MIDTERM – next week 12:30 – 2:00 – then 30 minute break – followed by term paper discussion – covers chapters 1, 2, 3, 10 (lectures and film screenings)
LONELY BOY
– portrait documentary
– repetition of loud screaming girls
– direct cinema / cinema verite
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SHADOW OF A DOUBT – recap scenes
– rhyming/ pattern scenes back at the dinner table – talking about death, money and music
– Little Charlie is care free in the first scene / Uncle Charlie is a bit hesitant and tips over the wine glass
– Merry Widow Serial Killer vs. Merry Widow Waltz
– 2nd scene, Little Charlie is now upset and doesn’t want to hear anything about death
– Uncle Charlie knows that his niece knows about him – he is now menacing and predatory
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CITIZEN KANE – pattern scenes
– scene with reporter and Jedidiah in the hospital
– flashback to the wedding scenes
FIRST MARRIAGE SCENE
– montage of scenes at the breakfast table – signifies passage of time and degradation of the relationship between Charles and Emily
– “people will think what I tell them to think”
– characters are the same and they are eating breakfast at the same time
– swish pan to move from time to time
– distance between the two is slowly getting further apart
– body language changes from loving to confrontational
– she ends up reading the rival newspaper
– less and less dialog happening and also gaining in argument levels to them not even speaking
– shows aging, makeup, clothing (she starts as elegant to more conservative)
– behind him, the background doesn’t change, yet her background changes (signifying that he has never changed)
SECOND MARRIAGE SCENE
– 2nd wife Susan is doing jigsaw puzzles
– in comes Charles lumbering into the grand hall which is completely empty
– Please Charlie…Charlie please!
– jigsaw puzzle slowly gets filled in with her hands having different rings and bracelets
– fire lit, fire not lit
– distance between the two is much larger – they are now yelling just to hear one another (HUH?)
– the scene starts with a massive fire in the hearth yet in the latter scene the massive hearth is cold and empty, like their marriage
– jigsaw puzzles were beautiful sceneries and far away places
DIFFERENT NARRATIVES IN CITIZEN KANE
– multiple people talking about Charles Foster Kane
– had the effect of multiple eulogies by the multiple narrators
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Narrative is a chain of events in cause – effect relationship that occur in time and space (causality and time are essential)
Story = all the events in a narrative both explicit and those inferred or presumed by the audience
Plot = whatever is on the screen that you see
Diagetic = whatever happens to the main characters
Non-Diagetic = what is added that the characters don’t know about (Jaws DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM to build tension in the viewing audience)
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THIS UNFAMILIAR PLACE
“This documentary is a lyrical rumination on a violence and disaster centering on the director_s attempts to get her father to talk about his experiances as a Polish Jew during World War II.”
– hand held camera shot documentary
– earthquake footage from the San Francisco earthquake
– only 2 photos remain from her father’s youth during WWII
– scenes of destruction from news footage and CCTV
– meant to resemble Warsaw during the Nazi invasion?
– see you in the morning…I hope so
– now we see b/w footage from WWII showing Warsaw burning
– voice-over narration was very personal
– mystery that she is trying to figure out above her father’s past
– final scene is at the amusement park – and no one is in the park either (non-diagetic)
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VAGABOND (sans toit ni loi)
– rolling French farm hills with wheat growing on them
– mysterious and off-putting violins soundtrack overture playing
– interspersed clips of the dead woman and cleaning wine marks from the floor and walls
– multiple people in the town have flashbacks about the young girl
– they all envy her – they want to be free like her
– why did the camera pan over to show the young girl coming out of the store in one scene and then the combine in the farm field scene?
– “are you looking at me or my sandwich?”
– aha she’s hiding from the police
– the car repair shop owner got some somethin somethin and we see him crawl out of the tent
– she only became interesting once she died
– female drifters are not unusual in France
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CHARACTERS are the agents of cause and effect – have a physical body/presence on screen (animation or real life) – have a voice – sometimes its just the voice
– have attitudes, skills (crafty / funny / warm), habits, tastes and psychological drives
TOKYO – A 43-year-old player in a virtual-world game became so angry about her sudden and unexpected divorce from her online husband that she logged on with his password and killed his digital persona, police said Thursday.
