So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

I think there is something to be said about the more basic assignments in this course. I love how tidy the visual argument is, and I still think my visual essay is the most impacting. Why? Maybe it’s because they’re right there, when you want them; there’s no loading or listening or waiting involved. They’re brief and immediate. You can’t undervalue qualities like that in society today.

That being said, I made three videos on Adobe Premiere. Three times I slaved over volume settings and cutting at the exact right moment. Three times I rendered and exported. Each time it irritated me. But at the end, there I’ve got three videos of varying quality and a much firmer grasp on a new platform. The fact that those pieces manage to tell any story at all is a miracle to me, let alone that my favorite piece of the entire course came out of that program (check out my remix!!).

I think each of these assignments pushed me to try and find a new way to tell the story, not only through the medium, but the content as well. In particular, the remix pushed me because I could not go out and craft the raw footage to meet my needs. It was the hardest, conceptually, of all the projects, but also possibly one of the most rewarding to make.

The overall effect of my project? Well, I hope it tells the story I want it to tell. And I hope viewers of my site come away with a changed view on an often overlooked aspect of life at Pitt. Here are six ways to view something. Hopefully people are taking those new perspectives and incorporating them into their own world-understanding.

One thing I wish I could’ve done more of is individual reportage. I wish I could’ve gotten more one-on-one moments, or even contributions from ESL students. For example, I read a beautiful essay about eastern and western fathers, and their ways of showing affection. I wish I could post things like that from within Pitt’s community. Looking forward, if I were going to expand this project, that is one direction I would go in.

Another aspect I find lacking in this project is an overall narrative to tie these individual pieces together. I would like to write a feature-length article about this project and the people involved. There were many people that worked with me briefly on this project and then never heard from me again. If I wrote this article, I would go back through my notes carefully and reconnect with the ESL students who helped me bring this project to life, and I would work toward expressing their viewpoints more thoroughly. As a writer for the Original magazine, that is, in fact, what I hope to do. So look forward to that, coming Spring 2013! Until then, thanks for tuning in. -KateMilty

“Originality” is a word the Internet does not understand well. Take for example, memes. They are the most obvious clash of Internet and creativity, and yet they enthrall us. They are funny and original pairings of seemingly unfunny things. Two of my favorites? Well one of them is the recent “doge”, which is so stupid that it almost has to be funny (think “Catdog” from the late 90s). Then there’s the more controversial “Hitler Reacts” meme. Here you can see Hitler reacting to Miley Cyrus. The obvious objections aside, (“Oh my god, are they making light of Nazism and Hitler?!” Of course they are, this is the Internet.) the “Hitler Reacts” meme drew ire from the studio responsible for the clip’s origin. The scene is taken from a 2004 film called Downfall that chronicles the final days of Hitler’s regime. According to Know Your Meme, the director found the parodies to be innovative, but the producer was displeased. What followed was a large wave of takedowns; however the video has made a comeback as the initial “take down” fever died down.

Now, why do I tell you this? I went to such great lengths to explore meme culture in order to support my next point which is: the Internet is a basically unbounded playground where the smartest and fastest can get away with whatever they want. While this idea is, basically, terrifying, it is also liberating. Another important point: the Internet is so huge that most creations, remixes and blatant pirates of other creations can be uploaded with relative anonymity. Of course, as we saw with the Hitler Reacts videos, this freedom can be thwarted, but like a hydra, the Internet community will often spring back with even more creative approaches to dispensing the same information.

Of course, this is all mostly illegal. Think of the Internet as the Wild West. Of course there are rules, but until someone is enforcing those rules, there are a lot of people who are not going to follow them. Now I come to my interpretation of “The Database and the Essay”, an article by Johndan Johnson-Eilola. In the piece, he writes about the current post-modern state of the essay as capitalistic commodity. In our post-modern society of fragmentation, writers have known for a long time that the traditional narrative is fragmented; yet they were seemingly blindsided by the post-modern capitalist response of charging by the chapter or the piece. As technology increases, the specificity and reach of capitalism also increases. Of course, so does the reach of Internet mad geniuses. It will always be a game of cat and mouse with the mad geniuses at the front and the lawmakers and money mongers chasing behind. Of course, for those who use the Internet lawfully, this makes for a much less exciting and interesting playground. Then there are the people who use the Internet within the law and get in trouble anyway [See: Aaron Swartz].

