Projects and Platforms

A look at education today

2008-06-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

Don't Forget the Tap

2008-05-23T03:47:00.001-07:00

The following is an excerpt from Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought it by Elizabeth Royte. Published with permission of Bloomsbury.

The outrageous success of bottled water, in a country where more than 89 percent of tap water meets or exceeds federal health and safety regulations, regularly wins in blind taste tests against name-brand waters, and costs 240 to 10,000 times less than bottled water, is an unparalleled social phenomenon, one of the greatest marketing coups of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. But why did the marketing work? At least part of the answer, I'm beginning to understand, is that bottled water plays into our ever-growing laziness and impatience.

Americans eat and drink more on the run than ever before. The author Michael Pollan reports that one in three American children eat fast food every single day, and 19 percent of American meals and snacks are eaten in the car. Bottled water fills a perceived need for convenience (convenience without the calories of soda, that is): hydration on the go, with bottles that fit in the palm of the hand, in a briefcase or purse.

According to research conducted by the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), between 1960 and 1970 the average person bought 200 to 250 packaged drinks each year-mostly soda and beer-and many of those were in refillable bottles. When I was growing up, my family drank only from the faucet and from family-size containers. We quenched our thirst, when out and about, with water from public fountains. Either that, or we waited till we got where we were going. On picnics, we might have a big plastic jug of lemonade, homemade. Sure, the grown-ups occasionally bought beer, but the idea of single-serve beverages were considered, by and large, frivolous.

A great NGO looking for volunteers

2008-05-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

My friend Brendan Schwartz has helped to initiate a project in Cameroon.
(That's him on the right in this photo.)

Breaking Ground is a great small project-- founded and run by young people--direct help to African communities.
One of their main goals is education for girls in communities where traditionally only boys have gone to school.
They are looking for volunteers who want to work on their projects.
http://www.breaking-ground.org

Part 3

2008-05-17T10:05:00.001-07:00

Final Installment of the project, and the angstiest of them all!
Thanks for a fun class, guys.
~Ben D

Part 2, Round two

2008-05-17T09:52:00.000-07:00

So no go on the upload last time, let's try this again.
~Ben D

Part 2

2008-05-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

Here's the second blog mini-drama.

Final Project, Part 1

2008-05-17T09:26:00.001-07:00

Here's the first installment of my project. Sorry for the delay- I lost some important footage and had to spend lots of time revamping parts of the project since Thursday.

Anyway, the concept is the use of random blog posts from the9 (the Vassar Life blog) to create audiovisual mini-dramas. I created three in total, representing a range of emotions and experiences all related to life at Vassar in some way.

I present these as alternative narratives, a sort of communal storytelling.

Final Project - Brittany and Liz

2008-05-16T17:13:00.000-07:00

For our final project, Brittany and I produced a video in which we aimed to depict alternative communities within Vassar. Our intent was to interview all of the people that we came across on campus who were not students or professors. We wanted to emphasize responses to the connections that exist between the Vassar community and the Poughkeepsie community. Also, we wanted to highlight the people who are a very important and crucial part of Vassar College but are never shown or appreciated for their participation on campus. While students and visitors come and go, Vassar’s staff members understand changes in Vassar and Poughkeepsie’s community better than anyone.

In entering into this project, we assumed that we would receive many more negative comments or that people would not open up to the camera, as we are not part of their immediate community. Of course it must be taken into account that not all people were willing to be completely truthful and honest when asked questions when there is a camera involved. Interviewees did seem a little hesitant to speak their minds and honestly discuss things that might portray the college in a not so appealing light. However, we were completely surprised by the sincerity and diversity of responses.

We divided the film into five sections: how many years people have worked at Vassar, what people are doing at Vassar, what it is like working at Vassar, the Vassar community, changes in Poughkeepsie and the area, and student-worker relationships. The responses we received were all very powerful and very touching so it was hard to decide what to include and what not to include. When going into this project we didn’t really know what to expect and weren’t anticipating this video to be as eye-opening as it is for us. The video is currently too large to put up on youtube, so Brittany is cutting it into pieces which should be online shortly and then posted here on our blog. When you do have a chance to check it out, let us know what you think and hopefully you will enjoy the video as much as we enjoyed making it.

--Brittany and Liz

My Final Project

2008-05-15T17:55:00.001-07:00

For my final project I decided to design a digital collage. My collage features a series of images some altered, some untouch that primarily feature the tragedies of current and prior United State’s military engagements. From World War II, to Vietnam and currently in Iraq the United States has consistently portrayed itself the hero of a historical crusade for freedom and democracy. The quotes featured in the collage are all quotes from President Bush in reference to terrorists or Saddam Hussein. I included the quotes to allow us to rethink how different we are from those we demonize and other. I know its a bit corny but hopefully it has some value to you guys.

Also, I should note that the real copy is 11 X 17.

-Asher

Final Project - Mental Maps

2008-05-15T16:52:00.000-07:00

My project explores a lot of the same issues that Alana's does. Admittedly partly due to preemptive nostalgia and graduation anxiety, I wanted to look at how people view/understand/think about Vassar and Poughkeepsie. When trying to think of ways to do that, I remembered as assignment from the Global Geography class I took freshman year. In order to start thinking about place and how people think about places, we were all asked to draw mental maps of our hometowns and write accompanying descriptions. I enjoyed the assignment because it really made me confront how I think about my hometown. As a result, I thought mental maps would be a good way to learn about how people think about Vassar and Poughkeepsie.

The concept of a mental map refers to an individual's personal point of-view of their own world. These views can be put on paper in the form of maps drawn or descriptions written from memory alone. Mental maps can simply indicate locations, but they can also emphasize the importance or significance of certain places.

I collected maps from friends and family and left paper asking visitors to Open Office to draw maps as well. I ended up with 9 maps. Unfortunately I didn't get maps from as wide a variety of people as I'd hoped, I still got some interesting results. Most of the students chose to draw only campus and drew accurate maps for the most part. Not surprising given the amount of time we spend on a relatively small campus. One student wanted her map to be accurate and got so frustrated when she couldn't make it look the way she wanted it to that she gave up. When students did include parts of Poughkeepsie they usually included the train station and nearby restaurants and not much else. As a student, I'm not surprised and I think it says a lot about the way we view our area. Also not surprising, the only local student who drew a map included much more of the surrounding area - Rt. 9, residential areas, the Hudson, the bridge, and the downtown Poughkeepsie area. DeeDee's map of the Bio Building (with mentions of parking and the Retreat) provided a great visual of how a visiting professor who is on campus once a week sees things.

Finally, both of my parents drew maps. Their perceptions of campus and the surrounding area were the ones I found the most interesting because I hadn't anticipated what their views would be. My mom's was mostly of Poughkeepsie and included a lot of landmarks (CIA, Marist) and stores (especially ones we've shopped at to furnish my various rooms on campus). I also got a kick out of her labels when she couldn't remember proper names - 44/55 became "double digit one way fast roads" and Spackenkill became "Dutch-named curly exit." My dad, a lover of maps, drew a really accurate map that was also heavily influenced by the places he's been as a parent - hotels, restaurants, storage places, etc.

While I was impressed by how accurate some of the maps were, I was more drawn to the maybe less accurate maps that seemed to contain memories/opinions/emotions in some way. I felt like I got from these maps more than just an idea of a person's visual image of Vassar and Poughkeepsie, but I got some insight into their visceral relationships. For example, on DeeDee's map, she labeled the window and added "with gorgeous view that we never see 'cause we need it to be dark to see the screen." A couple people indicated where on campus their rooms/houses were. I think these maps are closer to the goal of mental maps - an attempt at understanding how people see and understand their own world.

Here are some of the maps. Click for more.

Final Project: "Product Misplacement"

2008-05-15T13:44:00.001-07:00

Our final project,named "Product Misplacement", is hypothetical merchandising campaign that takes certain internet related ideas and superimposes them into the "real world". Phrases that have roots in internet speak like "LOL" and "Pwned" have already permeated spoken language - we thought it might be interesting to put some of these ideas in more physical settings. Our merchandise consists of two lines: t-shirts that simply have internet lingo printed on the front and "Product Misplacement" written on the back, and a remediation of the digital picture frame (LCD screens in picture frames that you can upload your digital photos onto and place in a household setting) that would upload a family's popular "YouTube" video for display in the house. We figured ideas like these would help solidify internet culture as one that is very much embedded in the real world.

Enjoy the summer everyone -

Eric and Jon

project

2008-05-14T21:29:00.000-07:00

altmed final project from Alana Melton on Vimeo.

Above is the video I made for my final project. I decided to take the idea of a YouTube curation and transport it to Flickr, the photo sharing site (and, incidentally, a site apparently founded by a Vassar grad). Since it's the end of the year I'm thinking a lot about going back home, but I'll only be spending two weeks there total. So in getting a little nostalgic, I decided to browse Flickr for photos of Los Angeles. The photos in the video are in no way my own; they were taken by complete strangers. I only used images I had download access to. And as many of you are aware, Flickr's images are available for use by others via Creative Commons. (Admittedly I don't think I'm following CC quite right but my guess is that since this is not for profit it's okay...my knowledge of IP law is sadly lacking.)

So here's the premise: String together these communally available images of my home "town" taken by strangers to create a vision of Los Angeles I can uniquely recognize as my own. Implicit in this is the creation of an idea of home, once again, through the lens of, say, city agencies, foreign visitors, or people just like me who regularly crawl along the 405. The concept of home, for reasons I'd rather not get into here, is especially hard for me to define. I had to move from one part of the city to the other (it's not so simple) about a year and a half ago and I realized in making this that I still call home a street I haven't been able to bring myself to drive down. I also noticed how much I identified with particular streets and freeways, something that seemed crazy to my friend from Philadelphia but something I think other Angelenos would understand.

Lastly, if you do watch this, do pay attention to the image of the 76 station located a few blocks from my old house. Regular is $4.05—the photo is from the past month. Makes me glad I won't be driving this summer.

alana

Open Office Rough Video

2008-05-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

Media Studies Senior Project Presentations

2008-05-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone! Just a reminder that the senior Media Studies majors are giving their final project presentations tomorrow.

They'll be in New England 107 from 11 to 5:30. There will be free breakfast from 10-11, lunch from 1:15-1:45, and cocktails from 5:30-6:30.

Here's the schedule:

11:00-12:00 Session 1 Gender on Screen, Bodies in Media
a. Lindsay Kozlowski, "Appearance and Visual Identity: The Mediated Body"
b. Anh Nguyen, "Mimicking Hysteria: Exploring Feminist Mimesis in YouTube"
c. Becca Marcus, "Gender in the Media: Pretty Women and What Women Want"

12:15-1:15 Session 2 Media for Distribution: News, Music, and Exploring the Source
d. Anita Varma, "Hurricane Katrina and the Public Sphere: Mainstream and Alternative News Coverage of a Crisis"
e. Sam Calvano, "Potentials of Collaborative Online News Sites"
f. Chel Quintana, "New Models of Digital Music Distribution"

1:45-2:45 Session 3 New Technology Adaptations-Novel to Film, Nature to Television, Drawings to Animation
g. Ryan Cadrette, "The Big Gatsby"
h. Allison Kelly, "A Close Reading of Meerkat Manor"
i. Ryan Peterson, "Animation and the Film Industry"

3:00-4:00 Session 4 Mediated (Physical) Spaces and Scenes
j. Kelsey Sundberg, "(Un)conscious Collection"
k. Maya Peraza-Baker, "Mediating the Scene of the Crime"
l. David Knowles, "Video-Architecture"

4:15-5:30 Session 5 Documenting Mediated Moments (in History and Memory)
m. Lily Mooney, "Marketing the Edison Phonograph"
n. Nina Feinberg, "Time and Image Making in Instant Photography"
o. Corey Spencer, "Cigarette Advertising Historicity"
p. Jesse Holcomb, "N0st4Lg140--Digital Memory in 2008"

My Final Project

2008-05-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

So as I said before, my final project is a set of posters. They're based off of the work I did for my thesis, but give it a more socially judgmental spin. Playing off of the concept of "health" and medical information/propaganda, inspired by David's doctor's office, I made 3 posters that address "image health". In my thesis I took the body as a medium and changed my appearance several times, then surveyed people to see what they thought of my different images. The posters use 3 of these images and break down my appearance according to what the predominant responses to the images were. The posters are phrased in terms of anatomy, outlining 2 "unhealthy" images and one "healthy" one.

