Catfish

“Catfish” is the first social networking documentary I have ever seen and I thought it as really good. I know what the main character was basically going through because I feel like I can relate to him in so many different ways. I’m sure anyone who is more familiar with another through Facebook, Myspace, or any other social media site gets skeptical once in a while. In the documentary, the main character meets a little girl who appears to be a prodigious painter at her young age. Through her, he ends up meeting her mother and falls in love with her sister as well. The story takes somewhat of an aspiring turn once he begins to consider the fact that none of these people may actually exist. This was when my attention was at its fullest.

The little girl got in touch with the main character when he discovered one of his paintings and found out her age. He thought he found the next Shirley Temple and decided to have a film crew follow him in his journey of discovering her talents. In the process of trying to get in touch with her, the main character was in constant contact with her mother and often wondered why her daughter was never around. He was in touch with the entire family via social networking sites.

He also became close with the brother of the young artist and became aware that he was a musician in a band. The little girl would send the main character some of his music and he got excited because of how legitimate it sounded. It wasn’t until he met her sister when he became truly happy. The sister and the main character fell in love rather fast and always texted and wrote on each other’s wall. As time advanced with this young couple, he noticed a couple of things just were not right.

One evening, she began sending music to the main character and he realized that she was sending him songs that were already recorded by preexisting artists. He started to question her about it and never really got a straight answer. He then decided to drive to their home and got the entire story. What he realized was basically that the mother made up the fact that her daughter was a great painter and the daughter he fell in love with doesn’t even exist. She seems like a pathological liar.

I have dealt with something fairly similar in this situation. When I first started to record music I had a bunch of buddies who were very interested in helping me out. One of them was not musically incline so he told us of his friend who passed away who was a musical genius. Every time we talked about him he claimed that he was too upset to talk about it. He would show us music that was written by other artists, and claimed that he was a personal hero of his. We began to get a little skeptical and couldn’t find any information about this person. Not a single scrap of Internet information, and for a musician on the rise it seems a little bit farfetched to not have any Internet advertisement. We eventually became so convinced that we began writing songs about the subject matter and became fascinated.

We never did call him out on it but we still are not one hundred percent convinced whether this person was real or not. What the mother and my friend have in common is that they believe they are not good enough to be honest. They need to come up with an alter ego or imaginary friend that connects them to someone they want to be with. My friend wanted to relate to the rest of his friends and so he invented a link to us. The mother wanted her own art to get recognized so she pretended her daughter created all of those brilliant paintings.

Its funny how today there is new ways to stalk someone or find out about him or her. The democratized media allows anyone to publish their work of art and lie about every detail. The mother lied about the majority of her made-up daughters friends. She created over ten different alias and characters that played a very important role in her little scheme.

In conclusion, it seems that anyone can be a superman when they are really a Clarke Kent. The suit that changes who they are would be the Internet and social networking websites. It is very important to remember to be careful when meeting people through social networks. Just because you are conversing miles away through screens doesn’t mean that you are safe from anyone.

Exit Through The GIft Shop

After watching Exit Through The Gift Shop, I truly began to realize how unbelievably popular street art had gotten throughout the years. I began to look at life a little bit differently when I walked outside once the film was finished. I started to pertain everything I learned to daily school life. For example, when I started applying for internships for the summer of 2011 in the city, I was answering questions with Exit Through The Gift Shop in mind. One question was asking for a breakthrough idea in advertising and I came up with a very creative and innovative idea. My idea was to promote anything that will eventually come out. For example, lets say a new sports company is coming out with their first clothing line. Lets say that their logo is $<J, which basically means that money is less than happiness. Months before the actual launch date, I would hire graffiti artists so place the logo all over the city so it builds some curiosity. Once enough talk is buzzed around the city then we move the logos to advertising billboards. Not on the center of billboards, just on the bottom right or left so they are barely noticing. As the launch date gets even closer then these logos are appearing and more frequently all over the city. Once the media gets involved, a huge billboard in Time Square is put up with the logo and that’s it. Then over night, the billboard is replaced with the clothing line with the logo on it. The point of this is to build curiosity about this symbol and when people find out its about a clothes line they are going to be interested in buying or at least checking it out. Ideas like these started to pop up in my head non-stop all because of Exit Through The Gift Shop. I began to think differently, more creative, more underground if you will.

