With the rise of digital media, a highly addictive medium, worries are made about the effects it has on people. Students are multitasking and not accomplishing much, people are communicating more comfortably through Facebook and text messaging as opposed to face to face, and information is being spread like wildfire (youtube, online news, blog, and of course, Wikileaks). With all this out there, there are many speculations and concerns that are on the subject matter of the effects that digital media have on people.
I'll begin by commenting on the Social-Political concerns. Just by personal experience I'll boldly say that youtube videos, facebook posts, and blogs have made politics more accessible to young people (i. e. all them 12 year olds in political comment wars on youtube!). A video that makes fun of a well know politician such as the president, a senator, etc. can be quite effective propaganda on the young minds. I feel that young students would rather watch a video that trashes George Bush or Barack Obama before wrapping their minds around the works of John Locke or Thomas Hobbs. In Justin McIntosh's video "Right Wing Radio Duck", a clear satire is made on the listeners of Glenn Beck. The video's purpose is to show a gullible duck falling for Glenn's word for word until the duck becomes paranoid. This is an effective video, indeed, and will have a lot of effect on the youtube surfers to make an opinion on Glenn Beck.
Social lives are changing too. While some find Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace all very addictive and create sterile, relationships between people who can't hold a face to face conversation, there are some very interesting new results that are quite to the contrary. In Laura Owen's article, "The Internet and Social Relationships" we see results that social sites create larger social cirlces of friends, communitiy involvement, and a growing sense of trust in people. Also very interesting is the article by Mimi Ito, whom feels that the generation who grew up on Pokemon are quite literate. I agree completely. Pokemon was a great game that encouraged reading along with solving puzzles, all the while by battling with cool monsters. I remember even looking up words I came across in Pokemon that I did not know in the dictionary, like the word "paralysis", for example, which was commonly used in the game.
Along with the change of social lives, we also see a change in emotions. In the "Internet Addiction Guide" by John Grohol, their is a speculation that people whom are addicted to things like the internet do not want to deal with their life problems. In other words, the internet becomes an outlet to escape to for people who can't see to enjoy the outside word. Of course with social sites and massive amounts of websites, it goes without saying the that internet is by far one of the most addicting pieces of technology. Internet addiction is a hard thing to cure but it is important to notice how anti-social people are usually those addicted to the internet. I liked the Dilbert cartoon on the article especially when Dilbert tells his doctor, "I'm addicted to the internet because it's more interesting than people." I'm sure many would find this true; the internet is quite a compelling world.
Digital technology have drastically chagned how we learn, think, and read. Instead of reading an article fully through and engaging the mind in the deep intricacies of the text, people have now begun to read in a "staccato quality" and "quickly scan short passages of text from many sources online" (from Nicholas Carr's "Is Google Making us Stupid?"). This is equivalent of loggin into the internet, going to Yahoo, and reading only the headlines and captions of the artircles that are posted on the homepage. So much is put out on the internet that no one has time to read it all. With the mind achknowledging the massive quantity of the information, it instantly begins reading in "skim mode", knowing that it is impossible to deeply interpret each article, but motivated by the curiosity to know everything that it can.
When it comes to behavioral worries, the first thing that comes to mind is multitasking. How many things can a person do at once? According to John Hamiltion in his article, "Multitasking Brain Divides and Conquers, To a Point", "our brains are set up to do two tasks at once, but not three". This is based on his research that the brain has two lobes. When a person is given two tasks to perform at once, the brain amazingly splits the tasks so one task can be focused by one side of the brain and the other by the other side. Now this is really fascinating stuff. Just as I am typing here now and working on this blog, I happened to notice this shear magic of the work of two things at once by the brain. I am formulating ideas into sentences in my brain as well as intricately moving my fingers across the keyboard to type. Now working on one thing at once works fine, but the brain can become bored by having both of the sides of the brain working on the same thing. It's like when you're reading a book and you start to loose focus and just start to read words instead of reading the words and engaging your imagination. So yes, we multitask all the time but we have limits. It's like driving; keeping your eyes focused on the road and working the controls to move the car works fine, but once we add a third thing like texting while driving, we can end up in trouble.
I'm a rare example of someone who is not addicted to technology but I did become more involved with it this year at UNCSA. This is mostly because I live on campus, where I have a computer in my bedroom. You see, when I commuted to college for my freshman year at Salisbury University, my family (me, my mom, and my dad) all had to share one computer which was placed in my dad's office room. That's just the way it is since we only have one internet connection. So because I never used the internet much but when I did it was about an hour straight a day since I had to find an open amount of time that my dad did not use the computer; I could not log in and log off very half an hour or so. So the point is that while being here, on campus, with a computer at my disposal, I ended up logging into Facebook whenever I entered my room. What this did was allow a frequent distraction in the flow of my day; work was not getting done, practice time was becoming shorter due to this, etc., so what I did was plan to not use Facebook for a week. And to no surprise, it turned out successful. I was able to sustain a frame of mind that was focused on primarily my schoolwork goals.