The image breakdowns and the labels given are reflections of what the responses to these images were. They are oversimplified and stereotypical, but only because this was how they were decoded. This "anatomy" breaks down how society views these images. The "unhealthy" images were viewed poorly by people and the "healthy" one was viewed very favorably. I would like to stress that these judgments and labels are not my personal beliefs, but merely what was reflected back to me by survey respondents.

The major point of the poster series is that images, even our own dynamic appearances, are often perceived in terms of simplified stereotypes perpetuated by the media environment. People often can recognize a known character (assembled through common visual cues) before considering that a person may add up to more than what is revealed in a quick glance. I hung these posters in a continuous line across the wall, in order to stress the sense of picking identities/appearances from a set of culturally limited options that are repeated over and over. I don't have a picture of the hung posters yet, but I uploaded one of them (the others are too big).

-Lindsay

Finally Asher's Youtube Collection!

2008-05-04T18:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry this took so long for me to post...

I chose to explore representations of the south on Youtube. Often times the South is "othered" by non-Southerns as a space of racism, ignorance and poverty. I wanted to explore this by examining popular youtube clips involving southerns and the south. Even though the curated clips are amusing, challenge how you conceive of the south. I think we attribute these characteristics to the south as a way of avoiding confronting them in our own lives. While watching the videos: laugh, cry but also think about how you interact with the images and why these images have become popular.

<

environmental working group

2008-04-30T09:00:00.001-07:00

This is a website that lists where all the money from farm subsidies go. It breaks down which commodities get the most money (corn and soy) and which farms get the most money (the wealthiest).

In light of the passing of new Farm Bill, this website is extremely important because it is a watchdog for farm policy and, for the first time ever, makes farm subsidy information available to the public.

We all know that big farms receive the majority of farm subsidies, but I think you will be surprised to find out just how skewed are our annual farm contributions.

-Marisa

http://farm.ewg.org/farm/dp_analysis.php

New Moon Magazine

2008-04-29T12:47:00.001-07:00

we’ve talked a bit about children’s media, so i thought id post about this cute magazine i just came across for preteen girls. it’s called New Moon (and though i don’t for a second buy into the whole “women-lunar-goddess” junk, apart from the name, the contents of the magazine are pretty fantastic.) you can check out a virtual issue or the contents of this month’s issue which is focused on music and includes an article about a female dj and one about hip-hop music – which is prefaced with a warning about how “Some rap songs contain lyrics that are harmful and degrading to women,” but shifts to emphasize artists who “bring positive messages to the airwaves.” sweet.

almost every article in the publication is written by the “girls editorial board” so most of the articles are accessible and diverse and very cute. that said, i did come across one about Saudi Arabia which had a little side box noting that “Unfortunately, in Saudi Arabia women have no voice.” Argh!

other interesting thing: they encouraged girls to analyze media, asking: whether there should be an age limit for social networking sites.

all in all, the magazine seemed to be all about providing a space for young girls that doesn’t focus on fashion, boys, fitting in or other early intellect-shaming topics.

abra

what is the history of your body?

2008-04-29T11:09:00.000-07:00

hi all,

please consider attending the workshops my friend rachel and i are leading to finish off our independent study. no theater experience is necessary or expected. the workshops are going to be a fun, relaxed exploration of the history of our bodies. feel free to email me with any questions.

thanks,
~julia

ps - what do you think of the flier?

EDIT: i just noticed that you can't really read it on here. i will bring some fliers into class, and here is the text:

We will be holding three workshops to explore issues associated with bodies. We will use techniques based on those of Augusto Boal.

Using storytelling, image-making, and movement we will explore the question:
what is the history of your body? We will think about our relationship to our own body, as well as our relationship with others’ bodies. This is a topic that comes up a lot in intellectual conversations, but we hope to deepen our understanding through creative interaction.

The workshops are open to all Vassar students.

Monday, May 5th
5:30-7:30pm
VCDF 309

Thursday, May 8th
5:30-7:30pm
VCDF 309

Wednesday, May 14th
1-3pm
Residential Quad

Each workshop will build on the previous one so attendance at all three is expected, but if you have a specific conflict please let us know. In the final workshop we hope to invite others to participate and engage with us on the topics we have explored in a public setting.

If you’re interested in participating, or just want more information, email
Rachel at ralee@vassar.edu or Julia at jukann@vassar.edu

Thanks – we hope to hear from you soon!

Rachel & Julia

Oh yeah, and there will be FREEEEEEE COOOOOKIES!

Shameless Self-Promotion

2008-04-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

So as one of my last posts on this blog, I'm doing a shameless plug for my thesis. It's about visual identity and how we use our bodies as social media. I took photographs of myself in different clothing, with different hair, posturing, and facial expressions. I then sent these pictures out in a survey and had people write me a narrative about each photo. What did they think they knew about this person based on their appearance? What was their identity? What did the external communicate about the internal? After getting the responses I wrote about my findings, specifically engaging how much we rely on media and pre-ordained visual cues to form and perform our sense of self. Anyways, I created a website to display the finished product, which I guess is a form of alternative media. It won't be officially finished until next Tuesday, but the major stuff is all there. Take a look if you like:

http://students.vassar.edu/likozlowski

-Lindsay

URL for Doctor Office Installation

2008-04-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.openofficepok.com

Games in Education

2008-04-25T17:42:00.000-07:00

So what do you think of this video?
http://www.seriousgames.org/index2.html
Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.
and
this one:

| View | Upload your own

DeeDee

Games for Change

2008-04-23T18:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.gamesforchange.org/conference/2008/program.php
I hope they have some good games. Their web site isn't too exciting.
DeeDee

Bush TV

2008-04-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

So Tony Snow, who I must confess I enjoy watching on his many many many talk-show appearances, just accepted a job as a CNN correspondent, and it makes me wonder where journalists have gone. With Carl Rove on TV every day and now this, I am curious about the state of television news. It's interesting that we seem to trust the opinions of Washington insiders because they are thought to have more insight into the political world. But holy shit does that discount political journalism as it's own entity. I'm a little nervous about the amount of white housers relocating to cable news, and I think this really says something about the relationship between politics, media and probably rich people.

evz

1 in 4

2008-04-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

As I expect most of you noticed, for sexual assault awareness week people all over campus wore bright yellow shirts that said "1 in 4." This is a reference to the statistic, that 1 in every 4 women will be victims of rape or attempted rape by the time they graduate college. I found the presence of the shirts on campus really effective. The shirts' presence created dialogues about this issue that would otherwise not have happen, and they constantly forced me to reflect on the pertinence of the statistic. This act reiterated my feelings that there is something irreplaceable about human beings participating in media in a physical (as opposed to television or comuter-oriented) way. Had I seen pictures of people online wearing these shirts, or even had 1/4 of my facebook friends put something like this statistic on their profiles, it could not have held the power the physical presence of people in shirts offered.

~julia

Rewriting Palestinian wikis

2008-04-22T20:38:00.000-07:00

A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged.

A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), provided to The Electronic Intifada (EI), indicate the group is engaged in what one activist termed a "war" on Wikipedia.

A day after this story went online, according to excellent Palestinian news site the Electronic Intifada, the blowhard freak-tank CAMERA curbed its wiki-terrorism. Read all about it here.

- freddy

Run-of-the-Mill Poughkeepsie vs. Poughkeepsie Portrayed by the Media

2008-04-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

This is a mash-up of youtube clips about Poughkeepsie that I made. Question to you: Why would the media discuss Poughkeepsie in such a violent way? I have a feeling that it has something to do with the city having such a peculiar name.
What do you think about Poughkeepsie? Do you believe the media's portrayal of Poughkeepsie is accurate? Or did you have the impression that Poughkeepsie was a pretty normal place with shopping malls and football teams?

-Jason

Michel Gondry - Be Kind Rewind Exhibit

2008-04-22T20:16:00.000-07:00

I have included a link above to the website that features an exhibit of Michel Gondry's film Be Kind Rewind. I know that we have talked a little bit about the film and I just did a project on it and "sweding" for another class and came across this really cool website. The exhibit is an installation of the video store from the film and people can come in and see scenes from the film as well as take part in the sweding experience themselves. People are able to swede their own films which forces them to use their creativity and work within the limitations of the resources they are afforded.

A quote from Gondry about what he hopes people will take away from this exhibit and the experience he is presenting: "I intend to prove that people can enjoy their time without being part of the commercial system and serving it. Ultimately, I am hoping to create a network of creativity and communication that is guaranteed to be free and independent from any commercial institution.”

~Liz

Reentry National Media Outreach Campaign

2008-04-22T20:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in a conversation at the Family Partnership Center about initiating reentry programs within communities of faith, Polina and I had the opportunity to talk to many people who are highly involved in community reentry, issues of social justice, as well as reforms in the criminal justice system. During these conversations, we announced some of the Vassar student’s interest in beginning film/documentary showings in the Poughkeepsie area to engage people in issues of criminal justice. One of the suggestions of places from where we could get such material to show in Poughkeepsie was the Reentry National Media Outreach Campaign (http://www.reentrymediaoutreach.org/).

The Media Outreach Campaign looks really interesting. They have an array of material concerning issues of criminal justice and how faith communities can get involved. Anyone can request their material, as long they are going to use the videos for the purpose of raising community awareness about incarcerated people. Oh, they also request that you send back an evaluation of the material they have produced. I thought this was an amazing idea: to provide material to people who want to begin conversations in the community for free! As of now, I don’t know much about the type of material they are producing, or how strict they are about your programs, however, this is definitely a good resource to know of…

Juliana

He(R)evolution

2008-04-22T19:50:00.000-07:00

I wanted to post some information on the performance artist I mentioned in class last week.

Julia Ahumada Grob is coming to campus this Friday to perform her piece He(R)evolution and to do a workshop.

The performance is "a one woman biographical show that examines the struggles of a young woman as she works to understand her identity, both personal and political." It's at 8pm in the Shiva. The show is sponsored by Unbound, Philaletheis, Fem Alliance, MEChA, and the Class Issues Alliance.

The workshop is titled "Performing Arts as a Tool for Social Change." It's open to anyone, not just actors or other theatrical types. "Students will use the skills of persuasion, propaganda, character development, and storytelling to use performance as a tool for social change in fun and exciting ways." It's at 4:30pm in the Faculty Parlor.

Check out a clip from the show:

Allison

"The Trustworthy Encyclopedia"

2008-04-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

I can't remember if Conservapedia.com has come up in class. If not, well, then allow me introduce you to it.