The underground scene is extremely important. Historically speaking, music, art, and literature all came out of the underground movement. Without an underground scene, there is no illegitimacy in the world. Everything is unbelievably conforming and it takes the beauty out of life. A strong believer in this would obvious be Mister Brain Wash. The entire documentary consisted of Mister Brainwash running around the world with famous street artists as they did their life’s passion. Mister brainwash was so interested in this that he decided to take on this hobby and create art around heavily populated cities. At the end of the movie, Mister Brainwash decided to host an art show for all of his work in Los Angeles.

Before creating his own work, Mister Brainwash would film everything. Every time he went somewhere he would take his camera with him and simply film. To some it was a treat or a pleasure to be filmed but others would find it very distracting and rude. Banksy is a street artist who came from the United Kingdom and made famous portraits all over the world. For the first time ever, this famous street artist would let Mister Brainwash film his every move. At the end of the film, we learn that Banksy regrets this decision. It was very humorous how most of the people he filmed did not particularly like him, nor do they appreciate his art and editing skills. When comparing Mister Brainwash to every other street artists in the streets it seems like Mister Brainwash is the first one to sell out. Space Invader posted all of his street art because he had a reason and purpose and enjoyed doing it. Mister Brainwash just wanted people to recognize him as an artist and someone who can be famous to. Anyone can spray-paint, but it takes a true artist to create a masterpiece of the underground scene.

Bansky is a true artist because he only focuses on the art. The reason why he remains masked, if you will, is because it isn’t about the man behind the art. It’s about the art that is created. More importantly, he is probably wanted for defacing public property all over the world. It would probably be better off if his identity were kept a secret. Part of his art was for him to be incognito at all times.

If Mister Brainwash would not have been discovered it wasn’t for the Internet or any social networking site. He is too late in the street art game and his work is nowhere near as unique as it should be in order for Miser brainwash to be as famous as he is today. Bansky is famous because of the overall message he puts out. Sheppard Fairy is famous because of mass repetition of his Andre the Giant sticker and Obama’s Presidential campaign. The very popular red and blue face of the President is now seen everywhere because of this street artist. Space Invader is another great example of this. He only wants people to see the art he created, not who created it. In conclusion, this documentary truly opened up my eyes to the street art-working world. I will forever take this fame into consideration whenever I wish to be creative. I love the mysteriousness of this hobby.

Statuts Report

The Beatles

The original image, of these four infamous icons, was in a poor quality color that looks like it was shot in the mid 1960s. It was also a horizontal image. I decided to make it in a 'simple trace' preset and stretch the picture to a normal picture size going vertical. This made the figures look almost larger than life and we are somewhat looking up to them for inspiration. The great thing about The Beatles is that they can truly be in any shape or color, as long as there are four figures together, someone will always think of this revolution.

Redesigned Logo

This is a revised version on the band's logo using the pen tool on Illustrator. I decided to make the letters attached more and instead of a brown coloring I used different shades of yellow so it looks more like an apple core rather than just wood. I saved it as a jpeg and they both looked very similar. I will use Illustrator more often now because using vector is so much clearer and look great. Bitmaps look very choppy when zoomed in all the way. This was a very useful assignment.

Honest John Logo

This is a logo that the band 'Honest John' uses for merchandising. The image itself is a good practice tool when using Adobe Illustrator. The lines are very solid, its easy to read and understand what the image actually is. I hope that this image turns out as easy as it looks, but at the same time, I wish to fully understand the 'pen tool' in this application so I can better appreciate the program and it's endless uses.

The apple core and the name 'Honest John' are both thought of after watching Disney's Pinocchio, when the fox (Foul-fellow) tricks Pinocchio into pursuing the theater instead of going to school. As this sly villain talks this poor puppet into his little scheme, he eats Pinocchio's apple, which was intended for his teacher. The apple core, therefor represents the death of something that is necessary in a society. Hence, quitting school in order to go into the theatre or any other alternate profession.

Andrew Keen

1. How does Keen define Democratized media, and what are his main issues with this trend? Use examples from the web in the form of links. Include this idea of "disintermediation".

Keen defines democratized media as any sort of media that is created by non-professionals. The thing about the Internet and most social networking sites are that anyone is able to sign up and post whatever they want for the public to see. Whether media is any form of a movie, song, or newspaper clip, these can be created by anyone, which proves that the media is a democracy.

The main criticism of Keen is whenever something is gotten for free then someone else is being robbed. “Of course, every free listing on Craigslist means one less paid listening in a local newspaper”. This is obviously a flaw of the democratized media. This leads to many certain questions including, are amateurs taking the place of professionals in the media? Websites, such as Wikipedia, are examples of amateurs doing the work of professionals. Ironically, this is the most commonly used encyclopedia used today.

