ME

New Project for English 240

Prezi Slideshow

The link to my Prezi !

DIY Definition

DIY was something that I was always aware of but never really took the time to fully understand. Before this class DIY was mostly a phrase that I linked to anything that I “ did by myself”. Mentally, I never really put the label of DIY on my creative process. My DIY definition involves the description of a process that is always evolving, not only is the process in which we make craft evolving but our perceptions of how we go about doing it and viewing it as well. DIY means different things for different people. There are many sociocultural aspects when it comes to understanding the movement as a whole. There are many ways DIY craft is interpreted and how everyone should benefit from the movement.  I feel as though one of the key aspects of DIY are the perceptions of what art are and where they originated from. In the Atwill readings the concept of “techne” is explained. To me techne IS art, craftsmanship and a cornerstone in explaining DIY craft. DIY craft is a form of art and techne that creates a path that both transgresses and redefines a boundary. A techne or craft is never one tangible “thing”. It can be described as a power, an ideology that guides, a strategy, a cunningly conceived plan, a coincidence, a painting, an installation (the list literally can go on). Techne resists the ideology of what normal is and often can be seen as in a stage to transformation. It can be perceived as good or evil, dull or bright, brilliant  of genius, or even mediocre.(48) Techne marks intervention and invention, and may spark a conflict or end a transgression. Fate and necessity may set temporary limits for invention of craft, but the boundaries are perpetually redrawn by creation of the craft itself. An equally important part of understanding DIY craft is the role it plays in a world dominated by corporate consumerism.  Karl Marx and William Morris took turns establishing the difference between man and machine in order to help define the meaning of DIY in this world better. It is important to understand them as separate entities at first to understand them as whole, especially as technology and traditional DIY craft becomes blended. Terkel and Jackson exemplify this meaning even more when it comes down to explaining what a pro-amateur is . DIY can be a difficult art and craft to fit in to the consumer world, especially when it comes down to today’s store competition, yet it is Morris and Marx that encouraged unification in order to keep the handcraft strong. The Crafters Manifesto, groups like stitch n bitch and the art of craftivism both promote unity and strength of DIY culture. In order to preserve the ideology of DIY one needs to also understand the blend of aspects between technology and the handicraft. As we evolve we must change our perceptions of what DIY is even if that means including a non traditional form of handicraft such as the digital arts. Blending both digital arts and handicrafts and seeing how they influence each other can be beneficial both to the classroom and to the individual. Understanding both will help individuals cross transcultural boundaries, as well as justice and gender boundaries. Overall, Providing a welcoming attitude for the future of DIY will help us find a balance between both worlds so the benefits can be shared by all. DIY can allow a whole new aspect for teaching, as well as understanding the world around us and in the end create unity on a multi level plane for the teacher, student, artist, and entrepreneur.

Guzetti, Elliot, Welsh and Balsamo/Anderson

Guzetti, Elliot and Welsh are instructors who work int he field of online resources, social media, and digtial learning. Despite children growing up in digital generation where ther are there own creators, todays teachers have not. Teachers should care about DIY media to engage and interest their pupils. In addition teachers will need will beneift by learning from there students whenit comes ot technology, “By allowing students to teach their teachers and peers these new literacies, educator can capitalize on students' strengths and acknowledge individuals as capable and articulate people who can inform others (3)”. Teachers will benefit by staying up to date, current views and innovations.Teachers who incorporate new media into their instruction in ways like these tend to realize that those who engage in DIY media practices are learning unique new literacy skills and abilities. (3) Bringing DIY to the classroom allows for children who suffer form economic hardship the ability to interact with new technology. Generally when it comes down to DIY digital cultures there are many bridges that still need to be joined,  both socioeconomic and gender related, at the same there are may new technology hubs such as public libraries, community technoogy centers, and after-school programs working to conjoin these gaps. By becoming familiar with and recognizing the importance of adolescents' DIY media, teachers can acknowledge their students as articulate and capable young people who have myriad ways of demonstrating their literate abilities (10)”.

The authors of the second article Anderson/Balsamo, are individuals that are connected in cinematic arts and divisions of interactive media. Their main argument is how media is going to be in the future. I think predicting that 2020 will be similar to the story written is not realistic but with the rate at which technology is exapnding I wouldn’t be surprised if this was correct. Personally I have always reserved Digital DIY for recreational at-home purposes and rarely have seen it in the classroom, as far as my college experience has gone. DIY has laregely been reserved as a part of my recreational/personal life and not so much my school life. I can breifly remember in elementary school taking computer classes as a requirement but that was in the age of floppy disks. I can also reacall basic typing classes being taught which I find as a benefit today. Overall my middle/elementary school was a poor one, with very little “new” technology interaction. As for high school I went to Milwaukee High School of the Arts, even there, there was very little digital intergration yet there was a large emphasis on creating with the minds and the hands, so more traditional DIY craft. This course has by far been the most hybrid version of digitial and traditonal DIY craft. I can’t recall any of other college classes integrating technology like this one has. Most of the integration has been left up to me, for example: typing notes/papers for class or participating recreationally through facebook etc. Alot of my professors allow students to access various resources online through D2L, as well as post answers and online discussions. Overall, technology has been used as a tool of convenience but not for learning or creativity in most of my classes.

