blog 11

Commercial Economy:

The commercial economy is how we understand an “economy” in general. “…an economy in which money or “price” is a central term of the ordinary, or normal, exchange.” (118) Products and services within a commercial economy have tangible economic values. We pay for a CD/Movie at a store; we buy food from a restaurant; we pay handymen to fix our furnace. There are infinite amounts of examples here and I think it is pretty easy to understand.

Sharing Economy:

Lessig defines a sharing economy “…as an economy, where access to culture is regulated not by price, but by a complex set of social relations.” (145) It’s a bit more complicated and can be a confusing system to understand, especially when people from different cultures are interacting with each other. The basic idea is that within a community you understand when you should take and give to that community. The sharing community is built around exchange, but this exchange is built on balance and favors, not on set prices and money. If you help people in the community and don’t get anything in return from a certain person, then that person will probably not last within the community.

Lessig wants us to understand that no society could survive with just one or the other. Both a commercial and sharing economy go hand in hand to making this world go around. He also states that the Internet has revolutionized business and economies as well. His examples range from Netflix to Wikipedia. 

blog 10

Pixar compilation:

http://bit.ly/eDxrhY

While browsing the video subreddit of Reddit.com I found this awesome compilation video dedicated to the 25 years of Pixar. I decided to use this as my remix because I think it is “calmer” then most remix videos. (I feel like people think remixes have to be some crazy techno/pop song with tons of editing) It’s an example of how remixing can be used, in a way, to actually promote the original product. People will watch this video and think of it as a trailer and remember how amazing their favorite Pixar animation was/is. (On a side note, it could almost be argued that a trailer to a movie is a remix. It takes part of the original movie, edits and mixes it down, and adds music that is usually not in the final movie. Sometimes it even creates this false idea of what the movie actually will be; thus creating new content.)

 When the general public gets hold of videos similar to this, I don’t think many of them would even categorize it as a remix. They would think it was a well-made trailer to promote Pixar. The general public only knows remixes as music. When we think of a remix the first thing we think of is music, there is no denying that. Lessig points out to us at the beginning of chapter four that literature can be a remix. I believe film can also be a remix and the combination of film, music and literature can create the ultimate remix.

I think it is very interesting the laws that follow remixing. Obviously when writing and quoting it is less of a hassle and people understand the rules of citing.  “We understand quoting is an essential part of that writing. It would be impossible to construct and support that practice if permission were required every time a quote was made.” (Lessig, 53) What I wonder is… Why can’t we just cite in the world of music and film? For the most part I think society does. The amateur music video remixes you see on YouTube usually say it is a remix, and this seems to work. When things start to get out of hand is when people start to make money off of other these remixes, or if already known artist are sampling and remixing. This bugs me! As long as the people cite what they used, then they deserve all the rewards that follow. 

blog 9

Lessig’s argument is that the digital age has brought upon us a new idea of creativity. He uses four different examples that use this digital creativity in different ways, but all circle around the idea of copyright. The examples he uses imply that this age of digitalism has made viewing and using other peoples work more accessible. It is as simple as videotaping your eighteen-month-old son dancing to a Prince and putting it on YouTube; gathering people around the world to sing along to their favorite artist; to sampling, blending, and mixing music into its own unique song.  The main emphasis he wants people to understand and, I am sure we are going to learn much more about, is that the copyright is an ancient technique that needs to be examined further so our creativity does not get obliterated.

With the examples that he has shown us so far, I whole heartedly agree with him. We, as the audience, have to remember that there are always two sides to each story. Yes copyright needs to be up updated for the digital age, but it isn’t as cut and dry as it looks.

RO stands for Read-Only, or the read only culture. Read-Only culture stems from analog technologies. It is a term that defines an age before digitalism. A society where we are all consumers and only take things in; consumers are consuming. “Professionals” produced stuff for society to consume. RW stands for Read-Write culture. This is more of a reciprocal relationship between the producer and the consumer. Society now has the ability to produce for ourselves. I'm not saying in an RO society people are not creative and make things, but now with digital technologies and the Internet, we can produce and let others see are work instantly and easily. This RW culture brings us back to Web 2.0 and how the user is the focus of the online world. 

