

Raquel's Slideshow: I was really intrigued by this, because I did something very similar. I take this to be a show of how the city of Champaign, especially the campus area, is constantly updating itself, importing the new at all times.

Megan's Slideshow: I liked the style here, because it seems like an attempt to escape the interior, the inside, and find the way to nature. The exit signs really emphasized a desire to get out, go outside, but I think some of the Allerton Park statues were a little distracting from that, but that's just my take.

Response to Crystal

Crystal's blog today has some interesting questions, especially the third one, about music. It seems to me that we listen to music that captures our mood because it creates an easily expressible outlet for emotions that aren't necessarily easily expressible. When we're upset, over a break-up for example, it's not always easy to think to ourselves about what emotions we're feeling or the situation we're going through; playing music that deals with that situation, however, eases that tension about releasing the emotion, because someone else has already done it.

To me, the idea of expressive music is especially summed up in classical music. The composition "Flight of the Bumblebee" is perfect in this way: there's a busy, high-speed tone to the music, that sums up an expression of industry, of acting quickly.

Questions

1. How do you think, looking at McKee's piece, that sound would have affected your slideshow and pictures? Specifically, what would you have added, in the audio sphere?

2. McKee's piece further mentions work by Van Leeuwen, on page 340, detailing the various aspects of speech (tension, roughness, breathiness, loudness, pitch, and vibrato). Which of these do you think you most utilize consciously? If you listen to someone else speak, which do you think you pay the most attention to?

3. Which plane (sensuous, expressive, and sheerly musical) do you think is the most commonly used?

Arguing With Images

First off, here's the album I created, the slideshow button is right above the first picture.

And now for my reflection...

When I began the “Arguing With Images” assignment, I was a little unsure of how to proceed. After watching “Ways of Seeing,” I had the idea that most arguments could be established using pictures; in fact, my very first idea was to create an argument about the use of the Chief Illiniwek symbol, and the struggles that the University has gone through on that account. However, once I started considering the limitations of text, along with sound, I realized right away that that idea was going to be nearly impossible. Every image I could think of, besides the Chief himself, had some kind of textual reference to provide context.

Keeping this in mind, I decided to try to come up with iconic images in my everyday life, and I immediately thought of my truck. Very little text would show up in a picture of my truck, and the image of a pick-up has numerous possible angles to examine. Considering that I had had my truck towed before, and also gotten a parking ticket recently, I decided that maybe retracing that story would be interesting. After all, a towed vehicle is a relatively common occurrence, and I thought it would be interesting to follow the route taken by a towed car.

Before I started taking those pictures, though, I ended up driving around for a while, trying to think of places to take these pictures that would provide some sort of subtext, as I was unhappy with “just” following a towed vehicle (and, inspired by class discussion, I thought I would provide a reason for it happening). However, I found myself examining the rampant construction and concrete growth of Champaign, and decided to take pictures of that instead, thinking it might lead to some cool ideas. In the end, I took pictures all along First Street, all the way outside of town, and realized that the most interesting part was the urban sprawl. I immediately shifted my focus to that.

Driving back and forth several times, I took pictures of the parking lots, low-level concrete buildings, and heavy construction of the town. The further I got away from Green Street, however, the more I noticed that that construction had a different take—new buildings were going up where none had stood before, instead of replacing old ones. Land was being leased and sold. Farmland was giving way—abruptly—to apartment complexes. My goal, after taking the initial pictures of construction in Champaign, became to document the expansive urban sprawl of the area.

Keeping McCloud's assertions in mind, that people relate to images they can see themselves in, I purposefully took most of the pictures from the driver's seat of my truck. No longer was the pick-up itself a point of interest (not everyone has been towed, after all), but the driver's seat became a way of pulling a viewer into my pictures. Every image that could safely be taken from that setting was, and I believe that it will give a sense to the viewer of actually driving along and seeing the “urbanization” of the area for themselves.

Though I went through a few changes in my plans, I feel like the images and “argument” I ended up making grew from a more natural understanding of imagery itself. Rather than simply forcing a half-baked idea into images, I followed the images as they led to a particular idea, and tried to represent that through my slideshow.

This Is Amazing

So I saw this little short film, which is apparently being made into a movie, and was absolutely impressed as hell. Really cool, especially considering not a single word is spoken the whole time.