To conclude, everyone needs to get away from the internet at one point, but when used responsively, the internet is a great resource. The amount of reading on the internet along with social network communicating actually has some really positive effects after all; not everyone is a Facebook addict.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Monday, February 28, 2011
From analog to digital: the future of music
We have been experiencing new technological breakthroughs over the course of our lives. Digital media is now the main source for communications, entertainment, and information. We wonder from the old media like photography and sculpting how we ever got to the new media like computers and cellphones. How does it work? Well, instead of having a continous signal like analog, we have moved on to digital, which breaks down the continous wavelength into smaller pieces to be transfered into digital. These smaller pieces are to be given a numeric value, created from a pattern of 1's and 0's. Articles like "Sample rate and bit depth - an introduction to sampling" have helped educate musicians in the digital realm so they are able to create music through computers and other digital technology.
Now, these enhances in technology do increase the possibities a musician can work with, but they can also make musicians more lazy. This how we come to the controvery of sampling. New musicians these days, such as Girl Talk, are taking sections of songs recorded by famous artists and arranging these fragments to create their music. In otherwords it's like taking your favorite pop song chorus, putting it over your favorite kind of drum beat, and adding anything else that you want. Now what's wrong with that? Copyright issues; the musicians who went into the studio to record on manual instruments year are not getting credit for having their music and performance in someone else's own claimed work without their permission.
After viewing the documentary "RIP a Remix Manifesto", I have to say that I would agree with Lars Ulrich, drummer of Metallica: "if the musicians aren't making money on their music, than who is?" (paraphrasing, of course). Good music takes a long time. Composers like Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt took months and even years to complete certain pieces. You see, with that much effort in a work, there's a deeper meaning to things. The composer's life story is within the piece. You can hear the moods of the music changing from one to another and can just sense the composer's struggles and triumphs. Art takes discipline. Art takes work. Art takes time. You can't just whip it out in ten minutes on a computer program. How can you be truly creative in such a small time, with all the various music and melodies out there already written? Come on, putting a rap beat over a rock song? Creative? Not really. What if the drummer in the original rock band just decided to change the beat? We do these kind of things when my friends and I goof off at band practice!
You have to understand that there is plenty of music out there but there is MUCH that HAS NOT been written. The 20th century use of whole tone scales, increased dissonance, jazz, improvisation, and descriptiveness pushed the boundaries forward to the point where you can blend style, genre, and instrumentation til no tomorrow. Check out all the new instruments coming out these days. There are many possibilities of combination of sounds.
"If you look at formal art, it requires discipline, it requires tremendous learning and tremendous discipline. It also requires a tremendous respect of the past. Now when you introduce fake artists who smear painting around little dreck on a canvas and called it art: no discipline, no training... therefore anything goes. ...they're artists like "my dog's droppings are art"." - Michael Savage on The Savage Nation Monday, February 2/21/11. Michael is not the alone on this idea of art taking long amounts of work as opposed to artists "smearing painting on a canvas" or musicians making dissonant noise for an entire album. This is a statement that is refreshing to hear for the artist who puts in hours of practice and/or composition each day. Why should our artwork that took so long to make and along with so much education and knowledge be trumped by artists that make a mess and call it work. Even more frustrating than this is when musicians have to steal the actual recorded performance from another musician and use it has the basis for their song. How much work does that take? A download, then some editing, and another download, and some editing, and add a beat, put in some autotuned vocals, and be done in less than an hour.
This is mostly an emotional issue. It is harder and harder to become truly creative these days. Although it is true that artists have been borrowing ideas from as long as art has existed, there is a fine line between borrowing and stealing. The problem is that now that fine line is becoming blurred. When an artist like Girl Talk comes out and depends on others' songs to create his own we find ourselves in a strange, new musical age.
Now, these enhances in technology do increase the possibities a musician can work with, but they can also make musicians more lazy. This how we come to the controvery of sampling. New musicians these days, such as Girl Talk, are taking sections of songs recorded by famous artists and arranging these fragments to create their music. In otherwords it's like taking your favorite pop song chorus, putting it over your favorite kind of drum beat, and adding anything else that you want. Now what's wrong with that? Copyright issues; the musicians who went into the studio to record on manual instruments year are not getting credit for having their music and performance in someone else's own claimed work without their permission.
