Wall of Videos Concept for Project 4

Since I already have a portfolio website with hosting and a logo http://digovial.com/ I was tasked with creating another interactive media piece.  The format I ended up going with was a single page net art piece that hosts a plethora of videos I have made that can be played in any order or at the same time.  Allowing the viewer to see my collection of video art all in one place, on one page, ready to be played, differs from the conventional method of just seeing a single video, watching it, then moving on to the next one.  By presenting it this way my video collection becomes like an open book presenting its contents to the world.

Here is a link to the finished web page!  

http://users.tricity.wsu.edu/~james.sivonen/Website/index.html

Designers and Web Designs as Inspiration for Project 4

While thinking about and starting project 4, which for me was the Net Art web page, I used various net art and artists as inspiration.  Unfortunately I cannot remember the names of each artist, but there was net art that involved a grid that has been continuously computing data combinations for 20+ years, as well as an interactive website where something unexpected happens each time you click.  My project kind of mirrors these examples in that it is a both a representation of data -my videos- and an interactive webpage where you can play the videos in any order.

Fire a Gun (Completed Project 3 Response)

Project 3 was a lot of fun to work on.  I had a couple ideas right away when we were brainstorming our projects, and this finished product is the result of one of them and I am glad I chose it.  The initial idea wasn't perfect of course, so I am thankful for the feedback to refine and expand the idea.
The finished product is a video mash up of several video games, news reports, vloggers, gun handling experts, and a psychiatrist.  I then took this footage, which all together was over an hour, and cut out individual clips to use how I please to build my on message.  When cutting up the video game footage it really felt like mincing vegetables.  Instead of selecting the clips and removing them from the full video, I started at the beginning and, from left to right, began to cut away all footage except each moment when a gun was fired.  The result was a vast collection of gunfire with which I could interweave the other appropriated footage.

Here is a link to the finished product.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUul3CJ_kDE

The message I intend this video to give is now definitely different from what the original footage professed.  The majority of it is made up from gaming videos: videos gamers have made to showcase their video game-playing skills on the internet.  The other clips are news and personal accounts concerning both video games and guns.  I brought these elements together and turned them around to support my message, which is loosely as follows:

"Firing a gun in video games means constant violence, constant shooting, and zero restraint.  Firing a gun in real life requires stopping violence, minimal shooting, and extreme discipline.  I want this video to bring perspective to the viewer and make them consider learning useful life skills, like how to properly and safely fire a gun, and compare that with how much time they spend playing shooter video games."

Sculpture Art Feature: LOTR Meets Kitty Scratchpost

I wanted to show this amazing rendition of famous movie sets that have been used for something completely different, changing the meaning, perception, and appreciation of the original works because of this new creative art piece.

Above is a replica of Bag End, the famous hobbit hole from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the tower of Sauron with a catnip-eye of Sauron on top.  These replicas were specifically designed for cats to play with, the hobbit hole serving as a hideaway/litter-box holder, and the tower as a legitimately intricate scratching post.  These items were undoubtedly built with the help of computers, printers, paint, various materials, and references to the real sets from the movie.  The tower's shape was designed with foam, which was then wrapped in a tremendous amount of rope that was painted black.  I think this would be a really interesting project to learn how to do.     

Reading Response Web 2.0

The Tim O-Reilly website talked about Web 2.0 and compared and contrasted the difference between this Web 2.0 and Web 1.0.  The description of Web 2.0 was not extremely straightforward, which leaves me a little bit confused as to all that Web 2.0 all entails.  I know it encompasses technology such as most modern web features like Google search engine, double-clicking, and voice search, and the author provides visuals to explain.  They reference Yahoo, Google, Ebay, and Amazon as being the web giants that survived web 1.0 to go on to be successful in Web 2.0.  I thought it was really neat to learn how Yahoo started.  They started as simply a portal that hosts links to thousands, then millions, of links to other websites.  This seems simple now, but I am sure it was very convenient when the internet wasn't as organized of a place.

Youtube Artists

While being a possibly redundant topic,Youtube certainly cannot be ignored when it comes to artists portraying their work through video platform.  Youtube has allowed everything from singing, blogging, dancing, instrumental music, sketching, and a myriad of other subjects to become career opportunities solely by using Youtube videos as the launchpad.


This artist, Taylor Davis, plays violin because it is her passion.  Her other passion is video gaming.  She mixed the two into a distinct career making video game soundtrack violin covers on Youtube.  Because of her success as a Youtube violinist she is now starting to tour around the world so she can play live concerts for the very people who support her on Youtube, while making more fans, recognition, and most likely income.





I think we can conclude Youtube can be used to jump start just about anything.  Therefore, we should always be keeping it mind as we go about our DTC lives...also Patreon, Vimeo, and others are pretty neat too if you are biased against Youtube or want to use multiple platforms.

Old + Old + Old + New

After reading Old + Old + Old = New my previous understanding of how blurry the lines between copyright infringement and fair use can be.  These webpages feature discussions of copyright tendencies and what, if anything, can be done to improve or change them.  It assures us that not all copyright laws are unjust, but many are, and laws need to first be broken to be fixed.    They express the importance of acknowledging the author for their work when reusing art.  Also, they believe in an art "ecosystem" where all past art should be available to anyone to be reused, stored, and collected.  They view it as kind of a shame if art was made to be kept secret, and so they would like art to be public and shared.

Completed Project 2

Project 2, Tactical Media, was to me a perfect opportunity to pursue my interest in video since video is an increasingly popular way to get views and agendas across to enormous numbers of people.  The benefits of a video for Tactical Media is that a video on a shared site can reach just about anyone, anywhere, anytime.  This is a great asset have when the goal is to spread awareness, rebel against, or respond to an issue.

Tactical Media Video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu4-Td6rF1A

As far as aesthetics go I wanted an engaging, colorful, sharp theme, because for a video like this it needs to hold people's attention so they will watch to the end and receive the whole message.  The message, which is to spread awareness of bad signage-roadwork around the Tri-cities, I figured could be enhanced by incorporating known themes like Mario music, Mario sound effects, and a full-fledged Bowser character who shows up to guide/pester you along.  I developed this even further by writing the script to make it seem like these bad roads/signage problems are all BOWSER'S doing, and BOSWER is setting these challenges for you.  Of course in real life Bowser has nothing to do with the signage in the Tri-cities, but I thought that building a figurehead for the problem would leave viewers to make the connection themselves, and perhaps realize that this problem is more tangible than they thought.  Too often people just accept clear problems as part of daily  life, but the aim of this video is to point out that there IS a problem and that someone IS responsible, which indicates that change CAN happen.  And I tried my best to present this all in a satirical, lighthearted, and familiar way that doesn't make people upset, but effectively brings awareness to the issue

Reading Response Lessig 53-79

Lessig talks continues the topic of piracy and the internet on page 66, highlighting a certain technology called Napster.  Napster made peer-to-peer internet sharing famous by amassing over 10 million users within nine months. After eighteen months, there were close to 80 million registered users of the system.".  The reason it became so popular was because of the limitless possibilities involved with peer to peer sharing.  This sharing is described as a function which "enables users to make content available to any number of other users. With a p2p system, you can share your favorite songs with your best friend— or your 20,000 best friends"(pg 67).