Conservapedia.com is the response to the "liberal" Wikipedia (wtf?). Ironically, the site takes extremely biased views of topics - the abortion article is case in point.

The icon is also the American Flag - what are they trying to imply?

Of course my view might be skewed as a "liberal", but it seems the greatness Wikipedia's nature is its neutrality.

Conservapedia.com - check out the 7 Conservapedia Commandments.

"If you understand that America is endangered by the Left, and you do not have a naturalistic worldview, then you must oppose Darwinism. Darwinism leads naturally to atheism."
-Conservapedia, the trustworthy encyclopedia.

Ugh,
Eric

informative blogging

2008-04-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

I'm not a huge blogger, nor do I always read tons of blogs. However, I'm convinced that blogs are becoming a major source of information and direction. Recently I've been trying to research the neighborhood I'm moving to after I graduate and blogs have been the most comprehensive and definitive source of information I've found. Ok, maybe there's just lots of people who want to go to bars and restaurants and write about it, but there's also a lot of people like me who want to read about it. So if somebody who reads as few blogs as I do is turning to them for info and resources, I'm guessing this is a big trend. I guess Wikipedia is almost like one giant blog, so why shouldn't individual blogs serve the same purpose. Like this blog. I bet there's somebody out there that finds this an incredible source of information and thought about media. You never know...

-Lindsay

Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0

2008-04-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

This is an introduction to an issue of
First Mondayaddressing new media. By Michael Zimmer
Web 2.0 represents a blurring of the boundaries between Web users and producers, consumption and participation, authority and amateurism, play and work, data and the network, reality and virtuality. The rhetoric surrounding Web 2.0 infrastructures presents certain cultural claims about media, identity, and technology. It suggests that everyone can and should use new Internet technologies to organize and share information, to interact within communities, and to express oneself. It promises to empower creativity, to democratize media production, and to celebrate the individual while also relishing the power of collaboration and social networks.

But Web 2.0 also embodies a set of unintended consequences, including the increased flow of personal information across networks, the diffusion of one’s identity across fractured spaces, the emergence of powerful tools for peer surveillance, the exploitation of free labor for commercial gain, and the fear of increased corporatization of online social and collaborative spaces and outputs.

In Technopoly, Neil Postman warned that we tend to be “surrounded by the wondrous effects of machines and are encouraged to ignore the ideas embedded in them. Which means we become blind to the ideological meaning of our technologies” [1]. As the power and ubiquity of Web 2.0 rises, it becomes increasingly difficult for users to recognize its externalities, and easier to take the design of such tools simply “at interface value” [2]. Heeding Postman and Turkle’s warnings, this collection of articles will work to remove the blinders of the unintended consequences of Web 2.0’s blurring of boundaries and critically explore the social, political, and ethical dimensions of Web 2.0.

We start with “Market Ideology and the Myths of Web 2.0,” a provocative probe by Trebor Scholz arguing that Web 2.0 represents not a socio–technological advance in the World Wide Web, but rather a powerful “framing device of professional elites that define what enters the public discourse about the impact of the Web on society.” Scholz deflates the claims of revolutionary technical innovation and social empowerment held dear by many Web 2.0 evangelists, revealing instead that the technologies and communities underlying Web 2.0 have existed, in one form or another, long before Tim O’Reilly first uttered the phrase. By embracing Web 2.0, Scholz concludes, we are acquiescing to a market ideology of crowdsourcing, the exploitation of immaterial free labor, and the “harvesting of the fruits of networked social production.”

Matthew Allen agrees with Scholz’s general classification of Web 2.0, also seeing it more as a “conceptual frame by which to promote and make sense of the Web as Internet–delivered data service” rather than an arrangement of particular online technologies and communities. Allen’s contribution, “Web 2.0: An Argument Against Convergence,” outlines four key components that makeup the conceptual frame of Web 2.0 – technology, economic, users and philosophy – and argues (perhaps providing some relief to Scholz’s concerns) that the unique relationship between the four elements of Web 2.0 provides resistance to attempts at convergence and domination of the Internet by media and telecommunications providers.

Kylie Jarrett focuses on a particular aspect of Web 2.0 in her critical essay “Interactivity is Evil! A critical investigation of Web 2.0.” Disputing the claim that Web 2.0 provides novel opportunities for the articulation of individual and collective social power by enhancing participation in media production and cultural expression, Jarrett argues that the interactivity celebrated in Web 2.0 is disciplinary in nature, offering merely a “contingent freedom” that is, echoing Scholz, “organised by the dictates of a neoliberal socio–political hegemony.” Rather than truly considering it “evil,” however, Jarrett relies on her hyperbolic title to draw attention to the need to “continually interrogate the fabric of digital media.”

Such an interrogation of Web 2.0 similarly motivates Søren Mørk Petersen’s essay, “Loser Generated Content: From Participation to Exploitation.” While recognizing how Web 2.0 infrastructures might foster democracy, participation, creativity, and joy, Petersen reveals how they also enable the exploitation of user–generated content by major corporations. Whether in the form of a distributed architecture of participation (such as blogging), or platforms specifically designed for user–generated content (such as YouTube or Flickr), Web 2.0 represents, according to Petersen, an “architecture of exploitation that capitalism can benefit from.”

A key component of the Web 2.0 that Petersen describes is the free flow of data from site to site, from user to user. Much of the free flow of data among Web 2.0 sites and services contain personal information, which, when captured by Web search engines, poses a threat to informational privacy online. This is the central concern outlined in Michael Zimmer’s contribution, “The Externalities of Search 2.0: The Emerging Privacy Threats when the Drive for the Perfect Search Engine meets Web 2.0.” Zimmer argues that the efforts by Web search engines to build profiles, predict intentions, and deliver personalized products and services by capturing the personal data flows inherent in Web 2.0 creates a Faustian bargain, where the claimed benefits are countered by the “emergence of a robust infrastructure of dataveillance that can quickly be internalized and become the basis of disciplinary social control.”

The role of Web 2.0 in fostering increased forms of surveillance is further explored by Anders Albrechtslund’s article, “Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance.” Complementing Zimmer’s analysis of how Web service providers engage in surveillance of Web 2.0 users, Albrechtslund focuses on users surveilling one another. Contrasting Zimmer’s concern with the privacy and disciplinary threats of Web 2.0-based surveillance, Albrechtslund sees participatory surveillance as empowering, subjectivity building and playful. In sum, he argues that the participatory surveillance inherent in Web 2.0 provides us an opportunity to rethink our traditional notions of hierarchical and threatening forms of surveillance.

This special issue concludes with an epilogue from David Silver, who synthesizes these critical perspectives on Web 2.0 around three themes: history, hype, and hope. Silver remarks that “in our age of everything new and everything now we could use a little history” and that to best understand the implications of Web 2.0, we must explore “its historical contexts, and its revolutionary potential.” Further, Silver warns of acquiescing to the “corporate hype” surrounding Web 2.0, reminding us that when corporations say “community” they mean “commerce,” and when they say “aggregation” they mean “advertising.” Perhaps, Silver argues, we’re witnessing the emergence of California Ideology 2.0. Finally, Silver does leave room for hope, recognizing that we are witnessing the birth of a new “writeable generation, a generation of young people who think of media as something they read and something they write – often simultaneously.”

From Scholz to Silver, the goal of this special issue on Critical Perspectives on Web 2.0 is to remove the blinders that Neil Postman warns us of, and in reading the essays that follow, we hope to help and expose, explore and explain the ideological meanings and the social, political, and ethical implications of Web 2.0. End of article

About the author

Michael Zimmer, PhD, is the Microsoft Resident Fellow at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. He received his PhD in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University under the guidance of Profs. Helen Nissenbaum, Alex Galloway, and Siva Vaidhyanathan. He frequently writes about the social, political, and ethical dimensions of information and communication technologies at http://michaelzimmer.org.

Space for Final Projects

2008-04-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

David Knowles sent me some pictures and a floor plan of the space in the Doctor's office. Come to class on Wednesday prepared to talk about your final project!

DeeDee

Project Idea: Vassar's YouTube Contest

2008-04-21T10:59:00.000-07:00

As many of you probably know, Vassar has a YouTube Channel. There are a lot of videos posted that show different aspects of Vassar life, mostly including student life. You may have seen posters around campus about the Vassar YouTube Contest. Students are supposed to create a "2-5 minute YouTube video about life at Vassar that best exemplifies the spirit and quality of life on the Vassar campus."

This got me thinking about our final project and about how many communities there are at Vassar in addition to the students. I think it would be cool to do a video for this contest (or not only for the contest) that shows/interviews some of the other people who are integral to the Vassar community but never mentioned in videos about Vassar, such as ACDC staff members, cleaning staff, B&G, the preschool, house fellows, etc. I know we don't have much time, but if anyone wants to join me in making a short documentary, or has ideas, let me know!

-Brittany

Beyond Product Placement

2008-04-18T19:49:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is quietly offering ad-funded Works Posted by Ina Fried | 2 comments
Updated 4:15 p.m. with details on the countries in which Works SE is being offered.

After years of exploring the matter, Microsoft has finally started offering an ad-funded version of Microsoft Works in some countries. Users who run the software see a small ad as they are writing their document or editing their spreadsheet. Although the program has the ability to update its set of ads online, today it runs mostly ads for Microsoft and a few partners, all of which ship with the product itself.

Works SE (which stands for Sponsored Edition) is free to PC makers, though they don't get a cut of the ad revenue. Large computer makers typically only pay a buck or two for the low-end version of Works, though. The ad-funded Works falls into a category of several products the company is exploring, rather than a significant new source of revenue, said Microsoft Vice President Chris Capossela.

"This is a trial," he said. "This is a pilot. This is a 'Can we build software that will do this?' " Microsoft has been considering such a product for some time, with many inside the company arguing that Microsoft could make significantly more money for Works by selling advertising than it gets in revenue from computer makers for the product.

Capossela said the early response to the free product has been positive. "People have liked the price," he said with a laugh, adding that it has also not been perceived as that intrusive, something Microsoft had worried about. Last August, Microsoft said that it would start piloting Works SE, but the company gave few details on where or how the product would be offered.

Microsoft remains cagey on the details of where you can find Works SE. The company has been testing Works SE in 5 countries: The United States, France, Canada, Poland and the United Kingdom. It is available only through select computer makers and Microsoft won't say which computer makers those are. According to its Web site, Packard Bell offers the software on some of its models in the United Kingdom. Using the same sleuthing technique (a search engine), it appears Sony is one of those offering it in the U.S.

Capossela put Works SE in the same category as several other new approaches, including the Albany subscription service that Microsoft detailed this week. Also in that camp would be the prepaid Office cards that Microsoft has been selling in some countries for more than a year now. Response to that last product, which sells Office in six-month increments for around $20, has been mixed. The cards were a hit in South Africa, but bombed in Mexico.

None of these areas are significant new channels as yet. "There's no business here yet," he said. "These are all experiments."

The one area where Capossela said Microsoft has seen significant sales is the download and purchase of Office over the Web. Customers either download a trial version of Office directly from Microsoft or get it with a new PC. After 60 days of use, they are prompted to buy a full version from Microsoft or a partner (partners typically sell the product cheaper than Microsoft).
Microsoft was not quick to seize on selling directly over the Web, Capossela said. "We're late," he said. "If you look at Symantec and Intuit, they have huge businesses here."