Edupunk !

Edupunk is education with a Punk DIY attitude. Edu-punkers are individuals who are taking a punky anti conformist approach to education through the internet. Edu-punkers are a variety of individuals but mostly younger ummm "college" aged kids. Their goal is to open up the world to a new educational approach that allows EVERYONE to learn. People of the edu-punk community take a non traditional approach to work and believe the academic models of hard work, discipline, and highly structured learning need to evolve. This can be done and encouraged through online learning and communal participtation. Edu- punkers encourage the development of the community through group participation. "If an individual’s idea of adventure and discovery could be formulated into a game or mutually agreed fun thing, it becomes a communal effort." Overall the heart of our group is in finding social activities that are mutually appreciated and fun, and aims to rekindle the fire of the discovery we once had a younger age.

Questions: I would like to know how the edu punk theory would be beneficial to children in early developing stages, as well as current baby boomers who are learning new technologies.

The New London Group

The New London Group is a team of ten academics that were concerned about how literacy pedagogy might address the changes of literacy due to rapid globalization. This group believes that with the progression of civilization and diversity, the world of language and communication should be view more broadly. They seek to create this new literacy and impliment it to the classroom setting. 

Ito and Lessig

       According to the opening of her new blog, Mimo Ito is a cultutral anthropologist that studies new media use through younger people, especially in Japan.
The author of amateur media production invites us to look at amateur media as an essential sociocultural learning tool. She encourages the reader to let go of the ideology that amateur is bad and as an essential for cultural production. Amateur media production is distinctive cultural domain characterized by an ethic of peer-to-peer appropriation and experimentation that differs fundamentally from more professionalized forms of media production (itofisher.com).  In this day and age the study of amateur media cannot be ignored as we are encouraged by various social networking site, blogs, and media to be individual creators.Three key things focus around amatuer media production innovation, reputation, and participation. Ito states that amateur media is coming in to the limelight and even surpassing the importance of commercial media. The video for “Code Monkey”, was exa,ple of how someone who is percieved as amateur can use innovation, participation, and reputation to gain pro-status in the world of digital media. The role of the collaboration plays a big part in promoting amateur media artists becasue the fans fuel the artists and the artists fuel the fans. Collaboration and innovation combined with humor and imitation seem to off set a large number of social media changes that inspire and keep the amateur visions alive and growing.

Overall Mimo Ito sums it up best with this paragraph, “ The AMV scene is an example of a creative community that has been highly successful in recruiting a very broad base of young creators into video editing practices, keeping barriers to entry low and the pleasure of creation high. At the same time, the community has developed ways of highlighting and celebrating the work of those who have the commitment and skills to develop exceptional work. Although participants in the scene experience tension between the more "common" and "elite" forms of participation in the AMV scene, both are integrally related and synergistic. The health of the AMV scene as a thriving amateur, non-commercial, and networked creative practice is predicated on the diversity and hierarchies that have evolved over the years” .

Lessig

 Lawrence Lessig is a well-pronounced academic that has ahd the honors of teaching and studying in various departments at Stanford and HArvard Univerities.For much of his academic career, Lessig has focused on law and technology, especially as it affects copyright. He is the author of five books on the subject, including the one for the Introduction, Remix.
In the beginning of this article Lessig introduces a woman by the name of Stephanie Lenx, who like many of us, taped a video of her baby dancing to prince and posted to youtube.com for her relatives to view. Univeral Records, the owner of the rights to Prince’s music retaliated against youtube stating lenz violated the right sof the company and should pay. Lessig goes to point out the ironic and paradoxical train of thought that a multi million dollar company would be after an innnocent women playing an innocent part in the social media when in fact the lawsuit they were creating costed them more moeny then what they were suing her for. Overall I feel as  though lessig was trying to point out that corporate amaeirca is irrational and being wuite destructive and hypocritical, to an innocent and innovative participant of social culture. Lessig goes on to describe a gallery by the name of, “White Cube”, in London where T.V.’s filled with normal people singing John Lennon’s Solo’s were played back to back. A female artist artist with the last name of Brietz was respondsible for the works. The focus of th work was nto so much a tribute to Lennon but a tribute to the lives of the people he touched, since they were the star of the show. The core meaning of the exhibit was to focus on what happens after the distirbution process of such media processes sucha s music. However, like Lenz, Brietz faced a laerge legal battle to get the right to have ordinary people use pre claimed corporate media. I find this ironic becuase half these legal battles don’t have anythign to with the artists wishes but the corporate greed and control the record executives wish to have on social media. Lessig conveys that the blend of free media and culture have the potential to become something great for everyone. However it is industiry that is resisting this creative revolution by making erroneous claims about about money and rights, just to keep the ball in their court and not in the peoples. Jsut like the people have become interavtice in blending thses medias the record companies to become involved witht he remix culture, not oppose it aand artists can be that bridge, by donating music and certain rights to Creative Commons. This poses a great benefit for the artist and the label, as new people viewing the music perse  through a group of synchronized performers on t.v. Are feeling the same creativity and ispriiig artists int he same way the music was introduced to the audience years ago.