The woman used another player’s ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game “Maple Story” to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said.
Police said the woman admitted to carrying out her cyberspace revenge and has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data.
“‘I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry,”‘ the official quoted her as telling investigators.
The woman, a piano teacher, had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.
She has not yet been formally charged. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison or a fine up to $5,000.
Players in “Maple Story” create and manipulate digital images called “avatars” that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting monsters and other obstacles.
In virtual worlds, players often abandon their inhibitions, engaging in activity online that they would never do in the real world. For instance, sex with strangers is a common activity.
The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married to kill the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his online avatar was dead.
The woman was arrested Wednesday and taken 1,000 kilometres from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the official said.
The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.
Bad online behaviour is usually handled within the rules set up by online worlds, which can ban miscreants or take away their virtual possessions.
In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.
When bad deeds lead to criminal charges, prosecutors have found a real-world activity to cite – as in this case, in which the woman faces possible charges of illegal computer access.
In August, a woman was charged in Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through the virtual reality website “Second Life.”
In Tokyo, a 16-year-old boy was charged with stealing the ID and password from a fellow player of an online game in order to swindle virtual currency worth $360,000.
Virtual games are popular in Japan, and “Second Life” has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants. They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.
I came across this essay yesterday and I think it definitely fits within the realm of our class discussions – when it comes to online / video game universes:
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“Either we will be forced to concede that as long as no ‘other’ is being harmed, people are free to do absolutely anything (torture, rape, molest, murder, etc.), or we will conclude that morality does indeed have a place in virtual worlds.”
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VIRTUAL MORALITY
Technology is dragging morality into some deep and murky philosophical waters, forcing us to reexamine our understanding of it as many of us choose to become actors in virtual worlds. By putting choice and consequence in closed virtual worlds where we can kill without harming others or facing punishment ourselves, we are forced to reconsider the case for moral behavior. New videogames such as Grand Theft Auto IV and online communities such as Second Life, invite an increasingly large percentage of society to participate in fantasy worlds where we are invited to experience life without rules – to be the bad guy or the sexual deviant. The implicit suggestion of these products is that, like gravity, morality does not necessarily exist in a virtual world. Morality and consequence can be switched off. Anything goes. It’s an attractive proposition, one that undoubtedly contributed to the record breaking sales of Grand Theft Auto IV, which took in over $500 million in its first week. Morally questionable behavior provided by the game now includes lap dances, sex with prostitutes, killing prostitutes, killing cops, and of course, stealing auto
Although Grand Theft Auto IV allows you to kill anything that walks, you cannot (yet) sex anything that walks. Sex in the game is restricted to prostitutes who willingly engage. This design choice has allowed the game maker, Rockstar Games, to negate some particularly unsettling in-game situations such as virtual rape or virtual pedophilia. Though I believe there would be a public outcry if such morally repellent things were included in the game, explaining exactly why virtual sex and murder are acceptable – while virtual rape is not – is a difficult argument.
The issue typically discussed around violent games such as Grand Theft Auto is that the violence or sexual behavior of the virtual worlds will surface in the real world – that violent games will eventually create violent people who do horrific things (videogames were repeatedly blamed following both Columbine and Virginia Tech. massacres, for instance). But there is another concern that has gone largely unaddressed that will become increasingly perplexing as videogames create better, more immersive models of reality: am I free to do anything I want in a virtual world, or are some things inherently wrong?
The Matrix Revolutions hints at the complicated relationship between morality and virtual reality through a subplot involving a husband, The Merovingian, and his wife, Persephone. Set in a future age where simulations of people – programs – are largely indistinguishable from real people, the Merovingian has a sexual tryst with a stunning blonde-haired program. Persephone takes revenge on her husband for his sexual dalliances by betraying him to the story’s protagonists. In the scene of his betrayal, The Merovingian confronts Persephone, demanding to know the cause of her disloyalty. Persephone suggests her cause was her husband’s own sexual disloyalty. Unable to refute her claim, the Merovingian points out that he has not been with a woman, he has been with a computer program. “It’s just a game,” he says. The essence of his argument is that morality is meant for governing how people interact with people, not how people interact with machines. Persephone offers no counterargument, and none is required. Regardless of any philosophical arguments, she feels offended by her husband’s infidelity. This is one example, albeit a fictional one, which dispels the notion that virtual behavior has no real-world consequences.