After viewing the documentary "RIP a Remix Manifesto", I have to say that I would agree with Lars Ulrich, drummer of Metallica: "if the musicians aren't making money on their music, than who is?" (paraphrasing, of course). Good music takes a long time. Composers like Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt took months and even years to complete certain pieces. You see, with that much effort in a work, there's a deeper meaning to things. The composer's life story is within the piece. You can hear the moods of the music changing from one to another and can just sense the composer's struggles and triumphs. Art takes discipline. Art takes work. Art takes time. You can't just whip it out in ten minutes on a computer program. How can you be truly creative in such a small time, with all the various music and melodies out there already written? Come on, putting a rap beat over a rock song? Creative? Not really. What if the drummer in the original rock band just decided to change the beat? We do these kind of things when my friends and I goof off at band practice!
You have to understand that there is plenty of music out there but there is MUCH that HAS NOT been written. The 20th century use of whole tone scales, increased dissonance, jazz, improvisation, and descriptiveness pushed the boundaries forward to the point where you can blend style, genre, and instrumentation til no tomorrow. Check out all the new instruments coming out these days. There are many possibilities of combination of sounds.
"If you look at formal art, it requires discipline, it requires tremendous learning and tremendous discipline. It also requires a tremendous respect of the past. Now when you introduce fake artists who smear painting around little dreck on a canvas and called it art: no discipline, no training... therefore anything goes. ...they're artists like "my dog's droppings are art"." - Michael Savage on The Savage Nation Monday, February 2/21/11. Michael is not the alone on this idea of art taking long amounts of work as opposed to artists "smearing painting on a canvas" or musicians making dissonant noise for an entire album. This is a statement that is refreshing to hear for the artist who puts in hours of practice and/or composition each day. Why should our artwork that took so long to make and along with so much education and knowledge be trumped by artists that make a mess and call it work. Even more frustrating than this is when musicians have to steal the actual recorded performance from another musician and use it has the basis for their song. How much work does that take? A download, then some editing, and another download, and some editing, and add a beat, put in some autotuned vocals, and be done in less than an hour.
This is mostly an emotional issue. It is harder and harder to become truly creative these days. Although it is true that artists have been borrowing ideas from as long as art has existed, there is a fine line between borrowing and stealing. The problem is that now that fine line is becoming blurred. When an artist like Girl Talk comes out and depends on others' songs to create his own we find ourselves in a strange, new musical age.
The International Gossiper IN VIDEO
Video allows for a familiar combination of images and sounds. When images and sounds are combined, the viewer is put directly into the world of the video. It's the similarity to real life that makes video so successful; people want the closest experience to real life. The closer a medium gets to conveying all five senses, the more popular it will become; as audio involved one sense, hearing, as video involved two senses, seeing and hearing. Now I think that it would be quite humorous how a new medium would incoporate smell, touch, and taste! Not sure that would be all too successful. But the point is that video perfectly blends sounds and images allow for the most amount of information to be sent to the viewer's brain to be processed.
In my video I decided to let the collage of images and audio to tell the story. In the beginning of my video I thought that I would continue on the theme of gossip and how it relates to Julian Assange and the Wikileaks controversy. In the 60 Minutes interview with Julian Assange, the interviewer tells Assange that he has "made some of the most powerful people in the world your enemies" This relates clearly how gossip causes enemies in the way that Assange's exposure of government officials can cause enemies. From here on the video shows various government leaders who happen to be criticised heavily by the Wikileaks information. I showed some strong reaction from U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder, the Australian foreign minister, and talk show host, Michael Savage (during the still images of the Iraqi helicopter attack). I ended the video by having Assange defend his case that the leaked documents from Wikileaks have not harmed anyone in any way.
The video makes full circle by starting with Assange justifying his point, then by hearing a warning that he's making enemies through his information, followed by showing the international leaders that may become he enemies if they're not already are, and finally closing by having Assange defend his documentation of the leaked information.
"Julian Assange: The International Gossiper"
The unique thing about audio is that you are forced to use your imagination to create the images. Not only that, but by eliminating images you are destined to be more tuned into the actual dialogue. So without destracting images popping up and catching your eye, one can use their mind in the way they would read a book; the images of the characters and places are created by you.
In my audio I focused around an exchange between Julian Assange, spokesman and editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, and myself; I played soundbits from Assange during his interview with Democracy Now! and followed them up by commentary. The theme here was how Assange's detailed documentation of the Iraq war is almost similar to gossiping about someone. If the Iraq war was a person (for sake of argument), Assange would have let the world know all about his (the war's) humiliating secrets. A notable spot is where I repeat the phrase "the most description of a war to have ever been released"). This shows how, Assange, like a gossiper, spreads information to feel superior. Now I'm very aware that this truly is the most accurate description of any war up to this point due to the advances in technology along with the leakage of secret documents, but I'm pointing out that Assange may be boasting about his work. This may have been Assange's motivation in the first place; he states that he releaved this information to depict the horrors of the war, but it can be speculated that Assange got his start by trying to prove that his information was the best and most accurate out of anyone else's.