Capossela also stressed that Microsoft is focusing its efforts on new ways of selling Office and creating online products that complement Office, not replicating the suite on the Web. He said that Microsoft still doesn't see much competition from Google Apps. "We haven't seen them yet," he said. "We've seen a love affair in the press. We haven't seen customers embracing Google Apps."

**********************************************
This is really creepy. Actually the next plan is to embed the ads in your brains!
DeeDee

the bar has been set

2008-04-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

Guys,

I think a standard for class projects has just been set.

Though, some people have mixed feelings...

I know how "aj" from the P****H**** message board feels:

makes sense, she looks like one of those fucking islamic terrorists. probably just getting off on killing babies from american fathers. oh well, she'll fry in hell beside Saddam.

But what do you guys think?

-Asher

Art and Technology: from Library Liberation to Garlic

2008-04-16T17:16:00.002-07:00

http://www.adrienejenik.net/desktoptheater.html

http://www.mobiopera.mobi

http://radicalreference.info

http://garlic02.worldofprojects.info/

Shu Lea Cheang’s Garlic=Rich Air was an interactive online project that anticipated the year 2030 as a postcapitalist society where the global economy and currencies have collapsed and network media has nearly crashed. In this future world, organic garlic is the new social currency–bought, sold, and traded to establish a new, free media trading system. Garlic=Rich Air set forth a monetary relationship between URL information and virtual garlic. Visitors were invited to participate online by submitting various URL addresses in return for virtual garlic, or “G,” as Cheang put it. At the close of the G-Mart, virtual “G” was cashed in for real garlic; a commodity that is desired and wholly revered in the year 2030.

In order to implement this exchange of virtual and real commodities ten thousand garlic plants grown in upstate New York (cultivated by organic farmer Tovey Halleck in the span of ten years and harvested by generations of old and new media makers, according to the project’s narrative) were gathered in the summer of 2002. The garlic harvest was then trucked to New York City where participants could exchange virtual garlic credits (i.e. digital bytes, bandwidth, domains, URLs, networks, systems, and software) for real farm-grown organic garlic.

Garlic=Rich Air was the second and third phase of St(r)eaming the Fields, a field harvesting and public network project conceived by Shu Lea Cheang with funding provided by the Challenge to the Field Award from the Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Fund for Independent Media.

The year is 2030. gm-free garlic is the golden bulb, the stinking rose, much sought after. You and everyone else dream of owning a garlic bulb or two. Catch Garlic Mania in the air. GARLIC=RICH AIR. Garlic is officially ordained as the new social currency. Trade virtual garlic for farm grown organic garlic. There are 5000 PRIZED GARLIC BULBS, available at Palazzo delle Prigioni in Venice for exchange. Join the G-mart (Garlic Mart) online where the commodity is shared network media and the currency is G. G for garlic, G is the year 2030 credito. AFTER THE CRASH FINAL LIQUIDITATION SALE. Sell your website for virtual G - sell your dot.com, dot.net, dot.org, dot.us, dot.info, dot.tv….
If it is still worth anything, G is it. Set the value, shares and price per share for your URL(s). Trade them on the G-mart. Up to date clickstream data sets the G-mart in constant fluctuation. SELL, BUY, OWN and RESELL. You own the power to shape and direct the G-mart. The online G-mart opens on June 12 and closes on October 30, 2030. At the time of the market closure the exchange rate between earned virtual G and REAL GARLIC is calculated and converted. Your accumulated virtual G may be redeemed for organically farm grown GARLIC BULBS.

RICHAIR2030 imagines an AFTER THE CRASH scenario set in year 2030. By year 2030, the great wireless hope that promises mobility and connectivity has bubbled. The GPS satellite signals have lost track of its urbanites when cutting through the Ozone layers. The ocean-apart digital divide has eventually sabotaged the Net we surf in. What remains of the feeble bandwidth is held out and safeguarded by the wireless freenetworkers, a striving public wireless DIY network movement sprouted worldwidein the early 21st century.

RICHAIR2030 mobilizes renegade roller girls to jumpstart Riga’s first wifinet TAZ (Temporary Access Zone) along the city’s Caka Iela main street. Carrying the lunchboxes that read, code and transmit accessible public wifi signals, the roaming performance is visualized in pumping RGB codes on the web,while the signal noise and its sonicscope amplified.

BEAT UP THE SIGNALS

PUMP UP THE VOLUME

RESTART THE SYSTEM

SHARE AND CONSUME

RICHAIR2030 V.8.0, Riga, Latvia @ * - { µ - o ” u l ?}.

06-11-2004 richair.waag.org

Projecting Tigers

2008-04-16T17:16:00.001-07:00

I thought this was interesting given our conversation today about projecting art.

-Asher

A Close Call

2008-04-16T09:38:00.001-07:00

An example of why alternative media is important: Last week I was contacted about a job interview with a company in NYC. Good little interviewee that I am, I researched the company a little. What I found was a consumer advocacy site with correspondences from former employees attesting to how awful the company was and how they manipulated and screwed over their employees. Thanks to that alternative site I knew I wanted nothing to do with that company and I was on guard at the interview. Another reason why it's important for people to be able to have the voice to critique the world around us, especially the media and corporations!

-Lindsay

Soldier Blog

2008-04-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

http://calmbeforethesand.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html

This is a blog by a U.S. soldier. He has a very nuanced perspective about the war and about his part in it. He's also a hardcore feminist/progressive and so it's interesting to read his takes on the military. He is very aware of the social military dynamics.
Read from the beginning to get an idea of where he's coming from.
-Marisa

Online Family Trees

2008-04-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

I recently did an online search of my name and discovered that I was listed in an online family tree on my father’s side. Leo Bensman is my great-grandmother’s twin brother (I never knew we had twins in the family) and the tree does not extend past my father and uncle (they also have me incorrectly listed as my father’s sister). The website also links to various family pages with old pictures of relatives in the US that I never knew I had.

I’m really quite inspired by the concept of online family trees. We talk about the Internet as a tool of building communities but for some reason I never considered that it could also be a useful tool for connecting a single family as well. Almost my entire extended family is made up of immigrants from Belarus to either the US or Israel and the older generation is mainly responsible for keeping everyone in touch overseas. They trade printed photographs and letters with various important and mundane updates. But with the possibility of online family trees, even my family’s younger generation who hardly know one another could participate in maintaining a living database through which to mark significant life events, deaths, memorials, post photographs, tell stories, share recipes, and effectively build a family archive forever preserved in cyberspace. Maybe a project for after graduation?

The site for the Bensman line doesn’t seem to use a program of any sort, but these websites and software can help you find ancestors and build family trees as well:

http://www.familytree.com
http://www.ancestry.com
http://www.onegreatfamily.com
http://tribalpages.com
http://www.livingmemory.com
http://www.familytreesearcher.com
http://genealogy.com

Polina

National Conference for Media Reform

2008-04-16T08:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.freepress.net/conference

This is a big, big, big deal. Lots of people, lots of talking, lots of media reform. You know you wanna be there - too bad I'm working reunion.

-jon

Video Games and Censorship

2008-04-15T22:00:00.000-07:00

Youth Radio

2008-04-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

Inspired by last class, I was looking at youth-based radios and media projects in the U.S. I came upon “Youth Radio” (very original name). I haven’t really gotten a chance to listed to their radio, however their site (www.youthradio.org) is amazing. They have an entire section on poetry, with some really interesting and well-made material. Also on the site is a link to Radio Juventud, which I really need to look at in more detail. To end this short post, here is the link to one of their articles on “Changing the Course of Sex Education” (http://www.youthradio.org/health/050518_realsexed.shtml).
Juliana

"Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?"

2008-04-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

I came across this NY Times Magazine article yesterday about cell phones and the world. The writer explains in the beginning that, "Several companies, including Intel, Motorola and Microsoft, employ trained anthropologists to study potential customers, while Nokia’s researchers, more often have degrees in design." (By the way, I didn't put the links to those companies in, it just copied that way.) So anthropology has become commercial. According to this article, there are more than 3.3 billion mobile-phone subscriptions worldwide, which means that there are at least three billion people who don’t own cellphones, the bulk of them to be found in Africa and Asia. In addition, Eighty percent of the world’s population now lives within range of a cellular network, which is double the level in 2000. About those brain tumors...

One of the main points of the article is that when people gain access to a cellphone, their income boosts because of their ability to contact many people. The article claims that increases in cellphone use also increases a nation's GDP. The writer explains this phenomenon as, "bottom-up economic development, a way of empowering individuals by encouraging entrepreneurship as opposed to more traditional top-down approaches in which aid money must filter through a bureaucratic chain before reaching its beneficiaries, who by virtue of the process are rendered passive recipients." But is imposing a piece of technology, that is only useful because a chunk of the world has them, an effective economic uplift? I'm actually not sure where I stand on this because the world economy is incredibly complicated.

A point that interested me more was how text messaging can contribute to more effective healthcare. For example, the author of the article discusses how people in Kenya can ask anonymous questions about culturally taboo subjects like AIDS, breast cancer and sexually transmitted diseases, and receive prompt answers from health experts for no charge. Who are these health experts and where are they? I guess this is a helpful tool.

My question, after reading this article is: are cellphones a democratizing tool or a tool for huge cell companies to control the world? Another question I have is: do cheap and available phones mean cheap labor in poor areas, and if so, isn't this contradictory?

I'm curious about what you all think of this article. Here's the link again. Let me know!

-Brittany

Community Media in the Prosumer Era

2008-04-10T19:58:00.000-07:00

Ellie Rennie in Korea
http://www.cbonline.org.au/3cmedia/3c_issue3/BarryERennie.pdf
This is by Ellie Rennie, an Australian researcher, who was one of the people who spoke at the Community Media Summit which I attended in Seoul Korea last fall.
DeeDee

The Ever-present Ghosts of the Past

2008-04-09T20:54:00.000-07:00

After way too many trials and tribulations, here is my video, "The Ever-present Ghosts of the Past". It takes into consideration the idea that recorded media like film or audio recordings capture moments and people in time, and suspend them forever even while these moments and people pass. In this way, I see YouTube as a type of graveyard, where people, and even cultural ideals that have long passed now reside. In some of these videos, you might even see how past-versions of people may now haunt their present selves.

Enjoy -

Eric

INTERNSHIP IN LOS ANGELES

2008-04-09T19:11:00.000-07:00

Freewaves Multicultural Undergrad Summer Internships: Web & Admin/Marketing

FREEWAVES is offering two paid internships for undergraduates this summer through a generous grant from The Getty Grant Program.

FREEWAVES Multicultural Undergraduate Summer Internships 2008 are for 2 positions, Webmaster and Administrative/ Marketing Intern, both for 10-weeks, full-time, $3,500 gross salary. Internships will run from mid-June to mid-August.

Both internships entail a high degree of computer literacy. Tasks will be part of Freewaves long time initiative to disseminate
the new media arts.

In accordance with The Getty Grant Program, candidates must be:
* members of underrepresented groups, particularly individuals of African American, Asian, Latino/Hispanic, Native American, and Pacific Islander descent;

* currently enrolled as undergraduates, who will have completed at least one semester of college by June 2008, and will not graduate before December 2008;

* residents of or attending college in Los Angeles County. Students who have previously served as interns for this program more than twice are not eligible.
-------
The Administrative/Marketing Intern will:
1) administer artists' video entries and handle correspondence;
2) develop online marketing and optimization of Freewaves' web page;
3) develop, edit and prepare artist bios and other information for
http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=203164914&u=2077686 ;
4) maintain administrative and public relations databases.

Requirements for Administrative/Marketing Intern:
1) Have good writing skills.
2) Be detail oriented, accurate and thorough.
3) Have some knowledge of media arts.
4) Possess good computer skills (will need to use/learn Word, FileMaker,
Photoshop and the internet).
5) Be able to work in a small, busy office with concentration.
6) Be able to work independently.

The WEB Intern will:
1) assist building the new festival web site;
2) work with staff, technical advisors, programmer and designer to
develop enhanced site pages and perform technical troubleshooting;
3) assist with site documentation;
4) compress artist videos;
5) prepare images;
6) produce written and visual materials for web site and related
marketing effort.

Requirements for WEB Intern:

1) Knowledge of html, Dreamweaver and Flash preferred.
2) Ability to code highly desirable though not required.
(Java, Javascript, My SQL and/or PHP).
3) Good writing and communication skills.
4) Ability to work diplomatically in a team environment
(in meetings, via email and on the phone).
5) Detail oriented, accurate, and thorough including ability to
troubleshoot own work for errors and functionality.
6) Knowledge of media arts preferable.
7) Knowledge of both Mac and PC environments required.
8) Ability to work independently.
-----------
Location: Both internships located at Freewaves' office
at LACE (6522 Hollywood Blvd in Hollywood CA). Interns will
work under the supervision of Freewaves Director Anne Bray and
Assistant Director Charlene Boehne.
Additionally both internships allow candidates to participate
actively in staff and project meetings.
-----------
How to Apply:
First familiarize yourself with areas within Freewaves' web site at
http://ent.groundspring.org/EmailNow/pub.php?module=URLTracker&cmd=track&j=203164914&u=2077687 If the site and Freewaves interests you, forward
a resume and cover letter explaining reasons for interest and addressing
how you meet the eligibility guidelines for the internship set by the Getty.

If you are applying for the web/archive internship, please send us
url's of your work (sites designed or worked on). We will start
interviewing in late April, and will contact you for an appointment
if we are interested.

Email your application materials to:
Charlene Boehne at charlene@freewaves.org by May 1, 2008.

Our postal address is
2151 Lake Shore Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90039
United States

Oops

2008-04-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

Again I forget my name on these things......
The last post was created by Ben D

~umm....Ben D

Independent Games

2008-04-09T11:39:00.000-07:00

As much as we've talked about the consolidation of mass media and its negative effects on community development, we haven't really covered another medium that is being consolidated at an alarming rate, that being the realm of videogames.

Ever since the videogame boom began in the mid-80's, there have been major players and minor players, development giants that dominate the market as well as smaller independent houses that quietly produce terrific games. Consolidation is often inevitable as smaller firms struggle to keep up with rising production costs, constantly evolving hardware, and a financial playing field where the market share does not gradually change but rather swings wildly, by as much as 30% between rival companies with the introduction of each new generation of gaming machine.

However, much of the time the larger production houses are focused on their bottom line rather than pushing the boundaries and imagination of gameplay, shelling out mediocre sequels to best-selling franchises, crappy movie tie-ins, and flashy shoot-em-ups rather than taking a chance on more innovative, less predictable game concepts.

Electronic Arts, for example, uses the same formula over and over again to great effect. Its Madden NFL franchises are best sellers every year, and its constant reinvention of its Need for Speed, Sim City/The Sims, and Command and Conquer franchises bring in a large portion of their revenue. However, many of these, particularly the sports properties, are based upon a model of yearly updates, wherein only rosters or small details are changed and the "new" game is sold at full price despite lack of innovation.

Big videogame corps have also been widely criticized for pushing out mediocre games based upon formerly sterling intellectual properties by buying smaller reputable development houses. Electronic Arts has claimed talent-rich development houses Bioware and Pandemic Studios, and recently tried for a buyout of Take Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar. Rockstar has singlehandedly produced some of the most controversial and groundbreaking games in the past decade, including the Grand Theft Auto series, Bully, and Manhunt, not to mention the recent masterpiece BioShock. Vivendi Universal recently acquired immensely successful Activision, which in turn had absorbed various smaller studios in its time.

Is this all bad news for videogames? I would say yes. The only benefit is that sometimes consolidation means saving talented yet faltering studios from blinking out of existence. But the greatest problem lies with the watering down of overall game quality. With only 2 or 3 parent companies overseeing all game development, a very homogenous production quality would soon emerge, as has already happened in the radio, music, and television industry.

But hope springs eternal on the internet, which serves as a new, worldwie testing ground and marketplace for many game studios still on training wheels. Development houses like The Behemoth for example. This small studio began as a few guys making flash games for the portal Newgrounds, which quickly gained popularity at very little cost to the developers, and soon they had a deal to produce their popular flash side scroller Alien Hominid for all major game platforms in 2004. The game is colorful, inventive a throwback to old-school shooters and beat-em-ups of the 80's and 90's. They got their start on the internet along with many other game studios, avoiding much of the costly publicity and production costs that often handicap small mainstream studios. The Behemoth is a sort of indie game icon, flying in the face of the flashy visuals, media hype, and repetitive publishing strategy of giants like EA.

Lots of other small development studios use the internet as a public forum to test and hype their games. They can blog about the development of the game and get direct feedback in a way that avoids and often surpasses costly focus testing conducted by larger studios.

Some will decide to release them for mainstream consoles, and some will choose to remain direct-downloads. Indie success stories like Crayon Physics and World of Goo, recent winners and finalists at the Independent Games Festival, are flourishing as direct downloads rather than going the console route (although they will eventually enter the console marketplace after establishing a strong digital fan base.)

It goes to show that while the console industry is still king (actually eclipsing the movie industry in revenue last year) the internet provides hope for independent developers who strive to create original, envelope-pushing properties without fear of being forced to accept a giant takeover.

The Behemoth
http://www.thebehemoth.com/

World of Goo
http://2dboy.com/games.php

Independent Gaming Source
http://www.tigsource.com/

Independent Games Festival
http://www.igf.com/

http://www.indiegames.com/

http://kloonigames.com/crayon/

Omnisio, Editing YouTube Videos

2008-04-09T09:01:00.001-07:00

So I just found out about omnisio.com, which would have been perfect for this youtube project. you can search and arrange and cut videos from youtube and googlevideo. I just did a quick meaningless example about dogs in motion to show sort of what you can do. I don't think you can add titles or music, but it's still cool and fun!

-Brittany

global warming theorem on youtube

2008-04-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

sorry to post so close to class...

a while ago i was sent a video about global warming. here it is:

there are a few things i think are particularly interesting about this. first, the speaker starts by asking people to respond to his video and tell him their thoughts. he asks for critical responses in the same way a scientist with a theorem would send it to fellow scientists for criticism and responses. by doing this on youtube, however, he is opening this dialogue up to a greater community of internet users, all of whom can comment with the same power to their responses.

second, at the end of the video, the speaker aknowledges the power of his medium. he speaks to the ultimate global warming questions of "what can i do" as he explains that the key is having a spreading knowledge. he states that, in a society such as ours, with so much information technology, there are tremendous opportunities for people to "speak" (or post) and be heard by many others.

third, i noticed that in the description section, the movie's creator wrote a long message about how you should not watch this video. he explains that, based on the comments he recieved, there are holes in his argument. becuase of this, he has made a much longer video series, addressing all of the comments brought up by people who watched the video. he explains that he is leaving up the video anyways, because it preserves a record of this dialogue: an example of an effective use of youtube for socio-political discourse.

finally, i looked at the comments on the video. i found that many of the first bunch were elementary school students of the man who made the film. as they all left rave reviews, it became clear to me that the video was powerful in multiple ways. he has a well-articulated argument in favor of taking action against global warming, but he has also showed many students how easy it is to share thoughts and beliefs using public media like youtube - a lesson these students will hopefully take advantage of as they learn and grow.

~julia

Democracy Now

2008-04-09T01:41:00.000-07:00

So this is sort of silly, but I think it's a worthwhile point. It's amazing to me that- one the one hand, at Vassar only one of the four classes is able to order cable television service, and network TV is pretty shitty here anyway. And yet on the other hand, we dont see a lot of people here getting their news from alternative news sources. A few months ago I reread one of Amy Goodman's books, and decided to try to watch Democracy Now as much as I can. At this point, it's a daily ritual. If I wake up early, I watch yesterday's, and if I get up late I watch today's.

I know a lot of Vassar students read the Times - that seems to be the prominent news source discussed in my classes, but I wonder why given the ease you can access alternative news sources online. If your primary medium for news is the internet, why not read something independent? Even "easier" - by 9am every day there is a streaming real player file that is of remarkable quality that loads the entire hour immediately.

I'm curious about what it means that I wake up to Amy in the morning instead of - Matt Lauer or Diane Soyuer. I wonder if I'm out of the loop in that I don't read the Times so comprehensively, or if I have simply a different take on the world's events. Might be an interesting sidebyside project.... them vs. NBC or something.

For today's broadcast, click here.

evz

Egypt Intifada

2008-04-08T21:56:00.000-07:00

Since early Sunday morning, the day that a planned general strike across the country was suppressed by the state, things have been hot in Egypt. I've been trying to keep up with a major factory strike, clashes with police, arrests of hundreds of protesters, including children and bloggers. Much of the protests across Egypt have to do with very low wages for factory workers, the less than $2 a day that almost half the country lives off of, and looming food crises. At the center is Mahalla al-Kobra, a factory town north of Cairo whose 20,000 workers have striked before. Protests turned violent on Sunday and have persisted. Observers drew immediate connections to Palestine, with citizens throwing stones and soldiers firing bullets and tear gas.

Hossam el Hamalawy, whose blogging is tireless, chronicles the Mahalla Intifada.

I wrote a quick piece for The Huffington Post about the "failed" strike. While the myriad opposition movements -- Muslim Brothers, factory workers, urban professionals, intellectuals -- seem disorganized, to say a planned nationwide general strike failed seems unfair. How would we protest in a country where police raid your home and arrest you for blogging and sending text messages about attending public demonstrations?

Photo is from Reuters photographer Nasser Nouri.

- freddy

Feedback Trip...me too

2008-04-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

I also went to the Feedback exhibition in the city this weekend. I think the most interesting aspect was how interactive all of the different smaller pieces of the exhibit were. There was always some sort of large visual piece of information and additionally most pieces had a smaller interactive component for the viewer. highwaterline.org had a computer set up where you could check out their website and there were also postcards prepared that you could take and send to Mayor Bloomberg. Behind the computer, on the wall, were maps of all of the different locations and places that this organization has tracked. There was also TheRealCosts.com which had a computer set up, in front of a wall projection of information, that allowed you to explore their firefox plug-in which inserts emissions data into travel related e-commerce websites. In addition to these examples, there was also a wall set up that you could write on and respond to the question "If buildings could talk to one another, what would they say?"

During my time exploring the Feedback exhibit I was thinking about our final class project and how no matter what we all decide to do I think it would be really interesting if we were able to have interactive components for our viewers. Being able to be a part of the exhibit and the information that was being sent out was fun and engaging while being informational.