So, I think in conclusion to this rambling post, the best way to deal with the Internet is to always play it respectful to the people who created it first, but don’t be afraid to take chances, play around and innovate. I’m talking about small potatoes here, like making a meme about Hitler reacting to the VMA’s. Of course that’s not a big deal. If someone gets upset, you take it down. Going up the scale of offenses, take a look at the controversy over Danger Mouse’s Grey Album. He was a prominent figure doing an unauthorized remix of another prominent figure (figure here meaning The Beatles), and he got shut down. Not only was he shut down, but he had to issue an apology for it all. On the dire end of the spectrum is Aaron Swartz, a man who believed in the freedom of the Internet and was personally attacked for this belief. And then there is Anonymous, a group of terrifyingly unknown proportions, like cyber-pirates that stalk the high seas of… the inter-webs? Anyway.

How does all this apply to my Untold History? Well, so far it doesn’t. No one has asked me to take things down. No one has been upset about the things I have borrowed (with citations!). Speaking of untold histories, though, get ready for my new Welcome to English website. It’s right around the corner!

“Accents”: An Audio Documentary

In the audio documentary below, I wanted to tell the speakers’ stories, but I couldn’t just have them talking for a long time, rambling on while I stuttered out my questions in between. To fix this problem, I went back to my knowledge of print interviews. When writing a print interview, I cut and reorder segments of what the speaker said so that I can tell a linear story in their own words. Then I glue it all together with pieces of my own commentary.

However, in the audio piece, I did not use much of my own commentary between segments. This is where music came in to play. The inspiration behind the music formatting of my audio documentary was the radio show This American Life. In TAL, music is used to fill the gaps between thoughts, to give listeners pause, and for drama. The music also gives a piece some of its linearity and helps the progression of the piece. Going off examples from TAL, I took to the Internet in search of free background music.

There is a website called the Free Music Archive, and it is awesome. Here I found more free music than I could possibly listen to. Now I needed criteria for choosing the correct music for this piece. I wanted something light, with a driving rhythmic beat and a fairly repetitive melody. In choosing background music, you don’t want to pick something too “interesting”. What makes good background music for a video or an audio segment does not necessarily make good listening music, and vice versa. The rhythm and repetitive melody come in handy when making an audio piece because segments can be copied and inserted at varying points throughout the piece. If you listen closely, you’ll see this effect at work in my audio documentary [I am sly audio guru ;)]. Eventually, I wound up choosing the track “Happiness Is” by the artist Podington Bear. As all of the music on the Free Music Archive is, as the name suggests, free, I assumed that all of the artists therein were posting their music and beats for free with the hopes of getting exposure through the creative works of others as a means to commercial success. After reading more about Podington Bear, however, I learned just how naive and cynically capitalistic I was! This guy is a record executive at a small label out of Portland, and he was publishing his music under the identity of Podington Bear just for the fun of it. He became so popular that the story of the bear was covered by many outlets including Morning Edition and Wired.com. And of course, he was so successful that he got picked up by Google, This American Life, and NPR to do work. Did I mention This American Life? Is my ear spot-on or what?

Anyway, another important aspect of this audio documentary is the introductory commentary. I thought it was a good way to begin the piece when I first started out, but in retrospect, I think I could have served the piece better with a different introduction. While the research study that I chose to start the piece helped me find a way into the segment, I think it did not, in the end, really serve the goals of the piece, which were to simply explore the experiences of someone with an accent at Pitt.