A few fun things to notice in my audio is how I use a fun, almost vaudeville type instrumental piece in the background. I just thought it was perfect for the juxtaposition of moods; here we have the controversy of Wikileaks and the horrors of war, over silly music. This takes the theme off controversy and more on the gossiping part. Also I had fun in the beginning by using the AT&T Text-to-Speach Tool to have an English voice introducing Assange, followed by a crowd cheering. I couldn't resist! And finally I added a short bit of audio of Rush Limbaugh's coverage of the Wikileaks controversy. I thought by ending my audio with Rush's joke on Assange's physical appearance is representative of how gossipers often times are lacking in physical strength and that's why they use words through computers to express how what they find disturbing in other people instead of going face to face. Would Assange try to confront a U.S. marine whom he suspected killed an Iraqi citizen? Doubtful.
My main objective in this audio presentation was to cover an issue like gossip in a fun, humorous way, while blending it with the Wikileaks case. I feel that audio allowed me to express this well, especially by adding music and other effects to enhance my theme
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
How gossip works: No Secrets
Another one of these images is the internet troll on the bottom left hand corner. Now why this little creature is in this collage is because I made a point about how people are more confident in saying things on the internet than they would be face to face to the people whom they are criticizing. I relate to Assange because he may not have become the person he is today without the aid of a website (WikiLeaks website). Just saying. He could easily have the initiative to be out in the streets of London, with newspapers in his hands, yelling "extra! extra! read all about it! government secrets exposed!". But I think it should be considered that it takes a different type of personality to tell stuff on the internet (while not being seen or even being anonymous) than it is to tell things to people's faces. Boldness, if you will.
Now turn your attention to the upper left hand corner of my collage. You see a picture of Julian Assange. Now look at the ring around his eye. What is that supposed to be? Well, that's a peep hole. And not any peep hole but the peep hole outside my digital media classroom! Anyway where I found this peep hole is not important. What's important is that having these peep holes scattered about my collage represents all the various holes that the information WikiLeaks obtained leaked through. The world has many peep holes and certainly Assange fancies himself to look through these. And of course with the aid of digital technology, we have exponentially more peep holes to look in.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Blending down the Boundaries
Since the beginning of man's time on Earth, boundaries of communication have been gradually dissolving. According to the RSA Animate, "The Empathic Civilisation", empathy has become more likely to occur within larger groups of people over time. This connection of empathy (which is how people can reflect emotions from others, ex. two people are in conversation and one is sad, then the other becomes sad due to the influence and spread of feeling unto the other) has expanded from starting in a bloodline of people (family) to religous groups (whom have similar views with their own members and are likely to bond easily) and finally to countries (people united in a large area of land) due to population growth and advances in technology. Now the issue today is this: The boundaries are gone. Most people in the world are connected through technology one way or the other, whether it be social networks, email, or text messaging. This creates a world empathic connection. Digital technology has made this possible.
"The Empathic Civilisation" uses the responce to the Haiti earthquake disaster as an example of this global empathy. Three steps were taken: first, the initial word of confirming the results of the disaster was spread through status updates on Twitter. Second, the television news picked up on the incoming information and reported it to those who prefer tv to using the internet social networks. And then finally, with the world out to all peoples of the world we see a global empathy emerge. The earthquakes in Haiti that resulted in the loss of many Haitian lives and destruction of homes spread of feeling of sadness across the globe. People were shocked and upset that such a disaster occured and many people and governments rushed to the aid of the Hiatian people. Without a doubt, recently technological advances have proven to be extremely helpful in a situation like this. The quicker the word gets out, the sooner a reaction will occur.
No longer do the oceans prolong communications between continents. No longer do miles prevent having a conversation with your friend. Everything is instant. The present is an of-the-moment time. We all live in the current second. There is no delay between distances. Everyone is connected here and now. Just check this out: Old Spice Ad Model Isaiah Mustafa was able to respond to almost 200 questions asked to him by fans on Youtube in separtate videos. Certainly the boundary of Isaiah Mustafa not knowing where the people who asked him question were from, yet alown, knew who they were, was dissolved.
This type of communication between performers and fans is also apparent in music. What's becoming popular now is how artists are allowing fans to determine their price for their music. For example Radiohead released their album "In Rainbows" on the internet to be downloaded from any price even including the price of zero. Also, artist Issa (Jane Siberry) allows her music to be determined in price by her fans. This in turn creates a "warm feeling between her and her fans" (NPR article: "Issa Reinvents More Than Music Sales).