Blog 8

Rhythmic Cinema

“To name, to call, to upload, to download… So I’m sitting here and writing—creating a new time zone out of widely dispersed geographic regions—reflect and reflecting on the same ideas using the net to focus our attention on a world rapidly moving into what I like to call prosthetic realism.” (85)

This quote struck me for the fact that you forget sometimes how the Internet has eliminated physical space in many different aspects. You can be physically located in Australia, but the next moment be Skyping with someone in the United States creating this false sense of realism, or as he calls it, prosthetic realism.

Rhythmic Space

“It all seems more and more that the creative act itself is becoming a source-code like Linux where people create and add modules of thought-ware to the mix, making it all a little more interesting.” (89)

This goes along with what the books theme is; we live in a digitized world where the creative world works in cahoots with each other.

Errata Erratum

“In the remix, single notes are assigned not to playing cards, but rather to digitized “roto-reliefs,” on-line representations of the engraved cards that Duchamp made throughout his career and gave away randomly to people.” (96)

This is in reference to Duchamp’s Erratum Musical. The digital world is a network of entwined cultural movements that are made by the people involved.  

“It’s a milieu where each “musical sculpture” is unique yet completely dependent on the system that created the context.” (97)

Very straightforward quote we having going on here. The virtual artifact someone creates mirrors the digitized world we live in today. This mirror is not always as direct as we think, but the influence of our society and the technological determined world is evident.

The Future is here

“In a moment like that, the strangeness (strange-mess) of global culture, hip-hop, and of operating as a Dj on a global level crystallized before my eyes.”  (105)

Context here is that mixed cultures are coming together and finding common ground. The digital world has brought communities together that, in the past, would have never existed. We have created new cultures that are breaking the boundaries of creativity.

The Prostitute

“The sample is an interrogation of the meaning we see in a song, of its emotional content lifted away like a shroud from a dead corpse, only to be refitted and placed on another body.” (113)

New meaning is brought to life through past work. The emotional content some kind of work originally had can be flipped and remixed into a new creative work.

WhoSampled.com

Very interesting tool we have going on here. I wanted to explore it in a little bit of a different way. We have been focused on Hip-hop so I decided to go with a rock band and see if they have sampled or if they have been sampled by hip-hop. Searched Modest Mouse and found both examples. I wanted to see if they have sampled and I found one example, Modest Mouse-Workin’ on Leavin’ the Livin’. The sampled song was from a movie which surprised me and I found the clip to be very creepy. I liked the song (musical wise), but it was very creepy none the less. Charles Hamilton, a hip-hop artist, also sampled one of my favorite MM songs and I thought it was a very interesting choice, “Ocean Breaths Salty”.  I wasn’t very surprised to see “Float On” sampled by Lupe Fiasco, or any other hip-hop artist for that matter, because it was the first single from the album that brought MM to more of a mainstream stage. This song is just coming out (March 8^th) and will probably become very popular. Music enthusiast will recognize the hook and beat, but many people will not even realize that it is a sample from MM. Some samples will include the original artist, like the Hamilton sample, but this Lupe song doesn’t even mention MM. Going through some of the YouTube comments people are wondering why it sounds like “Float On” and “how come Issac doesn’t get any credit? It is interesting how artist can get away with this, there has to be some kind of pay out to record companies. 

Blog Transmedia

Summarize the arguments of the deBourgoing piece and connect to first half of the course

The digital world has obviously changed the way society communicates. DeBourgoing is sharing with the audience specific examples of how social media and networking in the digital world has shaped the world of hip-hop. Trying to connect this to pre-midterm studies one connection that came to mind is that of technological determinism. The new social media world we live in has influenced these hip-hop artists to take a different approach at gaining “street cred” and making it in the world of music. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media outlets have helped spread the word of one’s rapping influence. If you want to gain any kind of recognition you must not only go to open Mic, but must establish an identity online. You have to make a story for yourself and collaborate with the other artist around you.