Liberty City, the virtual world of Grand Theft Auto IV, is a much simpler virtual reality than that of The Matrix, but the essential questions of the role of morality within it still apply. The Merovingian’s argument for sexual infidelity – it’s just a game – is presumably the same argument used to justify Grand Theft Autos IV’s virtual lap dances and killings. To be sure, the killing of a fictional character in a videogame cannot be judged on the same moral grounds as the killing of a person in the real world, but The Matrix suggests that morality and consequence cannot simply be ignored in virtual worlds.
The 2002 film Minority Report, based on Phillip K. Dick’s short fiction, also projects a future in which there is a convergence of sexuality and technology. Minority Report imagines brothels of the future where people purchase sexual fantasies made possible via technology. The film doesn’t explore the moral implications of such technological innovation, but rather provides a picture of how technology can complicate our ideas about sex and what constitutes moral sexual conduct. In the wake of this kind of technological innovation, individuals as well as entire religious bodies will be forced to clarify exactly what it means to be faithful to one’s partner. A second, perhaps more difficult question, also quickly follows: what kinds of fantasies should be condoned?
This question was recently debated in the online community of Second Life when it was found that certain members who presented themselves to the online world as children were engaging in virtual sexual acts with adult characters. This may have been allowed to go on, except that some actual child pornographic material was uploaded into the virtual world. Something interesting happened when Second Life’s creator and controlling company, Linden Lab, issued a warning that such activity would not be tolerated. Some of the participants became angry, suggesting that Linden Lab has no business moderating the kinds of fantasies consenting adults participate in. It’s a fight between people who see no moral boundaries in virtual worlds, and those who maintain that there is a place for morality in virtual worlds.
Religion takes an entirely different approach to morality than the model which governs society. Our legal systems attempt to enforce a moral standard upon the way people interact with each other. The purpose of state-imposed morality is to prevent harm. While secular morality condemns actions that harm others (precisely because they harm others), religion is more concerned with what offends God. From a religious perspective, harming your neighbor is wrong not only because it causes your neighbor pain, but also because your action makes God angry. This perspective shifts the gaze of morality from other to God. The first five commandments of the Decalogue do not address the mistreatment of one’s neighbor (e.g. lying, stealing, murdering, committing adultery), but rather man’s approach to God (e.g. creating idols, taking the Lord’s name in vain, keeping the Sabbath day holy).
When Jesus began teaching and interpreting the moral code of the day, he radically redefined adultery, translocating the sin from the physical realm of actions and words to the virtual world of the mind and imagination. In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says, “You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” What Jesus teaches is that God is concerned not only with what plays out in the physical world of actions (reality), but also with what takes place in the virtual world of our minds. A sociological approach to morality judges murder wrong because it harms an innocent person. A theological approach to morality finds murder sinful not only because of the physical act, but also because God is offended by an angry mind as well as violent hands. The humanist or secular view of morality is concerned only with what we do. True religious morality is concerned not only with what we do, but with who we are, with what we desire to do.
In virtual spaces, questions of moral behavior seem to have been passed over entirely, perhaps because, until recently, few games have been specifically designed to allow people to virtually participate in morally reprehensible behavior. The record-breaking sales of the Grand Theft Auto series guarantee that this will soon change. Such a huge market for the game has shown that there is a collective desire to immerse oneself in virtual misbehavior. The market demand for virtual lawlessness guarantees that developers will soon be rushing to the marketplace with games that offer increasingly realistic worlds and potential for morally suspect behaviour. How we will act in those worlds, and whether we object to their content, will stem from our understanding of the source of morality. Either we will be forced to concede that as long as no ‘other’ is being harmed, people are free to do absolutely anything (torture, rape, molest, murder, etc.), or we will conclude that morality does indeed have a place in virtual worlds.
Considered to be the greatest film of all time, at yesterday’s Reading the Screen class, we watched, “CITIZEN KANE” by Orson Welles. Ironically enough, the night before on BRAVO, they showed, “RKO 281” the film made a few years ago about the making of, “CITIZEN KANE” starring Liev Shreiber and John Malkovich.
