Bike Box Locative project

Check out this video and the rest of the website for more information on the Bike Box project that took place last July.

http://www.sabinegruffat.com/BIKEBOX/?page_id=268

This is an interesting locative project that incorporates biking and technology (iphone) to create a way to explore the city in which people reside in. This is what their 'concept' section says about it:

Concept

If each stage of urban development adds another layer of brick and mortar to a city’s foundations, it also excises a layer of lived experience and memory. The bulldozer’s blade cuts both ways, after all, clearing the ground for something new as it covers up something old: old patterns of land use, as well as old sets of civic histories and personal connections. Sometimes, the history attached to a site is preserved. And sometimes, it is buried away, waiting to be uncovered.

To facilitate this historical retrieval, we propose a living archive: an ongoing interactive database of storytelling and sound art, recorded and disseminated via a locative media bicycle project. Partly inspired by community bike projects such as The Yellow Bikes in the U.S.A., Vélib in Paris, and Citybike in Vienna, and mobile art projects such as Banff New Media Institute’s “Tracklines” project, we would like to create a prototype of the Bike Box, a circulating bicycle library, oral history research center, and exhibition space. The purpose of the Bike Box is to give a city’s residents access to technology-enhanced bicycles in order to assist and encourage the exploration and interpretation of their urban environment. As avid cyclists, we believe a bicycle is the best vehicle for urban reconnaissance. A bike rider can cover a lot of ground while still maintaining the maneuverability and 360-degree viewpoint of someone on foot. Cycling allows for both slow contemplation and fast getaways.

As part of our preparatory work, we are inviting local land-use experts, historians, poets, artists and interpreters of all types to curate or contribute audio that is linked to sites of personal interest, historical significance, or social concern. These audio pieces will be geotagged and uploaded to the Bike Box database. In the end, we hope to create a continuous network of audio recordings: an aural map of the city that will illuminate the built environment as well as the hidden layers of history, memory, and narrative that underlie it. The Bike Box will be a way for residents and visitors alike to show each other around the city and to tell each other stories about the places they share.

~Karina Avellaneda~

The Cognitive Landscape Project

This site has some interesting locative media/mapping projects.
http://thecognitivelandscapeproject.tumblr.com/

Pogo

Check out Pogo's YouTube page. He remixes Disney animated films and has a few other cool remixes as well. Awesome stuff!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Fagottron#p/u/7/mbD5ke7xqww

-Tracy Galloway

Newst Week Hacks Internet Headlines

http://hyperallergic.com/21313/newst-week-hack/

Newstweek: The Short Demonstration from newstweek on Vimeo.

Devon Golde- Blog Entry 2

---In today's digital world, the true meaning of authorship has become more vague than ever. Any original work published to the internet can be copied and altered by the masses at their convenience. So what does this mean for those that have created original works and use the inter-webs as their only means to share them? Well anyone with access to the internet can access millions of pieces of user-created content. Some times people take this content and "remix" it to make their own content to create something new. However they haven't created any actual new content, just reimagined the old. It is hard to say in this situation who the author is of the new work. Is it the one who created the original work, or is it the one who used that for their own agenda? The maker of the new material has created something, but technically hasn't created something brand new, instead using someone else's work for their own. So is this person now the new author or a collaborator? Either way that person will likely take full credit for their new work, even if it's not entirely their own.
---This accessibility to technology like the internet allows for people to have a seemingly limitless amount of content and information whenever they please. People can find almost any information they are looking for just by typing a few words and can find any user-content and see it from anywhere in the world. The internet has most definitely taken any geographical boundaries out of the equation. One can talk to someone just as easily down the street as they can someone three-thousand miles away. And as such, location doesn't seem to be as much of a factor as it used to. Now we can all be in the same place-hearing the same news, the same gossip, the same content- and that place is the internet. Whereas only a few years ago location was a huge factor in who you are, now it seems that we are all just global citizens, people of the internet. We are becoming more of a global culture, as well. Being able to access the same content, to communicate to anywhere in the world, we have ceased to be separate people from separate places. Instead we have become one and the internet has brought us together, made us one. It has changed the way we live, act, and communicate. It has changed not only our culture, but the very foundations of culture itself.

Blog 2 -- Kathleen Welter

Question #2 – Remix and Open Source Culture – What impact has digital technology had on issues of authorship, access to technology and means of cultural production?

