For this week’s assignment, I wanted to try and imitate those many horror movies that do the mirror effect.  The effect where the mirror does not do what the actual person is doing.  In this storyboard, I basically walk into a bathroom to wash my face.  As I am washing my face, my reflection does not do the same and instead peeks down at what I am doing.  

GIRL IN THE MIRROR

This storyboard describes our first idea for the Comm Lab video project.  The basic setup for our story begins with Craig and David having a study session late one night. 

Our first rough sketch of our first storyboard can be found on Craig’s blog.

(CU) David picks up the glasses

David puts on the glasses, the world begins to change. (CU) glasses SFX: tinkly music begins

SFX: Fast Paced music. Flash from White: (LS) Craig and John appear as though they are in an anime fight scene.

(MCU) Cut to David setting down glasses and is visibly disturbed.

(MCU) Pan left to Craig, who picks up glasses

(CU) Glasses Music: Disco 70's music SFX-Tinkly sounds

Flash from White (LS) John appears as though he is in a disco dance club.

(MCU) Craig sets down glasses and appears upset.

(LS) Fiona walks in, apologizes for being late

(CU) Fiona throws her bag on table. The glasses get smashed.

For this week’s assignment David and decided we would record the ambient noise or environmental sounds in the 5th avenue Apple Store.  We recorded a lot of random conversations, music, concierge name announcements and mostly background noise.  Anatoli is a 1:40 sound piece of the Apple Store’s space or mood.  David compiled the audio tracks in Soundtrack.  The repetition of what sounds like “Anatoli” is the concierge calling out a customer’s name.  We basically used many loops and most of the background music to compile this sound piece.

Anatoli

McLuhan- Understanding Media

Some of Mcluhan’s reading were sometimes difficult for me to internalize.  I have always thought of medium as sort of a channel or object that people used to get their messages across.   It was almost as if I had to forget about what I have learned during my undergraduate years when we discussed television, and advertising and internet as mediums for people to communicate.  “Electric light” is one of the examples used as a medium.  Mcluhan stressed thinking about light as a “medium without a message.”  I had to re-read chapter one to really get an understanding of what Mcluhan was trying to say.  I eventually got that any form of medium is a derivative of another medium.  The example that struck me the most was how an abstract painting represents “a direct manifestation of a creative thought process.”  The medium according to Mcluhan is simply the change in human society or events.  I went back and forth with this notion in my head for a little while.  

McLuhan mentions that a medium is an extension  of man.  This related to other things that Mcluhan discussed where technology or any object is only as good or bad as we make them.  We frequently hear the arguments about firearms or the people that use them being good or bad (also discussed in the reading).  It reminds me of the people who file lawsuits against fast food chains claiming that the food caused their weight gain…not realizing that the weight gain probably came from ingesting fast food all day long.  I guess some things in this reading were harder to grasp than others.  

Just a side note that I immediately thought of Clay Shirkey’s book, Here Comes Everybody when reading some of McLuhan chapter 1.  More specifically  the comment made by Napoleon in saying “Three hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.”  The first chapter in Here Comes Everybody speaks about the power of different mediums to cause a movement that would otherwise go unnoticed.  When a woman lost her cell phone, she was able to retrieve it with the help of thousands of bloggers and one guy who decided to use the internet as a way to spark an emotional interest in people hundreds of miles away. After tracking the person who was in possession of the lost phone (and reluctant to return the phone), she was immediately subjected to harassment and and other forms of threats.  Eventually, the girl who found the phone was arrested (something that seldom happens).  The police department was even put into a position of having to take action due to the “outcry” from various people who expressed outrage that the founder of the phone was not forced to return it.  The internet being as popular today as newspapers were then, caused people to think about something that normally wouldn’t be given a second thought.

Since I already enjoy photoshop, this assignment was very exciting and fun for me.  When given the assignment, my partner Jeehyun and I had no clue as to what subject topic to choose for our comic.  We first came up with this weird idea that had something to do with dogs.  We had the entire weekend to read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics (which was the best and very informative).  After we figured out a story line, we were anxious to try some of the techniques discussed in the book.  We decided that we would do a day around the city, more specifically Times Square.  After finding several pictures of the area, we also took pictures of ourselves with the intentions of adding them into the pics that we found online.  We chose the Times Sq. idea because the book briefly talked about relating to your audience.  We therefore chose several well known areas in the city and incorporated it into our comic.  In photoshop we used many effects, filters and shapes (for the caption boxes).  Instead of keeping our pictures three-dimensional, we decided to mix it up; combining 3D with some 2D and using filters that imposed a draw or crayon-coloring effect.  We did each picture separately and then combined all picture segments on a blank canvas.  Combining and tweaking, the last step involved a lot of flattening of the pieces as we went along.  We found that it was sometimes a little tricky to move pieces without other pieces moving.  In a nutshell, this was a very fun project.  I Definitely also learned a few tricks about photoshop from my partner.  I had alot of fun.

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

Walter Benjamin

Regardless of how limited man was in duplicating or mass producing works of art; the bottom line was that it was always possible.  The reading also goes on speaking about how production has evolved over time.   He also discusses how some forms of print foreshadowed other technological advances. Founding and stamping later turned into lithography and then photography and later on film.  

The duplication of arts has been argued to take away from the authenticity and tradition of the work.  This argument can also go in both directions when Benjamin discusses that copies of originals can end-up in places that would probably be impossible for the original to be stating that “above all, its enables the original to meet the beholder halfway.”   With that said, Benjamin also talks about “aura” referring to the awe of having been exposed to original and unique works of art; or the art work’s history, authenticity, exhibition value and rituals. I feel like even in duplication, a work of art can still be appreciated (unless of course its meaning changes over time) Duplicates of original art can be found in many places. It is this way that people of many generations come to be familiar with a piece and know its history.  However, Benjamin makes a good argument when he says that when the “historical testimony is affected”, the “authority of the object” is also affected.  This reminds me of storytelling and the very very repeated story of Christopher Columbus and his “discovery” of land that was already inhabited by people long before his arrival.  The point being that something or anything can be changed through the course of time or experience.  Duplication definitely can pose such a threat to original work in terms of changing their meaning.  Being a Marxist, Benjamin believed that through Communism, art can be brought to the masses and also have its meaning changed by adding politics to the meaning.  

In a nutshell Benjamin examines the real or true meaning of art at a time when it can be easily manipulated and distributed to the wide population.  All the worry that one might have about duplication of work, I can’t help but think that the meaning of a piece of art can be changed depending on the “beholder”  (as Benjamin calls them”).

This physical computing video documents the electronics lab in our physical computing class.  This lab was intended to introduce us to a few basic electronic principles by putting them into action.  At one minute and forty nine seconds, this video is short and to the point.