I've even ran into this situation before, however without the aid of digital technology, that is. A group of hip hop artists on the Ocean City boardwalk were trying selling their new cd to my friends and I. They said I could pay them from 3 to 5 dollars for it. They said the album had the freshest jams that were coming out of Baltimore on it. These guys were obviously not having a good sale on the album judging on the looks on their faces and the obvious large quanties of cds they had in their hands. I really didn't want it although something overcame me and I said "Ya know what, I'll give ya 3 bucks for it". Silence. I got a stare from one of the hip hop artists. He looked unimpressed with me for taking the lowest price for it. As a musician I knew how hard it must be for these guys so I said "Look I'll give you 4 bucks for it". "Sure here you go, man. Thanks." After I got the cd my friends and I shot each other a humerous look since none of us are crazy about hip hop music and proceeded to listen to it in the car. It was actually an alright cd. Indeed, we spent the rest of the night listening to beats that used gunshots as the percussion instrument! Good times, good times.
It's doubtful that cds on shelves in stores would be able to have a ridiculous looking price tag on it that said "$5-20". This group of hip hop artists used the idea of having their costumers decide the cost from the lead of artists like Radiohead and Issa. And without the digital technology that makes downloads possible, it can be speculated that giving out more free or any price would not happen. So everything is connected. The creation of internet, to music uploaded on the internet, to music being downloaded off the internet, to the boundary of having a set price on music being dissolved.
"The Empathic Civilisation" uses the responce to the Haiti earthquake disaster as an example of this global empathy. Three steps were taken: first, the initial word of confirming the results of the disaster was spread through status updates on Twitter. Second, the television news picked up on the incoming information and reported it to those who prefer tv to using the internet social networks. And then finally, with the world out to all peoples of the world we see a global empathy emerge. The earthquakes in Haiti that resulted in the loss of many Haitian lives and destruction of homes spread of feeling of sadness across the globe. People were shocked and upset that such a disaster occured and many people and governments rushed to the aid of the Hiatian people. Without a doubt, recently technological advances have proven to be extremely helpful in a situation like this. The quicker the word gets out, the sooner a reaction will occur.
No longer do the oceans prolong communications between continents. No longer do miles prevent having a conversation with your friend. Everything is instant. The present is an of-the-moment time. We all live in the current second. There is no delay between distances. Everyone is connected here and now. Just check this out: Old Spice Ad Model Isaiah Mustafa was able to respond to almost 200 questions asked to him by fans on Youtube in separtate videos. Certainly the boundary of Isaiah Mustafa not knowing where the people who asked him question were from, yet alown, knew who they were, was dissolved.
This type of communication between performers and fans is also apparent in music. What's becoming popular now is how artists are allowing fans to determine their price for their music. For example Radiohead released their album "In Rainbows" on the internet to be downloaded from any price even including the price of zero. Also, artist Issa (Jane Siberry) allows her music to be determined in price by her fans. This in turn creates a "warm feeling between her and her fans" (NPR article: "Issa Reinvents More Than Music Sales).
I've even ran into this situation before, however without the aid of digital technology, that is. A group of hip hop artists on the Ocean City boardwalk were trying selling their new cd to my friends and I. They said I could pay them from 3 to 5 dollars for it. They said the album had the freshest jams that were coming out of Baltimore on it. These guys were obviously not having a good sale on the album judging on the looks on their faces and the obvious large quanties of cds they had in their hands. I really didn't want it although something overcame me and I said "Ya know what, I'll give ya 3 bucks for it". Silence. I got a stare from one of the hip hop artists. He looked unimpressed with me for taking the lowest price for it. As a musician I knew how hard it must be for these guys so I said "Look I'll give you 4 bucks for it". "Sure here you go, man. Thanks." After I got the cd my friends and I shot each other a humerous look since none of us are crazy about hip hop music and proceeded to listen to it in the car. It was actually an alright cd. Indeed, we spent the rest of the night listening to beats that used gunshots as the percussion instrument! Good times, good times.
It's doubtful that cds on shelves in stores would be able to have a ridiculous looking price tag on it that said "$5-20". This group of hip hop artists used the idea of having their costumers decide the cost from the lead of artists like Radiohead and Issa. And without the digital technology that makes downloads possible, it can be speculated that giving out more free or any price would not happen. So everything is connected. The creation of internet, to music uploaded on the internet, to music being downloaded off the internet, to the boundary of having a set price on music being dissolved.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
People just can’t keep their mouths shut: reasoning for motivation to share information
Just about everyone has wondered why people just can’t keep a secret at one point or another. What exactly motivates people to share information they know that about other people? Sharing a secret is certainly a perfect way to keep a conversation going if your guest is becoming bored with your small talk about the weather, television shows, and sports. I feel we are all guilty of doing this even though our intentions are good; we are not really focused on who’s secrets we are revealing as much as we are in just wrapping our minds around a conversation topic. However there are people who have an agenda behind telling secrets. Certain people are looking for a designated response or opinion on the told secrets. Wikileaks editor and spokesman Julian Assange is clearly a man looking to either startle or enlighten an audience by sharing secret documents to the world on the activity of governments. The information that Assange has exposed is not just your usual dinner conversation topic like talking about what you heard through the grapevine that your friends did the other night.