As my untold history has unfolded, I have repeated the same themes of alienation and disconnect; however, as this piece shows, not all ESL students necessarily embody those themes. While Jorge and Anna struggle with their non-native tongue, they have found ways to be successful and happy in the United States. I know both from personal experience and they are very engaging and interesting people. I think this is an interesting side of the story, a side that I had been avoiding because I was so much more interested in covering the story from the perspective of the alienated and alone student.

Of course, in all of this, another question arises: Am I getting the full story when I interview these students? Who wants to admit they are sad or alone or feeling out of place? Especially the ESL student, a student who has gone to extraordinary effort to be here. I think this is an interesting question to keep asking throughout, and it is a question that I started with in my visual essay. How do students go about having a “normal” life while dealing with the nagging uncertainty of whether or not they actually “belong” where they have chosen to go. The untold story continues…

Take a listen to my audio documentary and post your reactions and thoughts in the comment section.

https://soundcloud.com/kmiltenberger/audio-documentary-accents

Visual Argumentation as Argued by Blair [and Myself]

Blair, in his essay entitled “The Possibility and Actuality of Visual Arguments”, states that “for something to count as an argument, we have to be able to say what the claim is and what the reasons are, and we have to be able to say so clearly enough that the claims or reasons can be accepted or rejected.”

The take-away I got from this definition is that a visual argument consists of more than one image, because it must convey both the claim and the reasons. Or perhaps one image with multiple focal points would also serve this purpose.

I think a visual argument can be used just as effectively as a written argument to compel a viewer to action. In fact, visual arguments can be more effective; for example, short documentaries [MM1] can create visual arguments that compel viewers to develop specific opinions. Even briefer, take this single image [MM2] as a visual argument.

A visual argument in a single image may struggle to establish both premises and resultant claims; however a complete visual argument can be established in a series of images. It can compel the reader forward by establishing undeniable links between the images to create a narrative argument that flows from one image forward to the next.

In comparison to a visual essay, the visual argument is should present images that create a tied together and complete argument. In my initial visual essay (as yet to be posted, do hold on to your horses, dear reader), the photographs posted were not linked together; they rely on the text to connect them. To really pull off a “visual argument”, rather than just a verbal argument supported by visual elements, the piece would need to establish the premise and reasons visually, not verbally.

 

Looking Forward: My visual essay will soon arrive, followed quickly by my visual argument! Get excited!

 

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 [MM1]http://www.midwayfilm.com

 [MM2]http://americablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/abatross-midway-atoll.jpg

Modern Musings on Intermedia and “What It All Means”

Found this while bouncing around the intertubes researching “intermedia”.
Reposted from http://www.hollypester.com

PREFACE: Just some more digital noise, hyperlinked up to 11 for your theoretically joyful consumption. (But really, pardon all the links.)

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In Dick Higgins’ Statement on Intermedia [MM1] from 1966, he made the assertion that the focus of art should shift from discovering new “forms” of media to discovering how to use the forms we have at our disposal.

“Having discovered tools with an immediate impact, for what are we going to use them?” he asks.

If you want to read the full statement, check it out here. Otherwise, see my simplified main points below:

Paragraph 1:

• Art is a means of communication, not an attack on other forms of communication.
• Our enemies are those who send us to die in wars and force us into lives of drudgery.

Paragraph 2:

• Our sensitivities to art have changed as a result of the mass literacy movement and the advent of the television/radio.
• We ask for a new way to look at things in light of these developments. We are anxious to get to the basics of images.

Paragraph 3:

• Psychedelics may accelerate this process, but will probably not change anything.

Paragraph 4:

• In the last ten years, artists have changed their medias; traditional media has broken down. Enter “intermedia”.
• INTERMEDIA: works that transcend traditional definitions of a single type of media; for example, a work is “basically musical, but also poetry”. (INSERT PHOTO OF INTERMEDIA CHART)[MM2]

Paragraph 5:

• Now that we have intermedia, how do we use it and what do we use it for?
  • “Could it be that the central problem of the next ten years or so, for all artists in all possible forms, is going to be less the still further discovery of new media and intermedia, but of the new discovery of ways to use what we care about both appropriately and explicitly?”
  • “We must find the ways to say what has to be said in the light of our new means of communicating.”