~Liz

The Rotunda (Poughkeepsie Public Library District)

2008-04-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

This week I have been to the Arlington Library more than usual. During one of my visits, I discovered “The Rotunda”, a newspaper for the Poughkeepsie Public Library District. This small newspaper is really interesting. On the cover, there are pictures of the Adriance Memorial Library and its renovations. The librarian was actually really excited to tell me all about how the construction has been going. Other things in the newspaper include events, activities, workshops, and classes in the area. There are also suggested readings, information on programs offered by the libraries in the district, and reading/writing contests taking place this spring. I thought the newspaper was really cool and could serve as a very good resource for parents and teachers of the region.

The PDF version can be found here: http://www.poklib.org/documents/Rotundaspring08.pdf

Juliana

Digital Connectors Video Project

2008-04-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

My project is a compilation of videos produced by youth participating in a program called “Digital Connectors” in various cities across the country. The program was started by a global non-profit, One Economy Corporation, whose goal is to “[use] innovative approaches to deliver the power of technology and information to low-income people, giving them valuable tools for building better lives.” The various Digital Connectors programs aim to give youth the technological competency they need to both be successful in their own lives and to help their communities to use technology effectively to reach both individual and collective goals.

The YouTube videos I found are of interviews the students conducted within their own groups and of video projects the Digital Connectors created exploring their sense of identity. Each video stands well on its own, but I discovered so many common themes that rearranging the videos by topic made more sense. My video is intended to illustrate the achievements of the program as told by its participants, a sort of promotional snippet showing the collective impact of the program. Enjoy!

Polina

Also, a note of correction: “Alouddin Moussa” should be spelled “Alauddin Mussa.”

2008-04-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

if anyone's interested, you all can check out indecent exposure's (vc's only all-female comedy group) take on ali g. feminism, the election, and the king and queen of vassar castle are discussed. enjoy.

(i posted this because i thought it fit a few different understandings of "alternative"--you know, it coming from an all-female group, etc.)

Feedback Exhibit

2008-04-06T16:04:00.001-07:00

So I went to the Feedback exhibit at Eyebeam Art and Technology Center this weekend. The exhibit was pretty interesting. It was basically a bunch of different exhibits that were meant to deal with sustainability and bettering the environment. It was a bit like a cross between an art gallery and a science fair. But I would definitely recommend going if you can because it's free, interesting, and there are some cool galleries on the same street that you can hit up as well. It wasn't as cool as the Exploratorium, but then again what is? :)

-Lindsay

NYT Net Neutrality Op-Ed

2008-04-06T15:02:00.000-07:00

An op-ed by Damian Kulash, Jr., of the band OK Go, appeared in The New York Times today. Just thought I'd pass it along.

- Allison

vassar's alternative activism

2008-04-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

when DeeDee passed around the UCSD student-made book on suppressed campus activism, it made me remember the rumors and stories i’ve heard about Vassar’s history of activism, especially during the suffrage movement. the coolest story i’ve heard about the suffragettes on campus is that in 1908 they met in the cemetery off campus because the president, James Taylor (a conservative Baptist) refused to let them organize on campus. however, if you go to the encyclopedia, it just says that the students organized there as a demonstration against Taylor’s politics but not that they were barred from campus. i guess the encyclopedia is pretty reliable, but either way, i love the story as a testament to the commotion they managed to rouse (and still do)...according to the article their meeting even made New York newspapers.

that’s Vassar alum Inez Milholland (class of 1909), the often-photographed woman on the horse who lead the famous suffrage march outside the white house in 1913 the day before Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated.

- abra

Spot the Advertising...

2008-04-02T15:03:00.000-07:00

This is a 2 part video from the show Human Giant, which you can watch online. It's hilarious. Anyways, this 2 part video made me think of our discussion about unconventional advertising. I'm sure it's not intended as advertising, but it has the same effect. There's even some "homemade" advertising in the second video. Watch it and you'll see what I mean. But you have to watch both!

http://mtv.thehumangiant.com/category/1580647

http://mtv.thehumangiant.com/videos/1580647/144275

-Lindsay

We All Have Bad Days

2008-04-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

Here is the link to my video project. It is called "We All Have Bad Days." I was really stuck by the comments about the powers the FCC has in fining or even shutting down public access radio stations or television stations. I was interested in the contrast between this power and the lack of consequences that major national stations and corporations have if they "mess up" or feature inappropriate content. "We All Have Bad Days" is a curation of news and television mess ups to emphasize that everyone makes mistakes and that...we all have bad days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfenWnqmOvo

I hope you enjoy it. I know that I had a lot of fun making it and sharing it with my friends.

~Liz

Dollywood

2008-04-02T07:43:00.000-07:00

So this project is ridiculous looking, but is it more ridiculous-looking than any other Hollywood movie trailer? Abra and I were curious about the role that Hollywood plays in disseminating information, and the way that movies exploit the news and pervert actual events to make them sexy enough for mass media. We used standard trailer tropes to illustrate how Hollywood would overdramatize a relatively unsexy, nonviolent event - the cloning of Dolly the sheep a few years ago. The real irony in this assignment is that we are coming with the understanding that the news is less corrupt than the movie industry when we Know how network news functions. Still, I think you'll find the absurdity in this video all too familiar, and I want us to interrogate the idea of 'based on a true story' in our mass media more and more.

-evan

2008-04-01T23:31:00.000-07:00

My video doesn't want to upload, so here's a link to my YouTube project.

One my favorite things about YouTube is all the clips/episodes people put up from my favorite childhood TV shows. This collection of videos features clips from some of those shows, starting with (to the best of my memory) the earliest shows I watched and ending with shows I liked in late elementary school. In case you're interested, the shows are (in order): Sesame Street ("Healthy Food," "The Word is 'No'," and "Yip Yip Monsters and a Telephone"), Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, Popples, TailSpin, Duck Tales, Tiny Toons, Animaniacs (and Pinky and the Brain), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Where on Earth Is Carmen San Diego?, and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?

Sorry about the weird opening, iMovie keeps doing that to me.

Allison

Oh that Vudu you do do.

2008-04-01T23:21:00.001-07:00

So, while this is less "alternative",it certainly has quite a bearing on the future of media. As some of you may know, the recent war for the next video technology has been settled, with Sony's "Blu-ray" disc beating out the "HDDVD". However, this may not be as dominating a technology as past reigning champions (DVD and VHS). Enter VUDU, an interface that goes with your entertainment combo that has access to a digital library of thousands of movies. This system, like iTunes but more catered for the family room, is completely digital - no physical medium. For the past year or so, people have been predicting that "EVERYTHING will be digital". Well, here we are, one step closer to a completely digital world: http://www.vudu.com/

Eric

P.S. My video is completely bugging out, probably due to the bugged out status of my computer. Hopefully things will be debugged by tomorrow. I'll see if I can post it before then.

no, this isn't another april fool's joke

2008-04-01T18:34:00.000-07:00

our very own freddy deknatel has an article featured on the huffington post! click HERE to read about egyptian bread, hard times anddddddddd sarcasm!

san francisco murals

2008-03-31T13:26:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Below is my video about Precita Eyes and murals in San Francisco.

~Julia

Excerpt from The Last Graduation

2008-03-29T18:15:00.001-07:00

This film is about the closing of many of the prison education programs.

Prison Focus Week

2008-03-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

So I wanted to take advantage of this space to let you all know about the Prison Focus Week. We have some really interesting people coming to speak to us throughout the week and, next weekend, is our yearly Green Haven Reunion. If you are interested in the criminal justice system, have taken Mamiya’s class or just want to learn more, please come by!

Monday, March 31:
7pm in the AULA
Opening of the Prison Art Exhibit. Calvin Frett who works on the Peter Black Prison Art Collective is going to set up his work in the AULA. Come to our opening, or just stop by the AULA during the week. The exhibit will be open on Tuesday and Thursday from noon to 5pm, on Wed. from noon to 9pm and on Friday from 5 to 7 pm.

Tuesday, April 1:
5:30pm in Taylor 203
Mary-Beth Pfeiffer will speak about her book “Crazy in America: The hidden tragedy of our criminalized mentally ill”. A former editor of the Poughkeepsie Journal, Ms. Pfeiffer did a series of investigative articles exposing the treatment and problems of the mentally ill in N.Y. State Prisons. As a sign of her success, she is now permanently banned from N.Y. State prisons.

Thursday, April 3:
5:30pm in the ALANA Center
Karla Brundage, an English major at Vassar (class or 1989) will be doing a poetry reading from her first published poetry collection, “Swallowing Watermellons”. She tracks her life experiences as a biracial young woman, a single mother, and an artist activist. She has participated in Poetic Protests, and teaches poetry to youth in the penal system, as well as men and women in maximum-security prisons.

Saturday, April 5:
10:30 am to 5pm, AULA
Green Haven Reunion! This annual event brings together formerly incarcerated men from Green Haven and Otisville prisons, formerly incarcerated women, Vassar alums who worked with them, community activists on prison issues, and current students, faculty, and administrators in a day long focus on prison issues. We will have workshops in the afternoon, which people are more then welcome to participate in. The workshops will be: “College Prison Program at Vassar”, where we will discuss efforts to get Vassar to teach classes in prisons, “Women in Prison”, where we will discuss the experiences of women in the criminal justice system, and a workshop with people from Drop the Rock (the coordinator and other Vassar alums involved in the program are coming to Vassar!), who work on repealing the Rockefeller Drug Laws.

Please come!
Juliana

<3 technology, right?

2008-03-28T19:42:00.000-07:00

after seemingly an eternity of trying to get this monster of a file to upload on veoh since you can't upload videos longer than 10 minutes on youtube, i finally have found success.

here is my project. it runs about 12 mins. but there's good stuff in it, i swear.

alana

Online Videos by Veoh.com

My Video

2008-03-27T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here's my attempt at creating a video. It's very short and simple, as I've never made a video before. It's basically a juxtaposition of a promotional view and an experiential view of Vassar. I found the Vassar promotional slide show on youtube, which I thought was laughable, and then a couple experiential videos about Vassar made by students (which show the realistic things like co-ed bathrooms and stealing from the retreat). I wanted to put text in to explicate it more, but imovie was being difficult and wasn't letting me. Anyways, here's the video:

-Lindsay

Disney = Children's Media?

2008-03-27T14:05:00.000-07:00

This is a video of clips from Disney's The Lion King, Return to Neverland, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. All of the clips were found on Youtube.

I picked these clips in particular because I thought it was interesting how children's stories can come across depending on whether the story is read in a book, or viewed on screen as a movie. In regards to films, it might also matter whether a film is live-action or animated. I think that depending on the form, the amount of violence, or things like death and murder in these stories is either amplified or toned down. I originally had five clips saved on a play list before deciding on the three I used, so if you're interested in viewing the whole play list, here it is:

-Laura

The Sad, Lonely Life of Jon Arbuckle

2008-03-26T08:42:00.000-07:00

I was browsing through BoingBoing (a sweet site full of tasty internet miscellany) a while ago and I came across a posting about Garfield Minus Garfield. This is a daily comic created by removing any traces of the orange feline from classic Garfield strips. The result is a sad, hilarious, and usually creepy look into the mind of a guy who has chosen to spend most of his day talking to his cat. The creator himself considers it a meditation on "schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life." All interesting themes, to be sure, and the strip certainly does make you think. By removing the personable furball from the strip, the relationship between pet and owner is stripped away, and we are forced to consider Jon as a real individual. How would we react to him if he wasn't accompanied by a cartoon cat who talks and, what's more, makes witty quips? I like this little piece of alternative media, because it creates an entirely new perspective on a well-established cartoon personality by simply removing a key piece of context. I loved Garfield growing up, and I always loved Jon's outbursts and nerdy episodes; this is just icing on the cake.

"Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade..."

2008-03-26T07:57:00.000-07:00

I have been doing research on “digital citizenship” for a class called “Democratic Engagement” and in my reading I came across this passage: “Mark Warschauer…identifies a number of literacies associated with computer and Internet use which he argues are necessary for social inclusion in the information age. Skills vary widely including information literacy (the ability to find, evaluate, and use information online) and technical competence” (Mossberger et al. 14). Mossberger et al. later argue that in order to develop these skills necessary for social inclusion and citizenship, people must have a considerable familiarity with the internet, and computers in general, which only comes from frequent and informed use. This is why nation-wide efforts for free or discounted municipal wi-fi—particularly in poor neighborhoods—are so critical as launching points for broader technological literacy that facilitates democratic engagement and inclusion among largely disenfranchised low-income populations. And why this recent article in the New York Times is so disheartening:

"Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out"

Polina

"...this Gaza!"

2008-03-26T05:14:00.000-07:00

A video collage of news footage from Gaza, focusing on children and the recent attention on Hamas TV's programming. "...this Gaza" refers to Ghassan Kanafani's Letter from Gaza (1956), from Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories.

Video sources:

Al Jazeera English, "Gaza's political children's show," 26 Feb 08

Al Jazeera English, "Gaza's lost childhood," 23 Mar 08

CNN Headline News, Glenn Beck Show, 13 Feb 08

Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority (Documentary, 2006)

- freddy

Moonvertising

2008-03-25T22:58:00.001-07:00

Yep - you can probably guess what that word means. Rolling Rock's new advertising campaign claims that they will advertise their beer on the moon, along with any messages others want to put up there. Now, this is almost definitely a hoax, although apparently Coke actually tried to do this back in '99 (the FAA wouldn't let them do it to airplane traffic laws). Still, what does this say about our culture's perspective on nature as terrain yet to be commercialized? And what about the willingness to expand the public sphere to the skies - which will undoubtedly invade private space? Just something to think about - here it is: www.moonvertising.com

Eric

Sucre en Comunidad

2008-03-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine went to Venezuela this winter break to do research for his thesis. He came back with a couple of magazines from the “Prensa Alternativa para la Parroquia 23 de Enero” (Alternative Press for the Town of January 23rd) called “Sucre en Comunidad”. These publications are really great. People from the community can all publish in it and they cover a different topic on every publication. One of the publications he brought back talks about “going to the streets”. In it, there are articles on the importance of not throwing garbage on the streets and information on new internet centers open to the public. I thought this was such a great way of engaging a local community in order to talk about issues that are pertinent to the population of 23 de Enero. If you are interested (and can read Spanish), Sucre en Comunidad has a site (http://www.el23.net/principal.htm) and a blog (http://sucreencomunidad.blogspot.com/).

Juliana

Getting Around Po'Town!

2008-03-25T17:40:00.001-07:00

SOOOOO, I've been doing some research about the Vassar Community shuttle and would like to include it somehow in our final project. If you guys didn't know, there is a shuttle that leaves from main building every half hour and runs from 2-7 on weekdays. It goes primarily these hours for people with field work, but anyone who goes to Vassar can use it. The shuttle is interesting to me because it is the first of its kind at Vassar. Finally Vassar students can get off campus and go to some pretty cool places farther down on Main Street without a car or taxi e.g. the Muddy Cup (a coffee shop), Twisted Soul (Asian Fusion), Soul Dog (lots of different kinds of toppings and lots of different kinds of hot dogs). Not to mention a couple of art galleries (Cunneen-Hackett Art Center and the Lower Main Street Art Galleries). The Shuttle might even start running to the train station and they are thinking about weekend and evening hours.

So how can we tie this into our final project? I am thinking that we can work this into a zine about Vassar and Poughkeepsie relations. This shuttle could be thought of as a possible solution to the Vassar/Poughkeepsie divide. We could work the opinions of non-Vassar people into this zine as well.
This of course would be only a part of the overarching big final project. What do you guys think?
I would also like to interview people who ride the shuttle and the people in charge of it as well to get a better idea of the whole situation. I've already talked to a number of people though and it seems like a really great thing. You can learn more about it here on the vassar website.

BACK TO NORMAL

2008-03-24T20:41:00.001-07:00

After the spike, things have calmed down. So if I say "Ring Rock Star" will it spike again?

Vassar's Tap is Back! (my youtube video)

2008-03-24T05:40:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!
Welcome back from break!

This is the YouTube video I made for our class.
Take Back the Tap is a national campaign to decrease dependence on bottled water and, well, take back the tap!

This is the first video I've ever made of any type. I couldn't stop being amazed by the amount of things I could do from my own personal computer- mixing a song, editing video, inserting subtitles! It made me understand how powerful of a medium YouTube/video production equipment for regular computers really is.

Vassar's Tap is Back!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeCRP-1L-JU

I hope you enjoy it!
Marisa

In case you're interested...

2008-03-15T20:14:00.000-07:00

Quarterlife was cancelled after one airing. Couldn't compete with American Idol. (Shocker, I know.) Remaining episodes may one day appear on Bravo.

alana

Eddo Stern: Beyond video games

2008-03-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

Light Industry Contact Thomas Beard for further information ::
thomas@lightindustry.org (646) 420-0359 http://www.lightindustry.org
QQ More Curated by Eddo Stern
April 8, 2008 at 8pm 55 33rd Street, 3rd Floor Brooklyn, NY Ticket Price - $6
Artist Eddo Stern presents a screening of fan-made machinima from the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft, focusing on videos that operate outside of the traditional reverence of fan art and the game world's own parameters, such as those dealing with real-life death, pornography, and drugs. While only dubiously subversive, they nevertheless reflect a compelling phenomenon, one in which a more hermetic idea of "fantasy" as cordoned-off reality (seen in hardcore role playing) is being replaced by pseudo-fantasy genre games like WoW that spill over into the real world, and vice versa, through the homebrew manipulations of its multitudinous fan base.
Featured titles, among others, will include:
Rest in Peace Ignoramus
Amongst Fables and Men
Serenity Now
Drakedog's Suicide
Where Evil Grows
Welcome to Exploration (DOPEFISH)
Sex Junkie (French)
Broadcast Yourself (Gunter Soundtrack)
Wowsexual
Tribal Gnome
Stern will also be showing his recent video Best... Flame War... Ever... (King of Bards vs. Squire Rex, June 2004), which recreates an argument about degrees of expertise within the computer fantasy game Everquest, as followed by the artist in June 2004 on the Alkhazam online gaming message boards. Rendered in 3D animation at once elaborate and oblique, it serves as a spot-on ethnography for a particular slice of 21st century nerd culture and the thorny political terrain that surrounds it.

About Eddo Stern
Eddo Stern is an artist and game designer. He was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and lives in Los Angeles. He works on the disputed borderlands between fantasy and reality, exploring the uneasy and otherwise unconscious connections between physical existence and electronic simulation. His work explores new modes for narrative and documentary, experimental and multidisciplinary computer game design, and cross-cultural representation in new media. He is the founder of the now-retired art and technology cooperative C-level, where he designed and co-produced the experimental computer gaming projects Waco Resurrection, Tekken Torture Tournament, Cockfight Arena and LA MOOd. He is currently developing Darkgame, a sensory deprivation computer game. His work has been widely exhibited at international venues including the Tate Gallery Liverpool, the Walker Art Center, Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, E3, GDC, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the ICA London, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, ICC Tokyo, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

http://www.eddostern.com

Lotsa Hits

2008-03-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

The blog got a lot of hits based on Eric's posting of the Ring Rock Star spam.

These are the last 100 hits And here is the distribution.

swede your own

2008-03-05T19:38:00.000-08:00

http://www.deitch.com/projects/sub.php?projld=231&orient=v

Info on 700MHz Auction

2008-03-05T10:23:00.000-08:00

I fount this site on Engadget very informative (and relatively non-techy) for those of you who'd like to know more about the auction and what it means.

alana

Alternative Media UN Style

2008-03-05T08:58:00.000-08:00

i spent last week in nyc at the UN's 52nd session of the commission on the status of women. there was disappointingly little talk on media (and disappointing results when there was talk.) for instance, i attended a panel on financing the sex industry and sex workers which turned out to be, in large part, an attack of pornography with no concession to the possibilities of alternative feminist pornography or consensual, non-misogynistic representations of sexuality on screen.

but one of my favorite events was a screening of a documentary by two women producer/directors, Kathy and Becky Sangha called "Leading the Way to Peace," which follows the lives of 4 women peacemakers from various countries (including Sri Lanka and Guatemala) and their efforts in post-conflict/conflict environments. i had the chance to talk to the directors who have also produced a documentary through their production company, sun and moon vision, about LGBT middle school and high school students and have other projects in the works following 4 other women peacemakers as well as an updated doc. on LGBT students. pretty great stuff.

abra

DeeDee's Right: See Be Kind Rewind

2008-03-05T07:54:00.000-08:00

This is less of an informative post and more of a reactionary one, because I saw "Be Kind Rewind" yesterday. I would have loved the movie whether I was in Alternative Media or not, but in the context of this class it was even better. I felt like I was watching DeeDee's utopian vision for community media manifest, if Jack Black, Mos Def, Mia Farrow, and Danny Glover all lived in a small community together. I found it really surprising, but refreshing, to see a big-name film portraying a community having both more fun making their own versions of movies and finding a power and strength in that. I'm interested to see if this film produces a much more participatory and creative fan appreciation. So far I don't see a lot of people "sweding" movies themselves, but there is a "How to Swede" video on youtube done by Jack Black and Michel Gondry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5Rd8x4OJoY

-Lindsay

Archive Fever

2008-03-05T06:34:00.000-08:00

"Archive Fever," a current show at the International Center of Photography, includes "Front Page 9/12," a collection of 100 front page world newspapers from September 12, 2001. There is, in the caption on the wall identifying the artist as Hans-Peter Feldmann, from Dusseldorf, a phrase. Something to the effect of "revisiting not the event but its aftermath through its mediatized manifestations."

Better than all the 9/12 newspaper covers, whose purpose and critiques are hardly clear, is Harun Farocki’s and Andrei Ujica's Videograms of a Revolution -- "a montage drawn from 125 hours of amateur and professional archival video footage shot by journalists and ordinary people during the chaotic ten days of the Romanian Revolution in December 1990. The film not only refutes conventional models of media critique and theories of spectacle, it exploits the techniques of spectacle as a tool with which to construct a view of history."

- freddy

Spam/Solicitation in the future

2008-03-05T05:30:00.000-08:00

So, I remember a while back I had to text a number on my cell phone to ensure that I was put on a "no solicitation" list. I remember being completely in awe that corporations would even be allowed to do such a thing - cell phones are hyper-personal, more so than land line phones. I mean, my cell phone number essentially acts as my second Social Security number - a number assigned specifically to me. What right does anyone have to retrieve that information without my knowledge?

Well, lo and behold, a couple days ago I got a spam message - not on my cellphone, not via e-mail, but - through Facebook. I don't know if this new or not, but it's certainly the first I've heard of it. I got a message on my wall from one of my "friends" (someone who I have not talked to in years, which, in itself says quite a bit about Facebook) saying "Sure! I get my ringtones from www. RingRockstar .com". The correct capitalizations and punctuation are a dead give away that this person did not in fact write this message.