Would it be fair to say that Assange is gossiping at an international level? Is not gossiping the actual verb for spreading negative facts about people to others? Say we consider Assange to be a gossiper for sake of argument. This leads us to a possible motivation for the Wikileaks release of documents. According to psychological studies, the end result of gossip “is the feeling of superiority that results from such vicious spreading of information” (http://factoidz.com/what-motivates-people-to-gossip/). From here we can speculate that Assange is releasing documents to raise his ego. In other words, he wants to be the attention of the public as well as being remembered as the martyr who was brave enough to be an international gossiper.
Also take into consideration that technology does in fact make it easier to spread information and say things you wouldn’t normally say in person. These would include-people who post personal facebook statuses either telling about themselves or attacking other people they wouldn’t have the nerve to say face to face and kids trolling the Internet; they probably wouldn’t say the hateful slang they spew over the Internet in front of the people they attack, if they did they’re parents would ground them. The Internet can indeed make people more mischievous for there are no direct consequences to provoking others while online like a confrontational fist fight in response to bullying and harassing. Could you imagine Julian Assange running down the street with paper documents in his hands yelling out to get peoples’ attention or even confronting politicians face to face about the information he obtained?
Now we must speculate whether or not Assange would have had the guts to post millions of documents containing secret information without the aid of a website (wikileaks website). It is true that his name is out in the open, and as opposed to internet trollers he is not annonymous but I feel that the act of just sharing info on the internet is much more of a comfortable environment to do so in.
Monday, January 31, 2011
The perfect combination
In order to create a strong product, it is necessary to blend intellect and creativity simultaneously. Now what do these terms mean in the context of creating? Intellect is the information that has been taught to you by text books, teachers, the internet, instruction manuals, etc. that you store in your mind before you begin making something. Creativity is all on you. It is the spice that any successful product needs. It is the personal interpretation one puts in music, the emotion that an actor puts into a script, the colors a painter chooses to use in their painting. Remember that both creativity and intellect are equally important, even though artists will often time have more of one than the other.
I must say that the article "The Physical Genius" (http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_08_02_a_genius.htm)was an impressive read. The point of the article was to connect the similarities of inteligent and equally cordinated people such as hockey player Wayne Gretzky and a brain surgeon, Charlie Wilson. The opening paragraphs depict an absolutely amazing story of how Charlie Wilson managed to flawlessly remove a pituitary tumor. A man that can do such a thing is without a doubt highly educated. The article even says that Wilson has done nearly three thousand of this same procedure! This is the intellect part of Wilson's abilities. He knows his stuff. He has experience.
But what's really fascinating is how when Wislon performed his first transsphenoidal pituitary operation back in 1968. He had no idea how to do the operation since it was very uncommon at the time. However, Wilson was motivated to do whatever he could to save his patient. After researching the procedure, having a crash course session with an expert he knew in the San Francisco area, and even travel to Paris to observe one of the best surgeons in the world perform the operation and quickly returning home, Wilson was able to perform the operation successfully. Talk about being a quick learner!
This is Charlie Wilson's creativity. I know what most might be thinking: how do you get creative in surgery? Isn't that dangerous? Well here's the connection. Wilson has a "feel" for his craft. Indeed he is educated, however, his passion for his job distinguishes him from his contemporaries. With such passion comes a natural flow, a talent, if you will. This personal expression is really your creativity since it shows who you are. You can read about the transsphenoidal procedure all you want but if you can't envision it, can't simulate it, can't have a feel for it, then you won't be good at it. Morever, some of us are perfectionists like Charlie Wilson and some are not.
I have my own experience with intellect and creativity. It's very simple. I am a musician at University of North Carolina School of the Arts where I am focusing my studies in organ performance. Without my blend of intellect and creativity I doubt I would have made it to this school nor would I have continued studying music this long. The intellect comes with my knowledge of how to read sheet music, how to understand music theory and chord progressions, how to write music on a staff, etc. This is key to being a classical musician. With all the notes on the page, one must know how to understand what to play just like a writer knows how to read literature. A strong foundation in intellect allows for creativity to ease right on in.
I must stress creativity in music is that of interpretation. Organist Virgil Fox plays Bach like Virgil Fox, organist Cameron Carpenter plays Bach like Cameron Carpenter, and I play Bach like Chris Engel. There is no right or wrong way to do it (well I'm sure my music teachers would disagree!) but music needs a kick to it, a bite, if you will. Only when you are completely submerged into the sounds you are creating, can you express to your audience; if the audience sees you into what you're doing then they'll enjoy it just as if you are clearly not into it, your audience will really not care.
Learning pages of notes can take many hours, days, weeks, along with many headaches. But creativity is mostly all natural. Of course one can perfect their style, but creativity be prominent in the first place. One must have the intellect to know the notes but one also needs to have a vision for the piece of music that enables it to come alive. When the two are put together an impressive product is made.
I must say that the article "The Physical Genius" (http://www.gladwell.com/1999/1999_08_02_a_genius.htm)was an impressive read. The point of the article was to connect the similarities of inteligent and equally cordinated people such as hockey player Wayne Gretzky and a brain surgeon, Charlie Wilson. The opening paragraphs depict an absolutely amazing story of how Charlie Wilson managed to flawlessly remove a pituitary tumor. A man that can do such a thing is without a doubt highly educated. The article even says that Wilson has done nearly three thousand of this same procedure! This is the intellect part of Wilson's abilities. He knows his stuff. He has experience.
But what's really fascinating is how when Wislon performed his first transsphenoidal pituitary operation back in 1968. He had no idea how to do the operation since it was very uncommon at the time. However, Wilson was motivated to do whatever he could to save his patient. After researching the procedure, having a crash course session with an expert he knew in the San Francisco area, and even travel to Paris to observe one of the best surgeons in the world perform the operation and quickly returning home, Wilson was able to perform the operation successfully. Talk about being a quick learner!
This is Charlie Wilson's creativity. I know what most might be thinking: how do you get creative in surgery? Isn't that dangerous? Well here's the connection. Wilson has a "feel" for his craft. Indeed he is educated, however, his passion for his job distinguishes him from his contemporaries. With such passion comes a natural flow, a talent, if you will. This personal expression is really your creativity since it shows who you are. You can read about the transsphenoidal procedure all you want but if you can't envision it, can't simulate it, can't have a feel for it, then you won't be good at it. Morever, some of us are perfectionists like Charlie Wilson and some are not.
I have my own experience with intellect and creativity. It's very simple. I am a musician at University of North Carolina School of the Arts where I am focusing my studies in organ performance. Without my blend of intellect and creativity I doubt I would have made it to this school nor would I have continued studying music this long. The intellect comes with my knowledge of how to read sheet music, how to understand music theory and chord progressions, how to write music on a staff, etc. This is key to being a classical musician. With all the notes on the page, one must know how to understand what to play just like a writer knows how to read literature. A strong foundation in intellect allows for creativity to ease right on in.
I must stress creativity in music is that of interpretation. Organist Virgil Fox plays Bach like Virgil Fox, organist Cameron Carpenter plays Bach like Cameron Carpenter, and I play Bach like Chris Engel. There is no right or wrong way to do it (well I'm sure my music teachers would disagree!) but music needs a kick to it, a bite, if you will. Only when you are completely submerged into the sounds you are creating, can you express to your audience; if the audience sees you into what you're doing then they'll enjoy it just as if you are clearly not into it, your audience will really not care.
Learning pages of notes can take many hours, days, weeks, along with many headaches. But creativity is mostly all natural. Of course one can perfect their style, but creativity be prominent in the first place. One must have the intellect to know the notes but one also needs to have a vision for the piece of music that enables it to come alive. When the two are put together an impressive product is made.
Monday, January 24, 2011
WikiTron
Over the weekend I decided to watch the 1982 film, Tron. It was a very entertaining movie and had a more complex plotline than most movies, not to mention the very 80's special effects were a hoot! The invlovement of digital technology in the film kept my mind interested in the bigger picture the film was trying to make. In fact, once about halfway through the film, I begun to be reminded of the WikiLeaks controversy.
This was very obvious in the characters, not necessarily in their personalities, but in their roles in the movie. The film's main character Kevin Flynn could be representative of Julian Assange based on his role in the film as the software wiz and hacker. In the film Flynn has to retrieve his code stolen by a senior executive who is taking credit for his accomplishments and becomes blocked by the Master Control Program that controls a massive software mainframe called ENCOM. A similar analogy can be made that Tron (a program that will make communications between the Master Control Program more accessable to the world) could represent the WikiLeaks program.
Now the motivations may be indeed different between Flynn and Assange but the end results are similar in creating a better digital nation, at least in their views.
In my understanding of the WikiLeaks controversy it is all about a man (Assange) and his followers who feel good exposing secrets to the public. In other words they feel as if they are doing the people a favor to let them in on the behind the scenes action going on in the world. I agree to certain exposure of documents such as corruption of governments, worldwide problems, abuses of power, however I disagree strongly with any documents that make the U.S. military look bad. Such as for example, the video footage WikiLeaks has of the military killing civilians in Afghanistan. How much is true? Were the U.S. soldiers being attacked by the cilivians? Were the soldiers defending themselves? Were the cilivians caught in the crossfire between U.S. forces and Afghani forces? What's the point of turning the U.S. people against their own military? Then what?
There is much power is the way a document is titled. This is how everyone in the media can sway opinions. For example, if a video is released entitled "U.S. forces kill innocent lives in Afghanistan", it immediately gives the public something to expect in the video and are more able to take the media's point of view of portraying the military to be savages even if the opposite happens to be true. With internet users using methods of skim reading on the internet, it is actually embarressing to hear the parroting of controversal statements spread all around the internet without people fully grasping the facts.
