ksmart’s blog

These are my storyboards based on an Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime Story.

In the week leading up to class, I was sketching out a story about some men and women getting ready for a dance. But I was getting tired of these drawings and the story didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Sam suggested I do an Aboriginal Dreamtime Story, which seemed like a great idea! So I then spent time trying to figure out which one I should do! I thought this one, with the Emu and the Brolga would be interesting to animate and loved the image of the egg cracking over firewood in the sky (????) .

Response to Reading: 

Here’s the sound file that Rodrigo and I put together.  We both collected clips and then came together to start editing. Except I forgot mine! So I started editing Rodrigo’s clips recorded from our ITP buds’ laughter! I found myself more intersted in the actual dialogue that occured while trying to get people to laugh so I worked with that too. I put everything into Audacity and moved clips around and also set a beat downloaded from an internet site. Then I sent all this to Rodrigo so he could add his own edited files to mine. Have a listen…and a laugh!

 http://itp.nyu.edu/~rd989/files/soundLab.mp3

Week 1 (feed me!)

Week2 (click mouse, plenty of food!)

Week 2: dynamic

Week 2: Pairs

Week 3: With Class

Week 3: Buddahs under Spotlight

Week 4: Fishie Sonar (click mouse to activate)

Week 6: Fishie Swims On (to be used with serial)

Midterm: Poems and Images (make sure sound is up)

Response to Reading: Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan

It seems any particular media can only be assessed when scrutinized within the whole scope of the culture from which it is emerging. Take his example of Russia (p.27) and how even types of dances become “acceptable” as the politics and culture change. Further, I found his reference Margaret Mead’s ideas also worth exploring.

It’s intersting to consider hot and cold media; although, I am still curious as to why speech is cold. There seems to be constant interplay between hot and cold media. The example of Calvin Coolidge (p.29) and his aloofness and the newspapers’ subsequent response to his lack of image was a prime example of this constant battle to balance both hot and cold. I feel we always do this, even in the smallest of gestures.

Curious to consider McLuhan’s comment in reference to today’s age: Anybody will concede that society whose economy is dependent upon one or two major staples like cotton, or grain, or lumber, or fish, or cattle is going to have some obvious social patterns of organizaion as a result. (p. 21) Haven’t we acheived some sort of organization with our contstant stream of media?

I want to come back to this later, as I feel I have more to say, but really, one personal response to this text was just to look up everything/everyone McLuhan referenced: this helped give a better picture to the work as a whole.

Response to Reading: Shirky vs. McCloud, Re: Micropayments

First of all, it’s funny reading two articles by people to whom you already have a connection. Clay we see almost everyday on the floor and listened to him speak in Red’s class a few weeks ago. And of course we fell in love with Scott’s caricature as we all read Understanding Comics last month. So here they are, battling it out over micropayments, an expression I’ve never before heard.

To be honest, besides buying music, the only other time I consider buying for-fee content online is when I want to continue reading an article or look up something in an online publication of a newspaper. And I never do this; I’ll look up a free article on the subject or, as in the case when I was doing research for an article I was writing on political profiles, I used a friend’s account. But I’m probably going against the general movement of wanting everything to be accessible online. I would never pay to read a book online: I would want it physically to be in my hand. Maybe I would pay for a single recipe in a cookbook, but I would probably go call Mom instead.

I completely understand Scott McCloud’s point in preserving intellectual copyright by implementing a system where the artist still gets something for his her work. And where I agree with Clay about the delimma has become fame vs. fortune, I don’t think he really gives an alternative to micropayments. He just says, artists now have to make that choice.

BitPass did shut down last January, otherwise, I probably would have created an account. But it seems as though others like it still exist or will exist in another form in the future. It’s hard to form an opinion without actually going through the process of a micropayment system myself. I look up different poets all the time but I wouldn’t want to pay 50 cents to view a poem everytime. However, I can understand how Scott McCloud would want to charge everytime someone wants to view his comics (but I don’t think I would pay this).

I certainly think the “mental transaction costs” which Shirky speaks about (p. 2) is poignent to the issue, but in the end, I think it’s up to the creator to charge what they want for their content and the user to make the choice whether or not to buy it. If the “mental transaction cost” is enough to deflect an interested party, no matter what the price is, then ultimately, that comes down to the individual and the decisions they make every single day.

Just thought I would include these links to New York Times articles published today:

NY Times Article

and

NY Times Article 2