What's most detestable is the phantom approach - I got an e-mail saying THIS girl WROTE this on MY wall - not RingRockstar.com writing on my wall, but a "friend". How long before Facebook and other websites fall victim to these schemes?

Eric

Ribbons

2008-03-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

So we have started planning for Sexual Assault Awareness week in April and one of the programs we brought up was the white ribbon campaign. This made me think of how we use alternative media during this week to raise awareness about issues of sexual assault and violence. The white ribbon campaign (http://www.whiteribbon.ca/) is part of a national movement for men to end violence against women. The idea is to get guys wearing white ribbons in order to raise awareness about the issue of sexual violence. Though the campaign relies on the idea of heterosexual relationships and defines sexual assault as something that only happens to women, it is still interesting to think of white ribbons as a way of raising awareness about the issue. Something we also do during the week is have one in four people at Vassar wear yellow “1 in 4” shirts to symbolize the 1 in 4 women who get sexually assaulted by the time they graduate college. Again, shirts are being used as a powerful tool to raise awareness about sexual assault.

On a completely different note, this weekend I went to PS1 to see the WACK! exhibition and I really liked it. I think one of my favorite “pieces” was this installation of mattresses. I think the idea of the work was to “re-claim” mattresses, a place were women are violated and where sex workers work. It was very interesting…

Juliana

Adapting to New Technology/New Technology Adapting to Us

2008-03-04T21:04:00.000-08:00

I know that we have discussed the affects of the internet and new media on our society, but I have been thinking a lot lately about how we are adapting our habits and needs to new technology and how new technology is adapting itself to our needs and habits. A friend of mine from high school just recently had a baby and throughout the experience she was constantly updating her facebook profile and myspace page with very private information. A few days before she delivered her status on facebook was how dilated she was and the very next day after she had delivered she posted a photo album online. Among other things, some of the pictures included my friend in labor and the baby before it was cleaned off. I understand that with the ease and speed of the internet posting a photo album online is a much more efficient way to share the news and photos of the baby but I was still a little taken aback at how this very private and personal experience was being presented in such a public manner. Those are the types of pictures and the sort of information shared with close friends and relatives. Even with having a private profile on any of these sites there are always more people than intended who are able to access this private information. I found it very interesting how such an exciting but very intimate and private moment in a persons life was able to take on such a mediated and public feeling. This brought up some questions for me such as can the internet truly take the place of such an experience as sharing pictures with loved ones in person? Is the internet an aspect of new technology adapting to our ways? Or are we changing our habits and ways to adapt to new technology?

~Liz

YouTube/Video grabbing sites/programs

2008-03-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

Different Video Sites:

* YouTube
* Archive.org
* Google Videos
* Islamic Tube
* God Tube
* Jew Tube
* Hindu Tube
* East African Tube
* Native American Tube

etc...you get the point. The list goes on and on.

So you found your cool and interesting videos to curate. Now what? Well, there's:

YouTube Playlist

If you don't feel like dealing with downloading and editing YouTube videos, you can create a playlist in your YouTube account to organize a bunch of videos and play them all in order
You'll find this under Accounts (you must create one) --> Manage My Videos --> Videos, Favorites, and Playlists --> Create Playlist (on left side)
Once you've created a playlist, when you see a video you like, under the video click "add to playlists" and find the one you added
You can customize your playlist and play every video in sequence
You can also get an embed code if you want to upload the video sequence to the class blog

or (if you want to use videos not in YouTube and want to edit the videos)...

SnapzPro (takes a video screen shot of whatever you put the box around)

Download trial version (lasts 30 days) for Macs (sorry PC people!)

Open snapzpro in Applications OR hold down command (apple key) + shift + 3
click on 'movie'
make sure only thing checked is "Mac Audio Track"
If you want betterish quality, change the frames per second (fps) to 30 rather than 10
size the box around movie box (such as youtube video box)
double click in the box to start screen shot, invisible man says "Action!"
start playing your YouTube video (or other)
when finished, stop recording by holding down command + shift + 3 again (invisible man will say "CUT!")
find quicktime movie on desktop

SnapzPro is cool because it captures video clips from any video playing on your screen, from any site. It is also cool because it makes the movie into a quicktime file (.mov) rather than a flash video (.flv) which you would otherwise have to convert to .mov, so you can just open your file right away in a video editing program! There are instructions on the linked SnapzPro site too.

or

YouTube Video Grabber

This is also for Macs. You just download the program, open it, and paste the YouTube url into the place that says "youtube url" at the top
Click "get url"
At the bottom of the box look for where it says "convert to" and change to .MP4 (mpeg4 is slightly better than .mov but both work)
Change to 30 fps for better quality
Change video size to 640x480 (for better quality)
Click "convert FLV"

YouTube Video Grabber is nice because it both downloads YouTube videos AND converts them to a usable format all in one.

or

video download tool

Paste video url from YouTube
click "get video"
You will now have a .flv file, which you need to convert to .mov or .mp4 using the next program:

Convert .flv to .mov or .mp4

you don't need to download anything for this; just find your .flv file on your computer and choose 'flash video' from the 'input format' drop down menu
under 'output format' choose .mov or .mp4

These two tools are backups if youtube video grabber doesn't work, but it's two steps, which is sort of annoying. The plus side is that you don't have to download programs. There are hundreds of tools and programs such as these online and I just suggested these few.

PC users! Sorry! I'm sure there are lots of programs like these for PCs, so just google and look for them. I couldn't test any out because I don't have a PC. Anyone feel free to come to the Cloisters and use our computers with huge hard drives and download away!

After you have all your .mov or .mp4 files, you can import them into iMovie or Final Cut Pro. I'll post on basics of Final Cut Pro soon.

Hope this helps!

Let me know if you have questions/comments/additions. I work in the Media Cloisters:
Monday 3-5
Tuesday 2-5
Thursday 2-5
Friday 2-4

or email brkaplan@vassar.edu

-Brittany

Why Net Neutrality Matters

2008-03-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

This is from Mute Magazine:
by Saskia Sassen
Today the Internet is no longer what it was in the 1970s or 1980s; it has become a contested space with considerable possibilities for segmentation and privatisation. We cannot take its democratic potential as a given simply because of its interconnectivity. And we cannot take its 'seamlessness' as a given simply because of its technical properties. This is a particular moment in the history of digital networks, one when powerful corporate actors and high performance networks are strengthening the role of private digital space and altering the structure of public digital space. Digital space has emerged not simply as a means for communicating, but as a major new theatre for capital accumulation and transference. But civil society is also an increasingly energetic presence in cyberspace. The greater the diversity of cultures and groups, the better for this larger political and civic inhabitation of the Internet, and the more effective the resistance to the risk that the corporate world might set the standards. The Internet has emerged as a powerful medium for non-elites to communicate, support each other's struggles and create the equivalent of insider groups on levels ranging from the local to the global. We are seeing the formation of a whole new world of transnational political and civic projects.
Saskia Sassen is a professor at The University of Chicago. Her latest book is Globalisation and Its Discontents, New York: New Press, 1998

More on Seat-Warming: Analog Service Denial?

2008-03-04T06:37:00.000-08:00

February 28th, 2008 Comcast’s “seat-warming” execs can’t be trusted Posted by Robin Harris @ 7:19 am

Comcast hired dozens of “seat-warmers” that kept others from attending a Monday FCC hearing held at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society meeting room for an FCC hearing. God forbid that the public be seen at a hearing intended to solicit public comment. Then they lied about it.

According to an article in the Washington Post, Comcast acknowledged that it hired an unspecified number of people to fill seats, but said those people gave up their spots when Comcast employees arrived to take their places. Catherine Bracy, administrative manager of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, disputed that assertion, saying most of the three dozen seat-warmers . . . remained during the event’s opening hours, as many other people were turned away. “No employees came in to take those seats when the event started,” Bracy said. “Put the crack pipe down and take 2 steps back!” Nothing says confidence like hiring people to stack the audience.

Comcast justified its actions, saying "Comcast said it hired seat-holders only after the advocacy group Free Press urged its backers to attend. ...For the past week, the Free Press has engaged in a much more extensive campaign to lobby people to attend the hearing on its behalf,” the company said in a written statement. You haven’t heard of the powerful lobbying group Free Press? Me neither. But they have Comcast shaking in fear. And taking stupid pills by the fistful. Trust Comcast to regulate the Internet? They can’t manage the PR for a public hearing let alone the Internet.
Morons.

The Storage Bits take
Net neutrality means the telcos are common carriers who are not allowed to discriminate against some users. The principle goes back over 150 years to the early days of telegraphy. That this principle is even being debated is a tribute to the power of the telcos and their “seat-warmers” in Congress and the FCC. Comcast can’t be trusted and neither should any other telco.

Robin Harris has been selling and marketing data storage for over 20 years in companies large and small. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

Net Neutrality

2008-02-29T22:02:00.000-08:00

Interesting article from Newsweek about an FCC hearing and Net Neutrality:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/117068

~julia

site for digital conversion

2008-02-28T06:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.squared5.com/
if you download their software and put it in your application folder, you can convert DVDs to very good digital files for editing or making slide shows.

another useful site is Video Lan Controller http://www.videolan.org/
This is very good for converting PAL files (European standard video) into NTSC (US/Japanese standard). If I ever have a DVD I can't open, I find that opening with VLC always works.
DeeDee

Zillatube

2008-02-27T12:25:00.000-08:00

So, like I was saying in class, at zillatube.com, there's a program that you can download to convert files downloaded from Youtube so that you can save them onto a hard drive or dvd. It only supports Windows, but as Brittany mentioned, you can do the same thing using some of the programs available at the media cloisters.

-Laura

Learning To Love You More

2008-02-27T01:44:00.000-08:00

Asher's post about Things I Will Mail You reminded me of a project I stumbled upon a year or two ago called Learning To Love You More.

"Learning to Love You More is both a web site and series of non-web presentations comprised of work made by the general public in response to assignments given by artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher. Participants accept an assignment, complete it by following the simple but specific instructions, send in the required report (photograph, text, video, etc), and see their work posted on-line. Like a recipe, meditation practice, or familiar song, the prescriptive nature of these assignments is intended to guide people towards their own experience."

What drew me to the site/project was its interactive nature, that it went beyond people communicating online. Because of the site, people actually went out and did something and those somethings contribute to the further development of the site. Like Things I Will Mail You, easier ones (like draw a constellation from someone's freckles) have more completed assignments but all of the ones I've checked have some reports.

The most recent assignment involves Democracy Now:
Go to http://www.democracynow.org/streampage.pl and watch the current show. When the segment is over, choose someone from the news who made an impression on you. Imagine that you are them, and act out a moment of their day today. Choose an ordinary moment, one without dialogue, when they are alone - maybe the moment after they hang up the phone, or before they go to sleep. It doesn't matter what they are doing, only that you try to feel what it feels like to be them today, given what you know about their life right now. Take a picture of this moment, with the help of a self-timer or a friend. Don't bother dressing up like them, don't worry if you aren't the same race or gender as them. (And don't choose going to the bathroom, everyone else will do that.) Send the caption for the photo in an email - it should include the relevant news, for example: Monday, August 13, 2007: After Resigning as Presidential Advisor, Carl Rove Looks into The Refrigerator

Here's one of the reports:
Daniel Post
Los Angeles, California USA

Wednesday, January 9, 2008: After lending his support to candidate John Edwards on stage in New Hampshire, Desperate Housewives star James Denton reads the label of his new facial cleanser.

- Allison