2. Compare and Contrast Keens take on Social Media with Douglas Rushkoff's. What are these differences in opinion? Which one speaks to you and your own experiences and why? You may include the ideas of such utopian technophiles as Larry Lessig, Chris anderson, and Jimmy Wales (who are these guys?)

I personally believe that the Internet can be a great thing and the main difference between these two authors is that Rushkoff is more opened to the Internet and media, while Keen is looking at the other end of the spectrum. It seems this way because of how harsh Keen s when speaking or writing. Rushkoff is more willing to learn about the democratized media. I agree with him more because of his positive acknowledgements. Keen is more negative and extreme.

Commentaries

My partner for this project was Lauren Hoheusle.

The other blog entry's that I commented on were John Vigliotti's and Michael Hsu's.

Whither The Individual?

Lets face it; social networking websites such as eHarmoney or Facebook are getting more popular every singe day. You begin to realize that we are starting to live in a very technologically advanced world when: one out of every five new relationships are founded off of an online dating service, and over fifty percent of all internet users, world-wide, are on Facebook. In fact, there are approximately seven billion people in the world, two million of which are Internet users, and 517,760,460 of them are Facebook users. That’s a bone chilling number. It’s a digital age and social networks are racking up numbers to an unbelievable amount. I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing because the younger generations are getting much more technological than any other existing or non-existing generation. Just because the world is changing doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad thing. I would personally rather use the word ‘advancing’ because we are abandoning old ways and making life much faster and easier by discovering new ways to communicate, have fun, conduct business, and even live a life.

Teachers seem to question the idea that advancing technology is putting a slight burden on the current educational system. Children today have a much shorter attention span and they require a different way to be taught. It is not the students who should be criticized; it’s the aging educational system that has been around for centuries. Books and paper, pencils and pens; these have been the same tools for a “proper” education since these things were invented. This just basically goes to show that if something remains concrete then it will die. Being born into a wireless society amplifies the theory that we need to make changes in order to keep up with the changes. Of course, it is not only the educational system that needs to, or has started to, make the necessary changes that adapt to the short attention spanned children now a days. Obviously online dating services are revolutionary ideas that greatly help the singles community. If one-fifth of all couples are brought together via eHarmony or Chemistry.com than these advances are making quite the positive impact.

As we become new users of different social networking sites, or even online video games, we re extending and expanding our identities. When someone creates a character in World of War craft I don’t believe that they are creating an alter ego. It is understood that the character that is created by someone is not really they as a person. The character is simply an avatar or a representation of the gamer. Therefore, it is an extension and expansion on an identity. Second Life is another example of creating avatar beings through game. Though, some users would not even call it a game, per se. Second Life is commonly used for business meetings or transactions. Some professionals have never even met each other in person because of distance or the lack of need to. This is a perfect example of how we are making changes to make certain situations easier and even cost efficient.

Despite the possibility of gaming addictions, the option of creating an avatar in World of War craft, or Second Life may be very appealing. When something gives you the options of being a king when you’re a peasant, who wouldn’t pass that opportunity up? Some may consider this a loss of personal space and is a surrender of ego. The way I see it, there is no such thing as personal space anymore. If someone wants to find out information about you then they are going to. The socially norm in our society is to be a user on some sort of social networking website so others can find out your relationship status, check out pictures of you, communicate via the particular website, and the list goes on and on. So maybe we are sacrificing our personal space but I feel that that would have been inevitable at some point in the near future.

I understand how people feel that all of these technological advances may seem unnatural or not right because it affects the way we’ve been doing things for such a long time. Change is difficult to cope with for those are who are unwilling to change. Pretty soon words like “collective organism” and “hyper-people”, referring to those more technologically advanced than others, will be obsolete. We, as human beings, are simply evolving. The same way monkeys evolve to use tools (of course, this comparison is exponentially less then the adaption to social networking. Like everything else, consumption in excess is a bad. So the moderate use of technology is not harmful and quite extraordinary. I look forward to see what the next revolutionary advancement will be and how we are going to be able to adapt.

