RYNSA: WORDS

They’re at it again, god bless ‘em! Those rascally Yes Men, masters of the fine art that is ‘culture jamming’, have hoaxed the American media. This time their ruse involved printing and distributing a fake version of the New York Times, predated to July 4th of next year, and chock-full of unlikely, progressive ‘if only’ scenarios otherwise uncommon to corporate news outlets. The headline of this imposture edition, for example, simply reads, “Iraq War Ends,” a short three-word sentence that seems to sum up the hopes and dreams of many concerned citizens around the country (maybe the world?) in the post-election, Obama era of American politics.

(See Rocketboom, Boing Boing, The Huffington Post, or the NY Times online Arts section for more details and imagery.)

I am particularly fond of the fictitious editorial, presumably written by NYT columnist Thomas Friedman, brilliantly titled “The End of the Experts?”  In it the phony Friedman declares, “I will keep my opinions to myself.”  He goes on to aks:

“…why are newspapers like the New York Times letting people like me make fools of themselves, mislead the American people, and, worst of all, give their wives a lifetime of ammunition? To err is human, but to print, reprint, and re-reprint error-mad humans like me is a criminally moronic editorial policy.”

Here, here, faux Thomas Friedman!  For once, I couldn’t agree with you more.  Let’s hope the publishers of the fake New York Times can inspire the publishers of the real New York Times to get real for a change.

As part of my graduate studies I am required to design a ‘research’ project that somehow relates to the profession of Community Cultural Development (CCD).  Initially, I was hoping to actually go out into Melbourne and engage with some undefined group of people.  Potentialities included the Chinese, youth, migrant populations, and so on.  But after a more thorough look at my timeline, and a rather honest conversation with my prescribed tutor, it became clear that this goal was not really feasible.

So now I have embarked on a truncated literary review of creativity as a concept.  It is a subject I kind of stumbled into, ass-backwards, and have since taken up as one of the fruits of my graduate school labor.  Specifically, I am studying the difference between Eastern ideas around creativity and those of the West.  It’s a relatively small field, but highly intriguing, and there are potential consequences that reach into nearly every aspect of the human experience.

But don’t all academics make that claim about their work?!

Anyway, I am currently collecting books and articles about creativity.  One such book, and the foundation for my interest in this stuff, is entitled Creativity: When East Meets West, edited by Sing Lau, Ana N N Hui, and Grace Y C Ng. You can actually download a free copy of the first chapter (in PDF format) that describes the content of the book.

I’ve only read a few articles so far, but it has turned out to be especially fascinating. The perceived Chinese perspective on social responsibility as a precursor to creative expression is a relatively foregin concept in the West.  We tend more towards protecting the individual’s personal rights in creative endeavor (though not nearly as consistently as we think, I would add).

In any case, I recommend this anthology. It is weighted towards academic language, which is tedious, I know, but if you’re able to get through the science-speak and the numbers-heavy diagrams then you will surely be rewarded. The inherent optimism in each contributor’s writing is readily apparent. It makes me want to get back into the classroom–surrounded by all those emerging creative minds!

I can’t decide if this Lego photography series (with gratitude to Make Magazine for the link) is really clever and insightful, or perhaps a little dismissive of history. Maybe all of the above? I don’t know.

The artist is a British guy named Mike Stimpson, and on his redbubble profile page he has published (and apparently adopted) this telling quote attributed to American ’street photographer’ Garry Winogrand:

“I photograph to see what something will look like photographed” 

Not to whine too much about it, but my initial response is annoyance. Admittedly, I’m a little sore on all these ironic ‘art projects’ that rely on retroactive repurposing of an original form. Didn’t Warhol kill that metaphor a few decades ago?  I mean, is this high art, or just more posturing witticism from my iconoclastic, millennial cohorts?

That being said, I appreciate Stimpson’s interest in so-called ‘macro lighting.’ He really did put quite a bit of effort into setting up and reproducing these tiny snippets of global culture. I admire the dedication to an aesthetic… even if that’s all that’s there.