As far as I'm concerned the difference between Flynn, the hero of Tron and Assange, the spokesman of Wikileaks is that Flynn was just trying to get credit for his success that was taken from him; Assange is trying to, on one speculated extreme, provoke people to turn against their governments and military, or on another viewpoint, criticise government actions based on revealed documents. Now I strongly believe that the people of a society need to be aware of their elected officials' actions but to what degree is Assange provoking the public is the question.
This was very obvious in the characters, not necessarily in their personalities, but in their roles in the movie. The film's main character Kevin Flynn could be representative of Julian Assange based on his role in the film as the software wiz and hacker. In the film Flynn has to retrieve his code stolen by a senior executive who is taking credit for his accomplishments and becomes blocked by the Master Control Program that controls a massive software mainframe called ENCOM. A similar analogy can be made that Tron (a program that will make communications between the Master Control Program more accessable to the world) could represent the WikiLeaks program.
Now the motivations may be indeed different between Flynn and Assange but the end results are similar in creating a better digital nation, at least in their views.
In my understanding of the WikiLeaks controversy it is all about a man (Assange) and his followers who feel good exposing secrets to the public. In other words they feel as if they are doing the people a favor to let them in on the behind the scenes action going on in the world. I agree to certain exposure of documents such as corruption of governments, worldwide problems, abuses of power, however I disagree strongly with any documents that make the U.S. military look bad. Such as for example, the video footage WikiLeaks has of the military killing civilians in Afghanistan. How much is true? Were the U.S. soldiers being attacked by the cilivians? Were the soldiers defending themselves? Were the cilivians caught in the crossfire between U.S. forces and Afghani forces? What's the point of turning the U.S. people against their own military? Then what?
There is much power is the way a document is titled. This is how everyone in the media can sway opinions. For example, if a video is released entitled "U.S. forces kill innocent lives in Afghanistan", it immediately gives the public something to expect in the video and are more able to take the media's point of view of portraying the military to be savages even if the opposite happens to be true. With internet users using methods of skim reading on the internet, it is actually embarressing to hear the parroting of controversal statements spread all around the internet without people fully grasping the facts.
As far as I'm concerned the difference between Flynn, the hero of Tron and Assange, the spokesman of Wikileaks is that Flynn was just trying to get credit for his success that was taken from him; Assange is trying to, on one speculated extreme, provoke people to turn against their governments and military, or on another viewpoint, criticise government actions based on revealed documents. Now I strongly believe that the people of a society need to be aware of their elected officials' actions but to what degree is Assange provoking the public is the question.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Sometimes a topic will be a specific term that you may not get all the info on the first few searches so using a broader search can supply more information. For example, if I am doing a research paper on "mitochondria" and I am having a hard time gathering information, I might want to search the term "organelles", which could give me some key, yet generic information that can be helpful to the overall understanding of the term "mitochondria".
Being able to determine the accuracy of articles is also an important skill to notice. This is especially important when gathering information on the sciences. For example, timely news articles that come out with new scientific studies can be proven incorrect in the future.
Finally, I learned that searching a synonym for a word could lead to more or different results when you are not pleased with information you are being provided. In other words typing in a less complicated word for a larger, more scientific word can lead to more articles, whereas typing in a more complicated and scientific word can lead to less, but more specific articles.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Framing is a way of getting ideas together and putting content into perspective. It is a very important process for DMA (which stands for Digital Media for the Artist) since digital media must be planned out. In other words, one who decides to put out information digitally must have a strong foundation in the experience of technology as well as being able to string thoughts together in an organized way.
In my diagram above I put in names of certain content I have viewed in DMA so far that I enjoyed. The Peter Bogdanonovich graduation speech and TED video presentation had me interact with an imaginative frame of mind since I had to follow closely along with the experiences told in each gentleman's speech. This had my mind do most of the visualizing. On the contrary, the longer videos such as "Ecological Design: Inventing the Future" and "Digital Nation" had my mind go along for the ride since images were used abundantly to clearly support the main ideas presented in the video. In the end I decided to connect all four together in the diagram since all had to do with technology. Yes, even the Peter Bogdanovich speech because if it wasn't for the video to be digitally posted on the internet I would have never seen it!
Of course we all use framing to interpret media even though we unaware that we are doing such a process, however it is very obvious to ourselves when we use framing as a way to organize. Before practicing music, I find it very helpful to frame the goals and objectives of the session to ensure I won't be wasting time and that all that needs to get done gets done. I am always constantly re-framing my schedule in which I practice because I have different amounts of music to work on each week. This helpful tool of framing is applicable to everything. In fact, framing is everything; to plan a product and to interpret (put content into context) a finished product.
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