According to Lev Manovich’s article Remixability and Modularity, our digital technology has had a dramatic increase in accessing information. He explained this concept by using geography features. Think technology as a mountain top and mountains usually have streams running down them. As the water or streams increase their speed, they are able to find different paths. This is applied to our technology today because when you think about it, technology and information keep growing and as they keep growing, they find different paths that all connected similar to streams on a mountain. These paths can go into different directions and can be manipulated or remixed. These paths of information go through a transformative process that can be organized, shared, or combine new forms of information therefore, increases our means of accessing different types of technology.

Also in Remixabilty and Modularity, Manovich compared issues of cultural production to mass production. He explained that we’re still living in a mass production era. Actually, we’re already on our way out. But it has been our way of life since 1913 when Ford distributed his first factory car. Because one lives in an industrial society, does that mean that modularity in contemporary culture lags behind industrial modularity, responsible for mass production? According to Manovich, no. Simply, that cultural modularity or production seems to be governed by a different logic. Meaning it has different standards and not everything is “built in.”

Authorship is a difficult subject with digital technology because there is now a thing called intellectual property. An example of this can be the origin of Facebook. Mark Zukerberg, the designer used his own software to design Facebook, however it wasn’t his idea. So how can one put authorship on an idea? This is where intellectual property comes into play and was used against Zukerberg. Because digital technology has been expanded upon, so does the means of authorship.

Josh Ferrell Blog 2

In this modern age the idea of authorship has come under the microscope. In the age where pirating has replaced consumerism how do you differentiate between the pirate and the artist. This question permeates the use of digital technology, often misused. But for better or worse the definition of authorship at least has changed. As we saw the world can be bent and pixilated and molded into the will of the artist. Digital technology has taken the art of Warhol and given us the tools to produce it in seconds. As such, cultural production exists in an age of postmodernism. Taking what has been true in culture in time past and giving it new life and new meaning, reflecting our culture of recyclable past. The accessibility of this technology has also lead the wider expansion of this idea. But with every good comes bad. Technology that allows us to grab pieces of art from the web has lead to a war on piracy and an explosion thereof. Yet completed culture is still the malleable clay in the clever artist’s hands, and all can be made into new art.

Montes Carrasquillo
Question #2 – Remix and Open Source Culture – What impact has digital technology had on issues of authorship, access to technology and means of cultural production?
Digital technology has had a big impact on authorship when one thinks of the internet. Digital technology has changed the way communication takes place between people and allows for reproduction of many things that are now made copy ready for the consumer. Because the consumer changes the original copy into a different meaning when viewed or heard or felt the consumer then clams owner ship of that new piece. Most artist work comes with license agreement which must be followed or obeyed such as creative commons. The argument over ownership as a history that goes back to laws that were made for ownership over the air waves that are used to broadcast radio signals to an audience. Today people want to be seen and heard so they blog and chat and images are sent to one another a lot of times over a long distances, say Philadelphia to somewhere in the West Coast. The more access a person has to digital technology the more that person will produce copies and originals and they will have a vast collection of things that make up their digital world that can reach most parts of the original world. Hollywood as felt a big impact by the internet and always is looking for new ways to integrate new ideas to keep their audience in the multiplexes. Video tape has had a big impact on film by biting into their audience, the internet has television audience down similar to the way television has took newspapers audience. Blogs and you tube are a new net being cast by different group that end in different headline news putting the viewer at a more authorship position when it comes to what they see

Blog 2

Digital technology has altered a lot, especially with authorship. It has become more and more difficult to accurately claim something as your own, especially when put on the internet. It has become so easy for anybody to sit down with another creator's work, open it in Photoshop, and transform the image completely, calling it their own. While the end result may be creative, it could send a different message than the one the original author intended to be seen. At the same time, maybe the author wanted his/her work out there and be accessed by those who want to build upon it to create a bigger work of art.

Digital technology has affected our lives by letting us create things we could not before. Even as far as CGI, and even though personally I am not the biggest fan, it allows viewers to see something on a screen that could never actually happen (like flipping complete streets on top of each other). As far as cultural production, digital technology has made the digital arts more accessible to the masses. Instead of having to put together a gallery, invite people, etc., now it is so easy to create your own website and advertise your work. The other great thing is the ability for students, or frankly anybody who would like to create, to have access to this digital technology to create a new art form. The downfall, however, is the inability for those who may not be so familiar and may not have access to the technology, to be able to create like those who do.

-Derek Applegate

Blug Assignment #2

Digital technology has greatly affected authorship and culture production. Those who have access to technology have a much greater means of creating cultural products and becoming authors. On the other hand, those who do not have access to technology are unable to become the same creators and consumers of such creations as their privileged counterparts.

The individuals that are on the access side of the digital divide have the means and access to information. They have the ability to be able to view, remix, re-edit, download and sample the content that they have at hand. What one person creates can be accessed and altered by another. These sequences of events give those who have access to technology the advantage when it comes to becoming an author and a creator of cultural products.

Those who are on the other side of the digital divide have very limited resources when it comes to being authors. The lack of access to technology strips them of information. Without the information and the content that is provided by technology there is no means to view, remix, re-edit, download and sample.

Without technology the possibility of authorship greatly changes. There are no blogs; no mp3’s, there is no video editing software, no internet. The means of creating are left in the hands of the individuals and what they have access to in their environment.

With digital technology, cultural productions becomes extremely abundant. When it is absent, there is a great loss in what a culture is/can be producing.

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Blog 2

Digital technology is an incredibly powerful thing. With that comes access to what seems to be an unlimated number of recourses. Naturally this makes things much easier for most. The biggest problem digital technology provides however is the lack of ownership in almsot anything. If someone really wants to steal or use something without permission bad enough they can and usually will. Everything from art and science to identity theft. This leaves one wondering how can a person claim true authorship at all. Aside from this though digital technology as long as its not abused is a magnifecent thing that can provide people with the means to learn and explore at their fingertips. Technology is becoming much more accessible due to the advancements in digital technologies.
-Mike Markloff

Blog 2

While digital technology broadens the horizon for Creatives in more way than one, it also brings one major problem to the table – authorship. Although digital technology has increased authorship by allowing more people to produce work, either by creating original pieces or by remixing other work, it also has created a very fuzzy line that many people either unknowingly or consciously cross. It’s much easier to take someone’s work from the Internet than to copy it from a book, or to record it from a CD. I myself am very guilty of “stealing from Google” as I call it. At my internship though, I conduct photo research and spend my workday requesting photos and photo credits of images that could just as easily be taken from the Internet. Doing this had made me more understanding of copyright laws and the importance of the creator retaining their authorship.

Access to technology is a commonality for most. But, take a look at Philadelphia. The digital divide is expanding all the time. Half the city is walking around with iPhones, iPads, smartphones, iPods (wow, does Apple own everything or what?) and the other half don’t even know how to use a computer. I’m not just talking homeless people here. I’m talking seniors, poor folks, unemployed, minorities, etc. Luckily, projects are in the works. Drexel University is helping to bring thousands of computers to residents of the Philadelphia Housing Authority this year. But, the numbers are still up there and as the digital divide widens, the problems heighten. Digital technology has only decreased access to technology, among other things, for those on the other side of the divide.

Digital technology has perhaps stunted cultural production in our society in some ways. We have to ask ourselves – can we really produce anything original anymore? Isn’t everything we come up with somehow derived from an original work, or even a remixed work? While this argument can probably be applied to any work produced even before digital technology came about, I think it is much more severe in terms of digital technology. Our own creativity is hindered by the accessibility we have to others’ work.

-Tracy Galloway

Blog 2 Response

Before technology, there were limited ways in which media was created. For instance, the only way that news was created was through newspapers, which was printed on paper in a factory and sold on the streets. Technology has completely changed the way we get our news today. It makes it so easy to have access to it, whether it is on television, on a mobile device, and of course the Internet. The Internet has given anyone who has access to it the ability to view just about anything. The question is how has media changed with the emergence of digital technology. One of the main ways technology has changed media is through remixability. Technology enables people to create their own content, and frequently change the content made by someone else, and sign off on as their own. The music industry has probably had the biggest impact. Before technology, people often bought CD’s in a store and played them in a boom box or CD player. Have things changed dramatically over the past few decades. More often than not, songs are being downloaded illegally or downloaded from an online music store. The last time I bought a CD was over the summer. Youtube has paved the way for aspiring artists to create their own songs and upload them for anyone to hear. The Internet negatively and positively affected the music industry.