CITIZEN KANE – Trailer
CITIZEN KANE – opening clip
CITIZEN KANE – News on the March
CITIZEN KANE = #1 on the American Film Institute Top 100 Greatest Movies
– bold, sans serif, outlined type
– moody, sombre music score – misty scenery, deserted castle
– one lonely light on in the bedroom
– ROSEBUD – drops toy – nurse comes in – miniature camera used inside toy
– NEWS ON THE MARCH – Xanadu’s landlord – the loot of the world
– since the pyramids, xanadu’s man’s largest monument to himself
– greatest newspaper tycoon of his time
– “The words Charles Foster Kane are a menace to the workingman”
– “I am and always have been…an American.”
– the still unfinished Xanadu – cost…no man can say
– take my word for it…there will be no war…
– as it does to all men, death came to Charles Foster Kane
– What were Kane’s last words?
– ROSEBUD – dead or alive
– Walter Thatcher memorial library looks like a gigantic tomb
– solitary sunlight illuminating the safe room – looks like fort knox – more valuable then gold
– we see Kane as a young boy with his sled and acting with fun
– his father is concerned for the boy’s well being yet the mother is more than happy to sell him off to the bank
– his mother has had Charles’ trunk packed for a week – she seems like a sociopath with no feeling at all
– snow slowly builds on the sled – solitary and alone
– “I think it would be fun to run a newspaper!”
– he’s just having fun with the news stories and seems to be enjoying it
– Charles Foster Kane is a scoundrel
– it is also my pleasure to look out after the hardworking man
– at the rate of losing $1 million a year, I will have to close this place in…60 years
– if I hadn’t been rich…I could have been a great man
– there’s also the chance that they will change mr. kane without him knowing it
– people will think what I tell them to think…
– great cut scenes showing the passage of time over the breakfast table
– Kane got splashed by a horse carriage driving over a puddle
mother earth – many women were interviewed – native culture had women in powerful positions in the tribe as opposed to european cultures
remarkable part of this film showed the canadian military in a negative light – where is the federal government in all of this crisis?
point of view is taken from the natives – she stayed with her people and moved with them the entire time – the lens was always from the mohawk perspective
talking heads and voice overs / staged or scripted?
subject-centred arguments / euphemematic – you get a lot more power of suggestion and widespread opinion
how did the film maker try to deal with euro-centric points of view?
– she did show both sides of view about the bridge
– interviewed the white male doctor who’s first reaction was anger, but who later changed his POV
– mayor of Oka is presented as cowardly and racist vs. the government we see in the native band
– showed the graveyard in the pines looking out at the golf course – camera pulled back and showed the native perspective of white encroachment
I had the chance to view the film, “Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance” over the weekend seeing as I had missed last week’s screening class. I have to say that I found the film to be a very interesting and engaging piece of film making as well as being a good social commentary on the Oka Crisis as a whole. It succeeded in bringing into perspective the plight of the Mohawk people over the past 270 years in their dealings with White Canadians, the Church in particular and how they had been cheated out of their land. Particular emphasis was placed on the Surete du Quebec and the Mayor of Oka as well who should have rightfully have had an independent inquiry into their strong arm reactions before, during and after the crisis.
Where I do find fault however is in the film maker’s depiction of the Canadian Army. For better or for worse, I believe that the Federal Government made the correct decision to send the Canadian Army to secure the perimeter of the area and to allow both the Mohawks and Surete du Quebec to fall back to pre-established positions. As outsiders to the situation and not having faced the possibility of losing their land or having watched one of their comrades killed in the opening assault, I thought that they showed great restraint at the handling of the situation as a whole (other then the one incident when one of the Mohawks was beaten one night). As far as the comments made by some of the Mohawk warriors laughing at the sight of the soldiers installing barbed wire in the water, imagine being one of the Canadian Army officers trying to keep your men motivated and engaged during what was obviously a very stressful and trying situation. One of the basic tenants of any army is the fact that soldiers need to be constantly tested and kept active. Many an army officer has made his platoon of soldiers dig trenches one day to only cover them all up the very next day.