According to this Boing Boing post from last week, ccMixter is now planning on leaving Creative Commons to reform as an independent project of its own, and they’re looking for someone to lead the team. They’ve graciously opened up the project coordinator search process to include us everyday folks. So get those brilliant project proposals in quick! 

If you didn’t already know, ccMixter is a great website for finding legal and entirely downloadable music and music samples. It’s a tremendously helpful resource for media-makers trying to obtain some fairly high-quality tunes to support their various multimedia productions. I’ve used ccMixter a number of times for this-and-that video soundtrack, and I love it. It’s especially helpful in you’re in a pinch, and you need something interesting but not-too-distracting to play under the imagery.

Actually, I really hope ccMixter can find a suitable candidate for the job. On the FAQs page they blandly self-describe as a “community music remixing site,” though it’s really much more than that. Some feel, myself included, that ccMixter might just represent a prototype of what’s to come in mainstream media sharing–a kind of public platform for dynamic, transparent and almost amoeba-like flows of information between creators. It would be a digital ocean, if you will, wherein artists share, trade and build upon each other’s work outside the rigid boundaries of the land-locked, stagnant and corporate controlled intellectual property rights system.

Perhaps that’s a little naive, I don’t know. I’m still working on the theory…

The fine folks over at the University of Washington’s Master of Communication in Digital Media program (MCDM) are apparently putting together a documentary about “…how the media landscape is changing.” The filmmakers ask, “With the barriers to technology and distribution becoming nearly non-existent, how will traditional media compete with the masses who will produce work for free?”

Good question. I’m probably not the person to answer it. But I do admire any doc that tries to tackle the complex issues of consumer culture, digital technology, and amateur media. For one thing, nobody really agrees on what’s gonna happen. The technocrats see a bright, remediated future. But others see merely a recasting of characters in the same old movie. Reconciling these perspectives will be tough.

Important questions I would like to see addressed:

1. If the ‘masses’ simply imitate older, corrupt narratives from the mainstream culture, but do so through fancy new tools, can we really call it a ‘revolution?’
2. For that matter, can a technological revolution ever really precede a structural (ie, socio-political) revolution?
3. And what’s gonna happen to sci-fi if the dumb kid down the street shares equal footing with small-screen genius, Joss Whedon?  I mean, dude, come on!

Okay, so maybe that last one’s a bit of a straw man. But you get my point.

The full title of the upcoming doc is ‘Flip the Media: A Media (r)Evolution,’ and the trailer can be found on the MCDM website. Interestingly, the word ‘Flip’ in ‘Flip the Media’ is a bit of a play on words in that it not-so-subtly references the Flip Video Camera. I’m a big fan of this little device (more on that in another post someday), and so I’m curious to see how the filmmakers use it, or not, as a jumping off point for what I can only assume will be wide-eyed tribute to participatory media.

In any case, and from what I gather on the website, the four-minute trailer was cut together by a student named Kirk Mastin. A photographer by trade, Mastin is an accomplished media-maker in his own right, and he’s got a beautiful professional website where you can view some of his imagery. I am particularly fond of his ‘Utah’ series, having visited that part of the country myself.

I’ll be watching for the finished piece. Rest assured, I’ll post an update shortly after it comes out. Stay tuned…

Lately, I’ve been volunteering at a number of community organizations around town. I suppose I’m attempting to insert myself into the local non-profit scene, maybe meet some new folks, learn some new things, and generally be of assistance. Fortunately for me, Melbourne is chock-full of community groups, be they state-sponsored or entirely independent.  The Aussies really appreciate quality social vocations, I guess.

One of my favorites is TRAX, a youth media organization that is currently working on a “Market Value” project in the Preston Market, a series of inexpensive stalls in an open-air bazaar located just north of Melbourne. The goal is to create a multimedia exhibit featuring the work of local youth and others that addresses the changes happening at the markets themselves. It’s especially impressive given the challenges youth-made media projects face in the context of ‘economic development’.

I encourage folks to check it out. Bring your kid to the market or something! Download this flier and tell your friends. I think we really need to support these kinds of grass-roots, DIY media initiatives. A true community-led arts program!