--Jesse Steinberg--

Blog 2

Digital Technology has impacted the issues of authorship, access, and cultural production because of just how easy it is to face these issues. Through digital technology anyone can create something new. The issue of authorship is a tough one. We can take blogging for example; blogging allows anyone to be an author of their work. Anyone can write anything about anything. Digital technology has created more authors. The negative about authorship is that sometimes when credit isn’t given, with so many people writing, we don’t really know who had the original idea that is mentioned. When something is remixed but the original piece isn’t credited then the remixed piece can become its own being and the original piece can be missed or neglected. That’s where the problem of authorship comes along in the digital age. Digital technology impacted our access to technology because we have it 24/7, all day every day. Different ideas are constantly being shares, reworked, and exchanged. Digital Technology has impacted means of cultural production as well because it is a new medium to share and exchange information. We used to rely on solely radio, TV and newspapers and all of those mediums have merged to be included in digital technology. For example, Twitter has changed our culture’s production because it is now used for entertainment, friends, news, music, etc. It is being used to expand and move forward culturally.

~Karina Avellaneda~

Post 2: Remix

First of all, I would argue that digital technology has had less impact on issues of authorship, access to technology, and means of cultural production than is popularly portrayed in mass media. Take the example of zines and hip-hop, both of which existed before the dawn of the Internet.
When one is writing a zine, one usually remains anonymous. In zine culture, authorship is a little bit different - the author isn't as important as the message is. Moreover, zines use low-tech methods of production. To distribute a zine, all one needs is access to a copy machine and a lot of staples. Many people still write zines in this day and age.
As for hip-hop, this genre is one of many genres that samples other music extensively. For example, there's a song by Nas named I Can that samples Fur Elise by Beethoven. He took the original song and altered the context to make it fit his message. This kind of sampling raises the question of whether the original - in this example, Fur Elise - is still relevant or if the sampling process changed it so much that it now means something totally different. Who is the author?: Beethoven, Nas, or both?
The difference between our era and the early days of sampling is that it is a lot easier to sample and remix now. For example, there is a meme generator online, where one is provided with a template to generate various memes like "paranoid parrot." Using this template, the user types in a punchline. You no longer have to know how to use complicated software to manipulate images; you simply have to go to a website and type in words.
Access to technology is still a pertinent point, but I would argue that it is getting easier as the prices of technology fall and web designers become more cognizant of providing access to users with disabilities. And, like I pointed out in the example of meme generators, you don't necessarily have to know how to code in order to use online tools. It is therefore becoming easier for guerilla organizations to do things like report news from their perspective via blogs and Youtube.
Of course, one major issue is that it's easier to get media than ever before, even if one only uses legal methods. One can download an entire discography or TV show in a matter of minutes or hours. This would have been unthinkable in the middle of the twentieth century. Some authors argue that this ease of access is harmful, whereas other authors embrace it - like Radiohead did in 2007 when they released In Rainbows online and allowed users to pay whatever they wanted, including nothing at all. This is a very contentious point with too many nuances to go into here.
So, in a nutshell, I don't think that digital technology is responsible for the rise of remix and open source culture. Instead, I think that the primary impact that digital technology has had is the fact that it makes it easier to remix and to share art online, so now more people participate in these.

Daniel Crosby

Andrew Valentino - Blog Post 2

Digital technology has essentially democratized culture. While at first it was used primarily as a means of disseminating products from manufacturers to consumers (as in films and music) in a generally unidirectional manner, the availability of file hosting services coupled with the reduced price of professional authoring tools has resulted in everyone sharing with each other. Following the rapidly decreasing prices of electronics, the ability to obtain access to the entire world of digital content is becoming more easily accessible, allowing the digital divide to be bridged naturally by economics. Authorship has also become somewhat muddled as an authoritative expression, at least in academic circles. In practice, however, authorship has still generally been relegated to the creator of a specific work, which includes remixes and open source software. In the case of remixes, the author of the remix is understood to be different from the author of the source material, and I have seen people react negatively when the perceive that their specific remix has been plagiarized by someone else - indicating a sense of authorship over the reorganization but not the raw material. In the case of open source projects or software, typically I have seen credits involved with new releases or specific patches. Many 3d models I have used in animations were accompanied by permission to freely use the file but to give credit to the artist who created it. The idea of authorship is not lost to the digital realm - it is just more easily confused by people who don't give credit where credit is due.

Blended Pictures

I know we've moved on from blended pictures to remixing, but I thought this was very interesting. This site has photos taken from Burning Man, the week long event in Nevada, and blended them with other pictures.

http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/2010/10/08/photo-essay-burning-man-remixed/

--Jesse Steinberg--

Remixing

I came across this website that has a really comical example of remixing. On the top left you can also take a look at Patrick Moberg's other collections. His remix projects are 'Animal Pharm' and 'Internet Vices'.

http://www.patrickmoberg.com/animalpharm

~Karina Avellaneda~