Sources:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/10/three-stats-that-reveal-much-about-our-digital-culture/1

http://www.scribd.com/doc/26734456/‘ial-Media-Web-2•O

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/the-illusion-of-transparency-in-social-media.html

Social Media and Web 2.0/Transparency in Social Media

1. Like different periods in art history, the style of professional production value will continue to vary throughout the years. We are living in a very technologically advance age that suggests that the majority is somehow involved in social media. As far as whether or not professional production value will drop or advance depends on what the viewers enjoy watching. If it is more appealing to watch a commercial that looks like someone made a homemade video at their computer desk then it makes more sense to create campaigns that aim in that direction. It seems to be a very abstract way of producing pieces to catch people's attention. I think that the professional production value turned into an amateur-like way of creating advertisements because, like art, the style had adapted into something different than what was expected for so many years

2. I personally never considered myself to use that many different types of social media websites. Though, when making a list I find that I am, in fact, an avid user. I mostly use Facebook, as any other normal college student, on top of Youtube, and Blogger.com (obviously). Facebook is significantly more popular than Myspace. I started using Facebook instead of Myspace because all of my friends began using it more often. It seemed much more appealing to use after I signed up as well.

3. Transparency is a prevalent concept in social media because it implies openness, communication, and accountability. The openness allows individuals to meet people and/or view other's work. Whether it is a video or blog or even an artistic piece, there are many ways people can share things through social media sites. Communication is a basic characteristic of these sites. Everyones loves to keep up with 'what is going on' and it has come to the point where we start to feel 'out of the loop' when we are not in reach of a device that informs us what is going on. Accountability refers to the reliance and safety that social media can provide for us. Most people have an illusion that their identity or safety is at stake, but anyone who is careful isn't likely to run into problems. In today's society it appears that social media is more important than an offline world. With everyone constantly attached to their phones or consistently using social networking websites, it appears that the online sensation is far more interesting that an offline experience.

McLuhan Photoshop Final Post

The purpose of this project was to choose a medium from my previous blog and channel it into a Photoshop image. I have chosen to expand on the medium known as, "Blackberry Messaging", or "BBM". I feel that this is a good example of what McLuhan was talking about because this is a very exclusive way of communicating but it is also convenient.
BBMing is basically text messages between two Blackberry's. The difference is that it is basically faster, you are able to tell if the receiver actually read your message or not, and it deals with pin numbers instead of phone numbers which enabled a contact list to become more personal.
The message that i was trying to incorporate into this image was that Blackberry messaging is exclusive. By doing this I made it seem like Blackberry is an exclusive club that everybody wants to be apart of. I focused on both the city life and the business world, hence the business man walking with a cell phone on the left.
I put a picture of London (at night) in the background to represent night life because BBMing is a youthful form of communication and any city is the place to be after dark.

***I finished this project over the weekend and did not post a "progressing image". Both postings would have looked exactly the same. I apologize for your inconvenience.***

Three Mediums

The first medium that I would like to talk about is BBM, or Blackberry Messaging. BBM's are basically text messages between people who have Blackberry's. There are not many differences between the two means of communication except for the fact that BBM's may be a little more instant and the sender is able to tell if the reader actually read the message or not. Also, you can send as many messages as you want without it affecting your text message limit. The content BBM's is basically anything a text message has. That includes language, symbols, digital photographs, digital audio, and digital film. BBM's can also send files that are stored onto your Blackberry or saved in your email account. This form of communication is very similar to AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) because of it's features and setup. You are able to tell if the reader is typing a message to your Blackberry. In the end, Blackberry Messenger is a step above text messaging, but second to the next easy way to communicate.

Blogger.com is a website owned by Google that allows people to create their own accounts and post blogs, or a journal entry that is written and shared online. Once an account is created, you can post as many blogs as you want and share them amongst your friends or whomever you wish. Over the past decade blogs have become very popular. Some even make a living off of what they publish on blogs. Blogger.com is a free service that gives you the possibility to post anything you want; including pictures, videos, links, and text. Blogger.com is the quickest and easiest way to create a blog or blogs. Its free, it can be used at one's own leisure, and for instances such as these one can use it for school assignments. I personally have used Blogspot for three of the six semesters I have been at Marist.

One can go on and on about the iPad. What seemed to be a useless waste of technology turned out to be a very interesting tool. It's basically a mix between an iPod and a MacBook. The great thing about it is that its so easy to carry around and became a lot more useful than anyone ever anticipated. The message that Apple tried to promote about the iPad is that it can do anything a MacBook can do... and more. There are over 300,000 applications one can buy from the App Store that are compatible with the iPad. An unbelievable new feature with this product is that you are able to purchase whole books on the iPad and turn each page with just a simple touch of the screen. At first, it doesn't seem like anyone really needs the iPad, but after purchase it's hard to let go.