Response to Aaron

Aaron's second question is concerned with the face in the mirror. In some ways, I have to think that a large part of recognizing that face is the repetition we go through, but I think a great deal of how we look at ourselves is part of why we have only a vague image of ourselves in our minds. We look in the mirror and spot the obvious things--facial hair, piercings, birthmarks, whatever--and then we spot the flaws--scars, asymmetrical features, etc--and those are what we think of. That's how we recognize ourselves, without examining the whole of our faces; we identify the primary flaws, and immediately check off our failure to match what we think of as a good looking person, etc.

Questions

1. The pictures in the "Ways of Seeing" video were interesting, but I'm curious as to why they were chosen. What do you think connects those images?

2. Notably, the debate over which is the "real" Virgin on the Rocks painting is mentioned. If you were told that a work of art you'd always admired and thought was real was actually a copy, what would that change for you?

3. In the comic, there's a particular moment when the author addresses us and asks if we'd have been as interested if the narrating character looked more real. What's your take on that?

Response to Susmita

The first of Susmita's questions today is about whether pictures are a form of writing. Well, I have to break this down two ways, because I think that they can be, but they usually aren't. For example, hieroglyphs were used to create Egyptian writing, so obviously pictures can take on that role. The only problem with that example is that hieroglyphs are established as a particular form of writing--i.e. certain pictures mean specific things, allowing someone to read their meaning without (too much) ambiguity. But, at the same time, simple things like facial expressions or pictures of recognizable images (such as places) can evoke specific feelings or ideas. On the other hand, a picture is rather ambiguous, and meaning isn't specific--there's no specified signified (that sounds weird, I know). So, long story short, I would have to say that pictures CAN be a method of writing, but need some kind of system to establish them as such.

Random Stuff

First of all, I saw some more chalk art on the quad today. Second, my buddies at the White Horse decided to adopt a random rat that wandered into the beer garden and which was so docile as to almost have to be a pet. I still feel like I'm going to get the plague.

Discussion

1. Wysocki says that "without having to study it--you know whether a webpage has been designed to sell you something or present you with news." I guess my question about this is whether you think it is applicable to everyday life? Isn't most information presented as news trying to sell you something, and how do these two things interchange?

2. How do you think that text size affects you on a day-to-day basis in your reading? If you're confronted with changing font sizes, does that heighten your interest in certain things?

3. In your opinion, how does color play a role in your reading? Would you rather read something in colored or plain black text? When you see something in a color other than black, what does that tell you about the text you're reading?

Stencil Art Rationale

Well, I’m not really the typical U of I college student in my political tendencies, since I lean generally Libertarian. I really dislike the amount of control the government has on our lives, and the way that we support a lot of really invasive governmental policies (and yes, I do realize this is ubiquitous in both major parties). So one of the problems that I have, in particular, is this idea that we as a country are all united, together and hoping for change, or whatever. I’m not a big Obama fan, for a myriad of reasons, and the hype that went through with his election this past year has really worried me in a lot of ways, because I feel like people made their choices based on what was cool, acceptable, or seemed like it was the right thing, without really knowing why. Most of the people that I talked to in the Fall that supported Obama couldn’t tell me why, except that “Bush was bad.” So I felt like, as a country—and especially as the youth that is increasingly dominating the world in pretty much every way—we were sort of chained into our ideals. The problem, to me, was that we were all united for Hope and Change, but we were sort of chained together in a negative way because we all wanted to fight against the bad policies of the last president, without considering what was going on then.

As such, I decided that I wanted to ridicule this idea of unity. I knew that I was going to include the word “united” with a question mark, because that was exactly how most of our campus felt after the election, but I don’t really feel like we should have. So I just wanted to criticize that whole empty rhetorical message. The image, though, was a little tougher to figure out. Originally, I kinda wanted to go with a riff on the Obama Hope posters, but it seemed too pointed, and I don’t really have anything against him, per se. So I decided to take the raised fist image, which is used so often to mean personal partisan revolt that it’s become a parody of itself; just think about all the bands, from Rage Against the Machine to Disturbed, who have used it to show their rebellious tendencies and so forth as a sort of (pseudo-) political message. So I took that image, thought about how I was upset with the unity we were displaying as a country (relying on image and what was “acceptable” in political terms), and put my imagery of the chains onto it. I thought it just made sense, because of the idea that we were supposedly fighting against everything bad—the political uprising part of the fist—but we were only doing it because we were told to—thus the chains. The fist is such an obvious metaphor that I thought putting them in chains would get right to the heart of what I was interested in.