Hopefully, someday soon, I can post an interview or two with the organizers of TRAX. It’ll inevitably show-up on the vlog half of the site. Be looking out for those in the future.

I’m a big fan of 3CR, a community radio station here in Melbourne. There are many great shows (more to come on ‘Stick Together‘), but for my interests in digital storytelling the Jumpcut broadcast has proven to be an excellent resource for finding out what’s happening in and around the Aussie film and video scene.

This week’s episode had an interesting interview with musician and filmmaker, Vincent Lamberti (no website available), a former Melbournian who now lives and work in Alice Springs, which is way out in the desert lands of the iconic Northern Territories. Among other things, Lamberti works with InCite, a youth arts organization, and he is somehow affiliated with an Aboriginal Media group called CAAMA.

Acording to the interview, Lamberti is directly involved in a film program specifically designed for indigenous youth (also no website available). I don’t know much more about this program, naturally, as I neither live in Alice Springs nor am I familiar with the organizations metioned in the show. Actually, I don’t know much of anything about the Australian youth media environment as a whole. A fact I hope to remedy soon enough.

But from what I can garner from the Jumpcut interview, Lamberti and his colleagues are particularly concerned about the economic realities surrounding their media initiatives in Aboriginal communities. At one point, Lamberti said:

“The whole idea of economic, sort of, empowerment is paramount, I believe, in trying to solve some of the social problems that are present in Alice Springs. Particularly in the town camps. Because people are basically struggling for survival…And so money and where your next meal is going to come from is paramount.” 

This unfortunate sentiment I can appreciate whole-heartedly. On top of the everyday burdens of the program participants, I am especially mindful of the economics of creating media itself. It is what I refer to as a ‘multi-tiered’ barrier. For media programs among marginal individuals, there are many constraints. Even if one is able to overcome the great obstacles of covering rent, bills, transportation, food, education, etc., then he/she is met with the challenge of obtaining technology and training. All of this costs money.   

I will be following InCite and CAAMA from afar, and hopefully someday I can keep up with the professional endeavors of Mr. Vincent Lamberti (assuming he gets a web presence). I’m even considering trying to contact the Alice Springs folks to see if they need a Winter (american Summer) volunteer or something. It would undoubtedly be informative to see life as it’s really lived in the famous Australian Outback, and even more so if I could get involved, maybe engage with a progressive youth media program.

I ran across this odd widget the other day (via Rocketboom), and I had to share:

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

What makes this fun little web button even more interesting is that it comes from a free online dating website called One Plus You. I don’t know if they’re making some subtle comment on the modern romantic experience, but this San Franciso-based start-up nonetheless has adopted an interesting marketing strategy: humorous widgetry.

Normally, I would find this stuff a little tedious. The infamous ironic sensibilities of my generation, deconstructed to no end in academia and beyond, has left me with an untold number of psychological scars. But lately, under the intellectual framework of “Vernacular Creativity” (Jean Burgess), I’ve had to quell my initial sense of distrust and look a little deeper.

It’s possible that these widgets and other webpage add-ons, now hugely popular on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, etc., are indeed expressions of cultural creativity. They might actually represent a uniquely democratic form of digital creativity, as seen through the filter of pop technology and pop media.

Right now, I’m still researching this phenomenon. My sense is that these small, coded visual forms (entirely free, mind you) are frequently created and distributed through an unmediated process separate from traditional systems of media control. The tools for producing widgets of this kind, like most new media, are readily accessible by average, everyday people. Thus, the mainstream and marginal are on a more level playing ground. Marketing and design departments of major corporations around the world share, essentially, the same cultural leverage as a kid in his garage with Photoshop and an FTP client.

One concern I have, however, is the process of cultural mimicry. To what extent do/will these webpage bells-and-whistles serve mainstream values and reinstate traditional hierarchies of power? If the creation of online widgets merely copies old advertising techniques–ie, misrepresentation or manipulation for financial gain–then the creativity of visual artifacts on the internet is somewhat less ‘vernacular’. Basically, it’d be a new form with an old function.

Questions:

Is there a ‘third space’ of widget-making?
What would radical widgetry look like?