The Fluxus art project was responding to the onslaught of new media options by capturing moments of “flow” in time. The Fluxus boxes were fragmented collections of “everyday” and “found” art, like a physical representation of an artist’s journal.

Today, the “craftsmanly” [MM3] turn of our culture can be seen as a magnified return to the basics of media. Craftspeople of our modern era return to craft-works as a way of pulling away from hyper-refined digital minimalism so popular in today’s culture (See here[MM4] , even the digital aesthetic has become minimalized). Craft works, on the other hand, emphasize the experience of the making rather than the outcome. Outcomes are tangible, physical, often roughhewn and practical.

Are these two movements linked? And what would an updated Statement on Intermedia look like today?

Here’s my take:

1. Art is still a means of communication, but our means of communication have exploded since 1966; so our options for discussing art have also grown. Today the Internet and digital communications dominate these communication pathways. [What would a Fluxus box look like if comprised only of Facebook fragments?]
2. The “enemies” have changed; now more prevalent than ever is the idea of manipulation. Think of digital media exposure as a means of rough-hewn mind-control. Depending on the feeds we buy into, we are essentially “consuming” a certain line of “truth”. What is real truth? No one’s really sure. Too paranoid for you? Too bad. Check out that NSA stuff [MM5] .
3. Some artists today fight against that manipulation by highlighting it:
   1. Banksy[MM6]
4. On the other hand, artists are being used as “tools” for gentrification, paving the way in rough neighborhoods for future gentrifiers[MM7]
5. 1. Is art still used to make a point? Does art have “a point”?
      1. See again, Banksy.
   2. Is art cheapened by the Internet? Does accessibility make art mean less? What about “re-posting”. Is an image cheapened by how often it reappears on Tumblr/Pinterest?
   3. 1. Can blogs be a vehicle for true art? Can a blog be a piece of art in and of itself?
6. While psychedelic drugs play a minimal role in today’s art scene (except, arguably the music scene), our culture has become addicted to addiction and the drug mythos (drug as plot device, drug as turning point, drug as topic of critique, drug as source of inspiration).
7. Intermedial forms have given way to fragmentation (see collage, remixing, sampling, Girl Talk[MM8] ).
8. At the end of the day, there is more “derivative art”, as in aesthetically pleasing items that do not do much of anything. But there is still new art being made that critiques and explores. Intermedia lives on! (See Banksy, [again, for the umpteenth time]; the perfect blend of art, socio-political commentary, and delinquency).

CONCLUSION: But then, what does it really matter? Perhaps we’ll all just throw away our computers and forget this whole thing ever happened. Or not. Either way, art and technology (aka. media) will continue to evolve, and new forms of “intermedia” will continue to emerge, and some artists will find ways to “fight against the ‘enemy’” using these new forms of media and intermedial approaches.

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 [MM1]http://artpool.hu/Fluxus/Higgins/intermedia2.html

 [MM2]http://www.hollypester.com/uploads/intermediachart.jpg

 [MM3]http://craigmod.com/journal/digital_physical/#fn-3

 [MM4]http://technoheads.org/2013/06/dont-just-make-things-flat/

 [MM5]http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/leaks-by-edward-snowden-suggest-nsa-collects-millions-of-americans-address-books/2013/10/15/ce043b56-359f-11e3-be86-6aeaa439845b_story.html

 [MM6]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy

 [MM7]http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/10/are_artists_to_blame_for_gentrification_or_would_soho_chelsea_and_bushwick.html

 [MM8]http://illegal-art.net/girltalk/

Social Mediatization

After some consideration, I decided to link my WordPress to my public Twitter feed and my public Instagram. These now appear as widgets on the sidebar of my blog. I’ll be very forthright: I’m not sure that I totally understand how to use this web tool. WordPress seems made for people who’s technological interests go beyond mine. For instance, I find myself disappointed by the the Twitter widget which appears cut off and confusing on my blog page, but I don’t know how to fix it.