Another major flaw that I saw in the film was in the handling of then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s response to the crisis. As the ultimate Commander in Chief of the Canadian Army forces sent in to contain the situation, he is only seen in one brief clip complaining, “We will not be dictated by armed people, some of whom aren’t even Canadian.” The sentiment of that clip was taken completely out of context, and is shown as to refer to Mulroney’s belief that the Mohawks were not in fact Canadian citizens. The truth of the matter however, given the fact that I grew up during the crisis, is that Mulroney was in fact referring to American Mohawk warriors who had come across the border to join their Canadian tribesmen and were making their own demands as well. Which brings up my earlier point about the barbed wire in the lake; while the chances of weapons being delivered by boat was low, the goal of the drill was to stop the very remote possibility of weapons and other supplies from being delivered to the Treatment Centre over the lake, and also as a means to keep their soldiers active and engaged.
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DOCUMENTARY – these people, places do in fact exist and the viewer accepts the information on the basis of trust
MOCKUMENTARY – fake people, fake story line yet made to look legitimate
Films INSPIRED by a true story!!!
Categorical Documentary – to convey information about the world to audiences
Rhetorical Documentary – to present a persuasive argument, to persuade the audience to adopt an opinion about the subject and to act on that opinion
“The River” – rhetorical film made in 1938 by the US Federal government as part of The New Deal by FDR to create jobs during the Depression
– the “problem of the land” – narrator speaks poetically rather then lecturing – emotional music to pull at your heart strings
– lot of close ups – intimate camera to get you close to the land
PROGRESS
– yankee doodle dandee music showing logging camps and rivers
– industry – power – might of the country
– reminds me of Soviet propaganda films
– wheat / cotton being loaded onto ships
DANGER
– new scene and new cringing music piece showing clear-cut forests
– “And sent it down the river…”
– water comes downhill and causes floods due to the lack of forests to absorb it
– dum dum dum dum dum = drip drip drip drip drip = raging floods now
– narrator’s voice is now booming to emphasize the poetry of his words
– air raid siren and fog horns go off – RIVER RISING!!!
– men, food, coast guard, medicine needed in every town up and down the rivers all over the country
– lists off the years that the major rivers flooded over their banks
THIN BLUE LINE – by Errol Morris
– 8 years after the murder, Errol Morris – convicted man ended up being freed – Randal Adams
– similar to Truman Capote’s, “In Cold Blood” although they were guilty then
– interview subjects look directly into the camera – up to the audience to decide if they are telling the truth or not
– does reanactments with actors which are beautifully shot (unlike TV ones)
– no old film footage, but uses old photographs, maps, graphs…
– no direct cinema, interviews only
– WHAT IS THE TRUTH HERE?
– audience is always watching and asked to participate
– uses an old feature film which is ridiculous but it works
– unconventional film score – looking for the truth – doesn’t relent
Dallas Law Enforcement interview
– woman officer was there when her partner was shot
– beautiful score -repeating notes of multiple violins and basses
– she is placed right in front of the police car – silhouetted and placed within the headlights
– she couldn’t remember the license plate number
– HC…HC…HC…HC
– blue vega with HC in the plate
– “you expect they would know more then they do” – police officer witness didn’t follow procedure
– speculation = she was sitting in the car drinking her milk shake – re-enactment of her throwing it out the window
– showed forensic diagram showing where the milkshake landed on the ground
– swinging watch – hypnotized her but she couldn’t remember any details but she remember a hit and run plate from earlier in the night
Large woman who was the defense attorney
– Mrs. Miller – THAT’S THE MAN – I SAW THE GUN STICKING OUT OF THE CAR!!!!!
– she’s the one who got him convicted – butt ugly woman with bad blond hair
– jesus she sounds like a dumb shit or at least somewhat mentally retarded
– “Too nosey to know what’s going on”
– by her own admission it was dark within the car, so how could she have gotten such a good look at him?
– “She’s a ho”
Just read this on the World of Warcraft Beta Paladin forums and have to admit, made me laugh my ass off – for those who don’t play WoW, you can skip this post, but for those who do, it’s worth a read:
0. ZOMG RET! – by GHOSTCRAWLER (Blizzard Lead Game Designer for Class Balance)
Since these threads seem to be proliferating, I figure’d I’d just start a new one. Here is a quick Q&A.Q: Is Ret OP?
A: Perhaps. We think Ret’s dps isn’t abnormally high in PvE, and may not even be high in PvP over the course of a long fight. Where we are worried is how much damage Ret can do up front. It’s also Holy damage, which isn’t a big deal when you’re considering a fully sundered mob, but can turn into a lot of damage in PvP.
Q: Are we going to nerf Ret?
A: TO THE GROUND BABY. Okay, not really, but sometimes I can’t resist. We’ll see how much that quote comes back to haunt me. We will probably be making some changes soon, perhaps even hotfixes. We want to be very surgical about what we do. We don’t want to overdo it, and we don’t want to hurt their sustained PvE damage. When we’ve decided, I’ll make sure you all know.
Q: Why did it take us this long to admit there was a problem when EVERYONE knew about it?
A: A couple of weeks ago there were some bugs with weapon equipping that caused some problems that of course were being exploited. We didn’t want to nerf Ret TO THE GROUND BABY only to discover that the weapon problem was causing 90% of it.
Q: Enough about Ret. Unholy death knights are worse!
A: That wasn’t a question, but we think we have Unholy in a better place now. We made some changes to a few deep talents (that the DK community is already aware of, so don’t fret) to get Unholy’s dps more in line. Also, you aren’t going to see any PvP DKs for a long time, so we need to focus on paladins for now.
Q: Hi. Thanks for the update. While you’re here, can I ask you all these other offtopic questions about paladins or the game in general?
A: …
Here are two videos that I made showcasing the concepts I developped for the flipbook animation project that we were assigned for our DIVA 200 course:
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? OBSCENE ?
ob·scene (adj.)
1. Offensive to accepted standards of decency or modesty.
2. Inciting lustful feelings; lewd.
3. Repulsive; disgusting
WARNING: ADULT THEME – DO NOT CLICK PLAY IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED!
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From Booty Bay to Quel’Danas in 2 minutes
I recorded this film for my DIVA 200 (Digital and Interactive Arts) course at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECUAD). The clips were taken from the online video game World of Warcraft and features a hyperspeed flight from Booty Bay to the Isle of Quel’Danas.
Sorry that I have been lax in updating my blog, but I got food poisoning last Friday, which morphed into a lovely bouquet of influenza due to my immune system being shot to hell, so I have been a little under the weather of late.
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TROIKA + GLOWLAB
the cloud
tetris + knight rider on office building windows
– starbucks has the largest wireless cloud in the world – they are now an entertainment channel
– doing the same with internet connection as they did with music cds
– war chalking / war driving
– hobo culture / signs / graffity to communicate and warn one another
– marks on buildings to let people know where free internet access is around the city
– notion of privacy of how much of your life is public and how much is private
– google is keeping track of every single search that we do
– web crawler and cyber squatters flipping internet domains
drift.relay in san jose by glowlab
“information wants to be free” = guiding moto of open source movement
book called “The Long Tale” – by Chris Anderson who is the editor of Wired Magazine
– digital content (sitting on a hard drive) versus brick and mortar inventory in a store
– there will be a market for my work
– eventually you will be able to buy the license to a piece of content that you have already paid for (cd, dvd, blue-ray, next gen…)
– digital has transformed everything
– google is the single largest data mining enterprise in the world – save every search until 2038
– google knol – is this the precursor of the CIC (Central Intelligence Corporation – Snow Crash)?
– knol = unit of knowledge – go and get information and if you want more, you can pay for it
– Google is giving you information that they THINK you may want
– civil liberties = main concern: aggregation of personal data in commercial databases
– government databases are subject to privacy act
– commercial databases fall outside of privacy act, and the use of contractors has transformed law enforcement
– ChoicePoint or Seisint, aggregate data from commercial transactions with public records (prescriptions, groceries, travel plans, criminal records)
– potential for abuse
– concentrated target for hackers, identty thieves and authorities otherwise constrained by privacy act
– Seisint compiled a list of 120,000 based of a “terrorist quotient”, a profile they created including ethnicity and religious beliefs and handed it over to law enforcement
– Florida relied on ChoicePoint to identify convicted felons registered to vote – as many as 1 in 7 were wrongfully expunged from the voters list (voter margin in 2000 was 537 votes)
RFID – Radio Frequency Identification
– shock bracelets with EMD Technology (Electro-Muscular Disruption)
Privacy and Social Networks
Google’s Value Proposition – “is to figure out what people want, but to read our minds, they need to know a lot about us”
– will pull ads containing certain keywords, but will not state what those keywords are
– handed over user-records of Orkut to Brazilian government for an investigation
(orkut is a social networking service which is run by Google and named after its creator, an employee of Google – Orkut Büyükkökten. The service states that it was designed to help users meet new friends and maintain existing relationships.)
– censored and constrained its Chinese search-engine to gain access to that market
– the Chinese government is in the process of saving SKYPE messages that pass through mainland China and now SKYPE has ended their relationship with their Chinese affiliate
Google Streets – recorded some random kid who saw the Google van drive by and he ended up wiping out on his bike
“Don’t Be Evil”
The Worst of Real Made Virtual
– the covenant of Extropia
– A Declaration of the Rights of Avatars – by Ralph Koster
189 Satellites that don’t officially exist (spy satellites CIA, KGB)
iridium satellite flashes – search when the satellite will flash on the web
– Russian town had 400 people show up in yellow raincoats and stood in the town square when the google satellite went overhead
CONCEPTUAL / EXPERIMENTAL FILM
– what are your physiological responses to watching this film?
– how is the film engaging you?
– using new technology to inquire about itself (optical printer)
– goldrush to explore new possibilities that the technologies can usher in
Ballet Mechanique – dir Fernand Leger
Part 1
Part 2
Mothlight – dir Stan Brakhage
Wavelength – dir Michael Snow
Pas de Deux – dir. Norman McLaren
Part 1 – all I have to say is WOW – what an incredible film
“pièce touchée, Martin Arnold, Austria,16mm Film, b&w, 16 min
Arnold’s breakthrough film, pièce touchée, is based on a single 18-second shot from The Human Jungle (dir. Joseph M. Newman, 1954). Woman sitting in a chair. Man enters the room. Man and woman kiss. Exit man.”
– from the YouTube description
– this is only half of the film as a whole – could only get the first 9 minutes of the piece from YouTube
personal notes:
– b/w film – opens with a woman sitting on a chair in a living room reading a newspaper
– humming / mechanical noise overlay
– repetitive film – no movement at all other than fingers and head
– starts with only one frame then slowly builds up with the number of frames
– back and forth with forward and backward movement of the frames as the man enters the room
– mirroring imagery from left to right = cool effect on the eyes
– her head appears to swivel a complete 360 as the scene repeats and mirrors itself
– the man goes down and kisses the woman finally
– various editing techniques follow to the end…
in-class round table discussion:
– motion study / repetitive motion study
– changes of planes / changes of perception
– disorientation and uncomfortable
– dealt with time – kept revisiting and repeating frames
– absurdity of everyday domestic scene
– sound was mechanic humming
– story interpretation of repetition
– negation of story narrative
– metaphor / felt like we were inside a washing machine
– creation of new images using existing frames / transformation
– underlying issues of domesticity (violence / sexuality)
– issues of dominance, power and gender
– introduction of new editing techniques
– abstraction of shapes and creation of negative space
– interesting effects of animation (head spinning / rotating)
– soundtrack gives a dehumanized / mechanized theme to the piece (lack of humanity)
– unexpected editing techniques (reversals, mirrors, motion, movement)
– Experimental / Found Footage film piece
– too long? too repetitive? (was it intended?)
– no finality at the end – felt incomplete – where did it end? what does it mean?
– resolution irrelevant – it is an experimental film by nature
– A Touching Piece / Touched Piece – what does the title actually refer to?
– critique of cinema / society at the time (Hollywood system and view of society)
– expanded cinema (new term for avant-garde / experimental / innovative)
I have been a little slackish on doing CrossFit for the past week because I have a slight upper abdominal strain that I picked up from doing pull-ups but lo and behold I bit the proverbial bullet and went to the 5pm class after working at school all day and busted out some blood, sweat and tears…
Thursday’s WOD:
Max Front Squat: worked my way up to a Max of 165 lbs.
Max Pullups: was only able to do 2.5 pull-ups due to my abdominal strain but at least I gave it a go!
Also, here is the video from the last CrossFit Clean & Jerk session that took place in September – better late then never to show you the video – you can see me in action during the last clip of the video:
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