Complete Stencil Art Image

Here is the complete image of what I wanted to graffiti. And may still, at some point.

Stencil Project

So here are the basic parts of my stencil project. These are the simple stencil cut-outs I used to spray-paint with. The first is the chain design, the second is the fist image, and the last is of the letters I used.

Safety First

I've provided this clip simply to justify the address of my blog. And because it's funny.

Something Cool on the Quad

Saw this in chalk on the quad today, and just thought it was cool.

Response to Rasheena

One of Rasheena's questions today is about the use of mood within the language we are presented on a regular basis. If the kind of language we were shown was more positive, a reinforcement of what is good/encouraged behavior as opposed to restrictions against us, what kind of effect would we see? Personally, I don't think it would be effective at all. Who would follow a speed limit when it was presented as "We'd appreciate it if you'd keep your speed at a reasonable level" on the side of the highway? I just don't see positive reinforcement helping large groups of people--it's too arbitrary and just seems like a bad idea, for this reason:

Questions

1. What do you think you would put out there as a message in graffiti?

2. When this type of writing is employed, do you think it positively or negatively affects the environment it's found in?

3. If all governmental signs, (Stop, speed, etc.) were more of an art form, how do you think this would impact our day-to-day lives?

Breaking News: Graffiti in Champaign!

So it turns out that, despite violent gang wars that tear the Twin Cities of East-Central Illinois apart, graffiti isn't particularly ubiquitous around here. I did find a couple little bits that I found interesting though.

On your left, you'll notice a blurry image. That's my the camera on my phone, which explains it. The design was on the wall of a parking garage of one of the apartment buildings on 3rd Street, and is partly hard to analyze because it has been covered with some kind of paint-remover in the none-too-distant past. In person, it's a little easier to tell that it's a sort of shield design, with the lettes "L" and "J" forming the left and rights sides, respectively. My guess would be that it's a sort of personal logo: Initials and a particular design, meant to signify a certain person.

This one on the right is kinda hard to see. It's situated above a shop in downtown Champaign, and I ate shit falling off of the roof trying to get closer, so this is the best I could do. I'm pretty sure it says "AGN" in black and white. The building it's above is right between two streets, so I think the position above it was chosen to provide easy viewing. My guess is that the letters are either initials, or else quite possibly some sort of territorial marker/gang sign, but that could be a little bit of bias on my part.

Respone

As an answer to question two of Raquel's, I think you have to look at some of the stuff that's being done even just today. Forums like TV are critically acclaimed these days as being thoroughly thought-provoking and legitimate, when it was basically derided only a few years back as brain-mush. Even--especially--video games have made the same transition; there's games out now that are so complex, gorgeously designed, and incandescently creative that they're clearly a form of art.

Virtual reality is very like the video game. You're immersed fully into an alternate world, by use of technology. There'll probably be a period of adjustment, since it'll initially be used only by the people with money to exploit the VR system for entertainment and such, but eventually people will become familiar with it and create art.

I guess, in the end, the answer comes down to this: no media is truly all art, but there's always art in every media. Including what will happen with VR if and when we develop it fully.

Question

So my question is about the ideas of media within the introduction. What makes us so convinced that this expansion of information and sharing is a good thing? They talk about "like TV only better," but is that necessarily a good thing? It seems like our society is collapsing on itself in the entertainment industry anyways, so how is an exponential expansion of it necessarily good?

In the Beginning, I Said "Let There Be Blog," and It Was Good...

If you’re wasting enough company/class time to actually look at this shameless self-gratification of bloggery, then you’re probably the poor, socially maladjusted type who would like to know all about me. Luckily, I’m just the type of egocentric, delusional blog-writer who is more than happy to share my life, interests, and stories, thus establishing the perfect give-and-take relationship between us (that is, you unwashed insipid masses give me constant and loyal adulation, while I take the time to subject you to my narcissistic self-interested posts).

I am Nick Franz, a student at the University of Illinois. Currently, I am an English Education major; this, however, is ultimately probably not going to be what I do, seeing as I have little patience, a low tolerance for anyone not myself, absolutely no regard for the well-being of society as we know it, and a complete lack of social responsibility. As such, I will take the time out of my busy schedule of not giving a damn about the students I am supposed to be helping to provide you with links I find interesting and/or useful, inasmuch as they provide schadenfreude, or show you how pointless life really is. Quite possibly, you’ll realize that I’ve provided links that are both. Adore me for it.