Doubt

When reading this, I think of cubism. His description of art and novelty and how we see things resonates with the primary focus of the Cubism movement. We can only imagine what looking at an early cubist painting would be like for an art enthusiast in the early 20th century. The paintings were a distorted rearranged representation of the world. This movement did exactly what he describes, "It is in the creation of disjuncture between the thing and its representation that we come to see the thing and its relation to other things anew"

Plan for Short Project

On one of the days that it was extremely windy I went on top of my roof and took pictures of a tree in front of my house. My plan is to use these images of the tree blowing and have words flow off of the tree like leaves. I'm not too sure how well this is going to work, I've never made an animation that is made primarily with images. We will see.

Finally

Our Animation!

Author vs Programmer

Our last few class discussions have touched on the topic of authorship and the idea of “new”. We asked, “how much originality is needed for a writing to be considered new?” and, “can a piece rely on aspects and ideas from other places and still be new?” The more we discussed these questions, the less clear and simple answers became. Are there any true authors anymore? Is there anything being created that is truly new? To add to the mess of confusion, we brought in the job of a programmer and his relation to (creative) authorship. I found myself thinking of how far I could take an authorship role over my Flash animations. Sure, I’ve created the line works, placed the tweens in the right places, and developed the ideas myself, but can I say I am the author of that work? Can I be called the sole creator of my animation? I think the answer is no. There are thousands of people’s work that I reflect when I do anything with a computer and software. I would never be able to re-create an animation ‘from scratch’. I have no idea what’s going on behind my screen, can’t build a computer or develop programs. So since my work relies on other peoples work, what does that mean? How original can it be?

In our last discussion, I tried to make sense of this by thinking of a sculptor and his work. Has anyone ever questioned the originality and true authorship of a sculpture because the sculptor didn’t recognize the man who created his chisel? Is the sculptor’s attempt at sole authorship diminished because he did not create the tools he used? I don’t know how much a chisel maker and a computer programmer have in common, but I think of them both as ones who develop tools for a certain group of people to use. The may share the most basic intentions. So how do the intentions of toolmakers compare to the intentions of the ones using the tools? I think of the two as completely different. The ones who use the tools are focused on expressing, describing, representing and showing.

The chapter, ‘Between the Academy and a Hard Drive”, in Digital Poetics by Loss Pequeno Glazier, he says that the ideas of ‘author’ can be trap in thinking and is unproductive in creating innovative writing. He makes a distinction between the two that I agree with. He says this about the author versus the programmer.

“The concept of a poet-programmer or prose-programmer is of a person who works among the tangles of the vines that yield the work. It is of one who sets up a series of events that culminates in the work as an action or execution of procedures. It includes a concept of intelligence that is more concerned with setting into motion a number of variables than with creating a representation…The focus is less on any individual product of that process, through individual products can be valuable as a documentation of a given process.”

The question of whether computers and the Internet offer anything actually “new” is apparently quite heated. This is surprising to me. I’ve come to think and know of the time period we’re living in as the “digital age” where new things are happening, and everyone is all excited. At the Poesis Symposium ideas where presented that challenge this assumption. Block and Cramer suggest that much of what makes up computer and net art in reference to literature can be traced back to historical ideas. I’m having a hard time thinking of the computer and Internet as not being innovative. Cantz thinking is more inviting.
If I write a word on paper, and then write the same on screen, the two are going to be fundamentally different. I’m not sure how one really argues this. The medium always will change the message. I think of the process of choosing a medium as choosing a tool to create or deliver a message. I think this concept is only amplified when considering a literary text as a whole.

...to be continued...

First Thoughts

Ideas for the short project -> involving words in any shape or form -

I would like to add some audio to this project. Maybe I could write a line or two - a short snippet of a song and animate the phrases that are being sung. Or possibly I could play some guitar over a poem. Just ideas.

Conversation Project Plan

While talking, we decided that the topic we will be animating will be the movie “The Social Network.” This movie has caused quite the stir, and has been widely criticized and praised for its portrayal of one of the most influential people on the internet; Mark Zuckerburg, creator of Facebook.com. We will be seeing the movie, reading about the criticisms of it online, and listening to people and why they are so upset about the content. The conversation will loosely follow a question I have asked plenty of people; Are you going to see “The Social Network?” We will use fonts, the speed of the text, and the positioning of the text in the frame to display differences in the two people talking.