However, in it’s new form, my WordPress has become more interactive and connected. It now no longer participates solely in the void of itself. It has become socially media-tized, one might say.

In terms of mise-en-page, or in lay terms “page layout”, I’m not all that sure that much has changed. This is an evolving project and an evolving effort to apply the concepts our class discusses with the technology at hand. So here’s my warning: This WordPress is about to start evolving. It’s gonna get weird, it’ll probably be ugly for a while. Hopefully it will emerge as a pretty butterfly when this is all said and done.

Nest step: design a master page. I personally dislike “welcome” pages, or master pages. I prefer a header that gives you all you need and then get’s you right to the information. So, I don’t know that I’m going to make a master page. I think I might just try to engage you, dear reader, with my heading. As of now, that just means some words, but maybe sometime soon it could be more than that. I imagine something clean, lots of lines and geometric shapes and an image. Look forward to that, dear reader.

 

UPDATE 10/17/13: As the semester has evolved, so has this blog. I now have a new header image (all my own!). I took this shot of my friend’s dog just as he was getting up to move. I think it basically sums up the feel of the blog: it is half-formed, theoretical and in constant motion. The unsettled nature of the dog reflects my own unsettled feelings about this whole blogging process. I can’t help returning to the idea that this will be here forever. Makes me want to scurry away like this here dog-fellow.

Bunnies Ball So Hard: Juxtaposing Imagery and Text in Blogging

This is an image of a bunny rabbit mid-jump with a famous rap quote attached to it. In combination, the hope was to create a faux-inspirational image.

I relied on tropes I have found in the inspirational image world to help with this. For example, I used a “serious” font aka. a font with serifs. I also attached an ellipsis which here provides a sort of unfinished feeling to the quote. As if it were more of a philosophical assertion rather than a rap lyric. In addition, the photographic effects connote a serious image: it is black-and-white, the image has a soft-focus around the edges. The desaturation and plain background make the rabbit’s motion become the focal point. I considered other photographs of rabbits jumping, but many featured the rabbits in nature, which I found distracting. The desaturation also created a serious tone which I found favorable for the quote.

There is humor in this juxtaposition. The bunny picture is at once serious and charming. The quote is somewhat of a non sequitur to the image. However, I am relying on cultural awareness to connect the two. Biggie often raps about the ghetto and gangster-life. This image of the rabbit jumping is pure absurdity in this context, yet the rabbit is jumping and this quote references jumping. Therefore, this rabbit has a chance of escaping the ghetto. BAM. Motivation.

Without the rabbit, this text is a part of a lyric to a good song. Without the text, this image of a rabbit is just visually interesting. Together they create quasi-inspiration and humor.

—

In the wider context of the internet, this image parodies an idea of juxtaposition that I find frequently in the blog world. Frequently, blog posts and articles will pair a non-sequitur image with a text. One of my favorite websites, the Atlantic, is infamous (at least in my mind) for this habit. In fact, I even do this on my own blog (twice!).

Why do blogs post random pictures with their texts? Because people like pictures. Viewers/readers want something to look at, even if that something doesn’t really matter to the content of the post. This picture of the two women being driven around in a rickshaw is visually stunning but has absolutely nothing to do with the story, which is about language as a means of predicting people’s ability to plan for the future (aside from the possibility that the two women are literally/physically hurtling into their future[?]).

Anyway, my image with the bunny and the rap lyric just shows this idea at its most absurd extension. Yes, the rabbit is jumping, and yes, Biggie raps about jumping, but contextually, the two have absolutely nothing in common. People like images though, so an arresting image is worth attaching to an okay text. Though, I’m not saying that Biggie’s lyrics are just okay. They’re legendary.