McCullough and Wiener

        The digital world brings hand crafts into the 21st century. In digital production craft refers to the condition where people apply standard technological means to unanticipated or indescribable ends. This article explores the paradox of craft through the use of hands, whether we use them to make a basket or create something through photoshop.
According to McCullough, the term craft implies amatuerism and difference. Over time the tem craft has evolved into a catergory that explains crafting as not quite art and isolated in the field of folk arts. However, with the emergence of the digital world, crafting can be viewed in a similar but new light, without negative conotation. Overall craft is skilled work whether done with or without technology. This article emphasizes the use of touch and direct manipulation when it comes to understanding the creation of digital craft, the term haptic exemplfies this. Computers and electronic symbol processing. Through computer usage one may may be able identify the minimal use of skill in other areas of ones life. Learning the ins and outs of computers actually helps you understand the skill, and mode it takes to learn a handicraft or even an instrument. Overall “ craft no only share technique but the capacity of the medium itself, a passion for practice,and moral values as an activity independent of what is produced”, this should apply to both the physical DIY realm and the electronic realm.


Cybernetics
This article involoves the problems of communication engineering. Communication engineering has brought up many issues to humanity, it  imitates human behavior, implying human behavior is slow and ineffective. Scientists and engineers who work in this field have tendency to be percieved as exploting technology at any cost. People now idolozie computers and their marvels yet the rapid expanse of technology in genereal seems to impose some kind of forbodung consequence on humanity that we all seemt o be unaware of. This article aims to find the role of message to man from technology, through the terms of input, output, and memory. Wiener states “it his thesis that the operation of the living individual and the operation of some of the newer communication machines are precisely parallel” .

Barbrook and Schultz

        Barbrook is an academic at the University of Cambridge where is obtained his BA in Social and Political Science. He obtained his MA in political behavior at the Univeristy of Essex and his Doctorate in politics and government at the University of Kent. He also heavily involved in radio and hypermedia studies. Schultz is an artist, author, and computer professional that lives in Berlin. He is project manager for reboot.fm, a Berlin based open radio that is a local and international P2P network of groups, individuals and non-commercial radios that combines "old radio" and "new" open source software.

The Digital Artisans Manifesto is a satirical manifesto aimed at preserving the practices of the graphic designer in the early 90’s. I feel it was written out of the fear of the unknown of the dot com era . Overall, I find this amusing yet I feel as though some of the assumptions made by EDAN on the direction in were digital artisans are placed in the future was a bit misguided. At times I found it hard to realize the objectives of EDAN, esepcially when they would oppose traditional economic systems but then put themselves in the likeness of the same systems such as the European Union. I also think inviting “everyone” to be a part of this system of artisans was a bit of an overstatement because I feel not everyone who works in the digital zone belongs in this catergory.

Gabriel and Wagminster

    Teshome Gabriel is an Ethiopian American Film scholar and professor at the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television in Los Angeles. Gabriel’s expertise lies in African film with an emphasis on developing countries. Fabian Wagmister teaches audiovisual creativity at the University of California, Los Angeles and I s a professor in the department of Theater, Film and Television as well.

     In this artciles Gabriel and Wagmister attempt to explain the paralells between weaving and modern technology.  Both authors encourage readers to think beyond the structures of modern technology as well as the ideology that handicrafts like weaving,  are a thing of the past. It is emphasized that in order for older, traditonal societies to come into technology there needs to be an understanding and bridge between both ideologies. “The assimilative process is not to mimic traditional forms in a new medium but to actually mutate the medium itself and have it respond to the aesthetic, intellectual, and spiritual characteristics of the community.” 

     According to Gabriel and Wagminster there are already features present in both mediums that coincide with each other. For example: both require the use of hands, the lexicon of both are integrative. Integrating technology through weaving holds benefits for both third world and western societies. Western societies often don;t acknowledge the the roots of their digital orgins or make the correlation that the weaver is much like the photoshopper. Photoshop can be taught much like weaving and vice versa if the conceptuality is taught with the right mind frame. Overall, the main theme of this article is that technology and weaving should render each other in hopes of benefiting both societies.

Writing to you on Nyquil

This has been my week: Monday I contacted a bladder infection by Wednesday I had an Upper Respiratory, Its now Sunday and all this sickness has made it up to my right eye giving me a stye on top of it all. OH and my car broke down in Friday. I have 2 projects due this week and an exam I have been trying to make up for 2 weeks. The blogs are delayed but are coming soon ! IM trying very hard. ::cough cough, drinks Nyquil::
BLAH. Bare with me.

Digital Editing from Over the Break

The  following is a pic I edited during break. I took an un-copy written photo and edited it in both iphoto and photoshop software. Im attempting to get it into stencil format, so I have to precise about where I edit...You have to make these things called "islands" which allow you to cutout pieces in the stencils without the stencil losing form. It is more difficult than you think.