Summarize Paul D Miller 56-77 and connect with deBourgoing and or any of the topics we have discussed in class

                Paul D Miller’s book “Rhythm Science” definitely caught me off guard! I was not expecting it to be this heavy and in depth with examples that range from W.E.B Du Bois to Nietzsche to Edison and Emerson.  In trying to understand this, what I got out of it, is that Miller is saying that nothing is original. He compares writing to DJ-ing. DJ-ing uses a lot of different works to create its own kind of unique sound. He thinks that written work is just recycled from previous people which also create its own unique voice. “Rhythm science is not so much a new language as a new way of pronouncing the ancient syntaxes that we inherit from history and evolution, a new way of enunciating the basic primal languages that slip through the fabric of rational though and infect our psyche at another, deeper level.” I agree and disagree with what I think he is trying to say… in all honesty I could be totally getting the wrong message from him… I agree that ideas from the past can influence the present and future. Evolution is a key aspect in the world we live in today. But, I also believe in originality. Somewhere, sometime, somebody has to take a leap in a new direction.

blog 6

The KEY point that Jenkins wanted to let his audience know is that the world we live in is a participatory culture and the history has told us that that the world we live in is an every changing human network. He believes that how schools are handling the rise of social networking is wrong. Our societal view is that young people can’t take on responsibility or make an impact. Jenkins wants the audience to understand that this generation of people can make a difference in the world we live in today. He believes social networking is for the better and having the ability to interact with one another and collaborate can solve problems and bring this world together. The various points he backs this up with range from harry potter group fundraising to invisible children and Darfur.

This relates to Weinberger in many ways, but the most important idea they share together is the idea of a user focused web. This also happens to be the main idea of Web 2.0. Weinberger talks about the digital order and categorization being centered around the user, well Jenkins focuses more on how users come together on the web. These are different ideas, but they surround the idea that we, as the people who use the internet, create content as well as collaboratively come together to contribute to the vast knowledge of the web.

I think Jenkins brings up very good points about how social networking has brought people together. A great example of this is Reddit.com. I have actually just started going to this website this semester, so when I saw your video on Mr. Splashy Pants I knew exactly the kind of community discussed in the video. After some more research I found out the Reddit members have come together and raised money for various charities. (185,350 to Haiti relief; 600,000 to Donor’s Choose; 45,000 World Vision’s Clean Water Fund) This surprised me because I have always just assumed the kind of people in the Reddit community wouldn’t contribute like they have. I am not saying bad people post on this website, but it just seems difficult to believe hundreds of thousands of dollars can be raised through mostly twenty and thirty year olds.

When you sit behind your screen and see reports of horrible problems in this world you sometimes forget that it is actually REAL. It is easy to join a group on Facebook and “like” something, but what does that actually accomplish? Many people come together and talk and argue about various problems within various communities, but whatever gets done? We can talk all we want over the Internet, but more action must take place. It’s good to communicate and get ideas out, but it seems too many people just read the problem, and then click on the next news article or story. It is comforting to see actual internet communities coming together in real life (see rally at Washington DC with redditers) and raising money. 

blog 5- implicit and explicit

Weinberger, relying on German philosopher Heidegger, says that "the meaning of a particular thing is enabled by the web of implicit meanings we call the world"


 Great example used: “Almost always when we hear a word, we don’t translate it into its definition—we don’t turn every “hello” into “n., a common greeting”—but instead hear its overtones, resonances, intentions, and connections.”  Implicit information is information that comes naturally to the culture it belongs. Different cultures infer meaning in different ways.  Slang, body movements, posture, attitude, sarcasm all have an effect on how a person is viewed and the meaning they want to portray. In the digital world, and dealing with computers, it has to do more with hits, tags, location and connection. It is harder for a computer to read what the user wants, needs and means. The advancement in technology has definitely improved in understanding the user, but it is not perfect yet. (I am a little scared if it gets to be perfect though… can anyone say robotic uprising? The machines are learning!! Haha)

Song I choose was Tiny Dancer by Elton John. The images I choose reflect the song. I choose specific parts form the song, as well as my memory I have with the song; that memory being the movie Almost Famous with the famous scene on the tour bus where everyone joins in singing this song after some rough moments together. I also play the piano and this song is heavy on the piano so i decided to add an image of a piano. I pasted the images on old Polaroid outlines to emphasize that these are memories or the past; a road trip of some sort. Obviously Elton is the center of attention here. I emphasized Elton's photo with color/vibrance. 

Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand

Jesus freaks out in the street
Handing tickets out for God
Turning back she just laughs
The boulevard is not that bad

Piano man he makes his stand
In the auditorium
Looking on she sings the songs
The words she knows the tune she hums

But oh how it feels so real 
Lying here with no one near
Only you and you can hear me
When I say softly slowly

Hold me closer tiny dancer
Count the headlights on the highway
Lay me down in sheets of linen
you had a busy day today

Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band
Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man
Ballerina, you must have seen her dancing in the sand
And now she's in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand