1. People walking quickly down the street (speed 200%?) at daytime. Lots of cuts, handheld camera, feels chaotic. Lots of random and confusing noise.

Cut to tripod shot of dark street with no one walking. Lack of sounds (or loud ones at least).

Repeat two or three times.


2. Entrance to office building at night overlaid with a low transparency image of the same scene during the day. People walking past, walking in, cars passing by, etc. Sound is echoed and quiet.


3. Right of frame: street during day with lots of traffic, people crossing roads. Center of frame is a dissolve (right to left) into the night shot. Night is shot from the same camera position, and there are nearly no cars driving around. It appears as though cars are driving into the dissolve and then simply disappearing. Sound is panned entirely to the right.


4. Short shot of bike rack during the day. Full of bikes. Fade to night, bike rack is empty of bikes. No effects. Intent is to slow the viewer down a little bit... bring them back to earth a little.



5. Vendors or shops. During the day they are bustling, full of people coming in and out, buying things, etc. At night, they are empty and dark. Various shots of different shops and/or vendors, quick cuts for each shop between night and day.


6. Final shot showing a little bit of everything. Street, sidewalk, vendors (perhaps), etc. All of the previously used effects put together to give the section a sense of tension.

Alternate Reality

For my alternate reality project, I would like to film an area in DC that is extremely busy during the day but then empties at night. For example... the Foggy Bottom area (mostly up on Pennsylvania) is chock full of businesspeople, homeless, vendors, students and cabbies during the day. However, at night there is hardly any walking or driving in the area.

I would like to show how desolate and perhaps even frightening these sorts of places can be when they are completely deserted. I always find it interesting that even in a city like DC which has 5.3 million people in the metro area, it is possible to find a place at night (downtown even) that feels like a ghost town.

During the day shots, I'd like to add in extra audio to make the scene feel crowded, rushed and thoughtless. However, at night I plan on taking out almost all audio... leaving only the slightest strain of traffic noise and perhaps strange clunks and clicks happening off in the background, as if something or someone is moving about off camera.

Virtual/Real Worlds

In Char Davies' article, "Changing Space: Virtual Reality as an Arena of Embodied Being," Davies talks about her piece, Osmose, and how it allows a user to (basically) feel as though they travel to a new and different world. She says that participants reported "a deep sense of mind/body relaxation," or "inability to speak rationally or put logical words together afterwards," or "intense emotional feelings, including euphoria and/or an overwhelming sense of loss when the session was ending."

My question is this: What is it about an alternate reality that is so appealing to us? Is it impossible for a piece like Osmose to evoke these same feelings in a person if it is representing a real space?

To answer my first point simply, I think I would say that alternate realities appeal to people so strongly simply because they are different. Look at video games. There have been several massively-multiplayer online games made over the years that have created new realities. Ultima Online (one of the first), created a fantasy world in which characters could do almost literally whatever they wanted. They could be a knight, a magician, an archer... any sort of typical fantasy character. However, they could also be a blacksmith, or a carpenter, or a herbalist. They could be a thief, and steal from other players. They could be a murderer. At the time, UO had far more players than any online game previously, and I would say that this type of "immersion" (the ability to do whatever they want) is why. People were able to enter this world, complete with its own history, lore, heroes, villains (living people, I might add) and live a different life.

However, UO is different from Osmose on one major point -- UO was still very "realistic." Putting aside the fantasy aspects of the game (you could shoot lightning at dragons), it was very Earthly. Boats floated on water. Water flowed in rivers. If you stabbed something, it died. Osmose is extremely different. The world created within it is entirely unlike life on Earth. There are certain objects that reflect Earthly objects (for example, trees and grass), but they do not behave like they do on Earth. A tree may be suspended in space, sparkling in a thousand colors. Its roots may grow before your eyes. The grass may move about, appear and then disappear. So perhaps this is what evokes such emotion. Seeing things we already know in a different manner.

However, "real" spaces (such a Ultima Online) can evoke similar emotions, however their causes are probably different. People in UO will become amazingly attached to a house they might own, for example. They'll spend countless hours designing and decorating it. However it is very clear that this house is not truly real. It does not exist anywhere except as several lines of code.

Another interesting concept is the human-computer relationship within Osmose and in other areas. In Osmose, the computer and its various VR supplements serve only as tools to link a person to this different reality. However, virtual realities may soon become home to true beings. A company called Novamente has created what it calls a "fully functioning animal brain," and plans to introduce it into the game Second Life in the form of pets. These pets will learn behavior from their owners (what is good or bad, what actions are rewarded and which are punished) and will evolve on its own. So will these pets not evoke emotions? If in real life your pet, who you've had for several years and have grown to love, dies, will you not feel sad? Can the same not be said for a virtual pet that thinks and acts like a real pet?

Propaganda

Message: With this piece I intended to look at how countries are able to divert attention from domestic problems towards international and security problems through a war. North Korea, I thought, would be a perfect example. They have a million-man standing army which is extremely costly, and the rest of the country is in shambles. With a tight controls on what people can think and say (through brainwashing and imprisonment/death), the government is able to push off most of these problems on other countries (for example the US). I do not believe this video is too out of the ordinary, except perhaps in its dialogue.

This also applies to other countries. Many would say that the Iraq war has been a perfect excuse for the President to divert attention away from many domestic problems.

Propaganda: My main tool in this piece is satire. I use almost solely video taken in North Korea and then extrapolate it to the rest of the world. Starving North Korean children are not North Koreans, but Americans funding their giant army which they cannot afford. North Koreans attempting to cross the border to South Korea are really South Koreans trying to join the North Koreans' "glorious revolution." By doing so, and by including certain snide remarks about the state of affairs in other countries (but certainly not in North Korea!) I am attempting to show that this is a true example of propaganda... and therefore, nothing that is said can be trusted.



Section 1: Call to Arms

"The time has come, Comrades. The Great General, in his wisdom has decided the agression of the big bully, the United States, cannot stand. This is war!"

(Images of Kimg Jung-Il, people cheering, NK army training and marching, etc.)

Section 2: Why the US is Bad

"You may know of the United States as a huge world power. It is true they have a good military, but the rest of their country suffers because of it! Look at these pictures of their weak and hungry! I have been told that we are not weak and hungry like this, so I can only believe that we are not!"

(Images of US military, marching, bombing, etc, juxtaposed with images of starving North Korean children)

Section 3: Someone Else is Bad Too

"Their ally, South Korea, sits below us like a chair that the Great General rests his bottoms on. In fact, many South Koreans seek to join our glorious revolution. Look at them trying to cross the border! (Not North Koreans!!!)"

(Images of North Koreans being detained by NK military at the borders, jumping fences, crawling under fences, etc.)

Section 4: Rallying

"We are glorious, we are strong. The United States cannot stand against us. We are rich in monies and possibly in other things as well, maybe we are rich in culture! The big bully United States cannot stand against our superior culture and possible money and other things! Now is our greatest of times! Now we fight!"

(Images of NK celebrations, parades, dancers, army, infrastructure, etc. Ends with an image of Kim Jung-Il and his father [previous dictator]).

Soundscape

The Future of Multimedia Art

In their article, “Personal Dynamic Media,” Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg state that “the interactions of humans with their media have been primarily nonconversational and passive in the sense that marks on paper, paint on walls, even “motion” pictures and television, do not change in response to the viewer’s wishes,” and that “once put down on paper [ideas] remain static and require the reader to expand their possibilities.” However, today media does allow for user interaction. Since this goal of creating an interactive form of media has been achieved, what is next in multimedia?

I would say (or perhaps hope) that it lies in user (or, in the case of art, “viewer”) creation as opposed to interaction. Take the internet for example. There are millions of people who can be classified as internet “users.” However, there are very few that can be classified as “creators.” A creator, in my mind, is someone who takes their corner of the internet (their web page) and creates something new and different by themselves. There is a lot of user interaction these days. Look at Myspace for example. It allows for users to change the way their page looks to reflect their own personal style. However the backbone of the system remains the same. People who edit their Myspace pages are not creating anything, they’re simply interacting with it by changing the way it looks.

The same can be said for multimedia art. Lets take JacksonPollock.org for example. This piece allows users to create “art” similar to that of Jackson Pollock by mimicking his gesture and stroke. The end result is that the user has made their own artistic piece. However, have they truly “created” anything? The way the strokes appear and the colors of the paint are predetermined by the original artist. So the user is not actually “creating” anything. They’re simply interacting with the original artists creation.

I’d say that, at some point in the future, multimedia art will move to a point that will allow the viewer of a piece to truly create their own art with that piece. How will this happen? Honestly, I have no idea. I cannot imagine a computer or a program that will allow a viewer to have complete freedom on what they create without requiring tremendous knowledge of coding, modeling, design, etc. But then again, technology is advancing daily. I remember when I first started playing computer games. Games had two dimensional, 8-bit graphics. Not long after, there was talk of people making truly three-dimensional games. How absurd, I thought. How could a normal person like myself possibly be able to afford a computer that could render such things in real time? But look at games now. Designers are able to create nearly realistic environments and characters. So who is to say that, a few years from now, some sort of technology will be created that will allow for the sort of user interaction I’m talking about?

Hektor: Art or Artist?

Hektor’s creators call him “a portable Spray-paint Output Device for laptop computers.” It was designed and created by Jürg Lehni and Uli Franke, of Lausanne, Switzerland. To create its art, it employs a computer, a premade Illustrator file, two small motors, some string, a specially designed spray paint holder, and, of course spray paint. With these tools, it is able to closely reproduce graffiti like images. My question is this: who is creating the art? Hektor or his creators?

This question is similar to those I have been asking all semester. At what point does a piece of multimedia art stop being “art,” or even the artists own creation? If a computer randomly generates sound and images, is it an artist? Or are those who programmed the computer to do so the artists? While I have already decided on my own answer to this question, it is interesting to look at it from different points of view.

Lets say we have a novice painting student. He doesn’t know much of anything about how to paint… all he knows is that it involves brushes. He takes a class. He buys a canvass and paint at a local art store. He goes to class. His professor says, “Here’s a still life. Here’s how to sketch it. Here’s how to show depth. Here’s how to use color. Now paint that still life.” When the student finishes, he has produced a piece of art. However, would everyone agree that this painting is entirely his own? He received much tutoring, after all. He didn’t stretch his own canvass. He didn’t choose his subject… so is it really his own “piece of art”?

Similarly, are the creators of Hektor the creators of the art he produces? The work Hektor produces is not of his own creation. By using Adobe Illustrator and a plugin called Scriptographer, Hektor follows paths that tell him where to move, when to start spraying, and when to stop. However, the Illustrator file that tells him his actions was created long beforehand. So is Hektor creating this piece of art? Or are those who gave him his instructions?

As always, I maintain my argument that Hektor, like any other multimedia tool, is just that – a tool. Hektor is like a paint brush. He is a canvass. He is the paint. He is the professor offering instruction. However, the author of whatever piece he produces are his creators and those who give him his instructions.

Hektor is extremely different from most multimedia art, however. The fact of the matter is that the artists’ hands never touch the final piece. They barely even touch the paint except to shake it before the pass it off to Hektor. Of course they give Hektor his instructions, much as other multimedia artists provide their tools with images or movies or sounds, but Hektor creates art in a much more permanent way. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future with Hektor and programs like it. Will there be a point when his offspring are able to draw from various sources and create their own art? Who knows.





Various other things:
Rita - A drawing and erasing display
Telephone - Two computers talking