Combining New and Traditional Media

New Media Flash mob

Framing and Gathering: To create new media from a spontaneous flash mob mixed with visual art and music.

I plan to organize a flash mob in the school grounds with classmates using minimal choreography. After a few minutes of dancing, bystanders will be encouraged to join the mob to create an atmosphere of spontaneity and fun. I will use a mix of popular tunes that everyone will be familiar with to create excitement as everyone joins the mob.

Create and Reflect: I will have help from others in the technology aspect experience, as well as help from other dancers to create the flash mob. Next week’s blog post will include my interactions and experiences with all my plans and whether anything had to change. Although I will need a lot of help from fellow students that have technology experience, I would like to mix the filmed flash mob occurrence with visual lighting effects, music and voice-over to create a spontaneous new media experience.

Aaron Koblin artfully visualizes humanity and I think his work will be similar to my ultimate product. As Koblin specializes in data and data-visualization, I specialize in dance and movement so I will gear my visualization part of the project towards art and light.

I will be using Automation as my Principle of new media. In automation a modular structure (media elements such as images, sounds, shapes, behaviors) of a media object allows to automate the operations involved in media creation, manipulation, and access. I am unsure of which new media I will be using whether it is Windows Media Player, Camtasia, or Moviemaker. All of these programs are new to me, so any that I chose I will learn about and experiment with. In the learning and planning process of this project I have already learned about Camtasia and the interesting aspects of it as new media.

I like the excitement of a large group of people dancing in the fun of an impulsive moment. The energy served by a large group of people and others watching and joining in with the dancers. I want to create flashes of light in different colors to influence and symbolize all kinds of moods. The lighting effects will be increasing the energy through the new media just as the observers joining the flash mob will increase energy.

Talk: I will share my project on the Facebook group for others to view and discuss any comments.

DMA Week 4

My theme is truth in social media connections. Connections offline and online can work when the truth is upheld. It all comes down to being true to yourself which will reflect on Facebook posts. This theme still pertains to relationships: Veritas Vas Liberatum (the truth shall set you free).

My poem is to the tune of “On Top of Old Smokey”

A freshman in college

It would all be so new,

I needed a roommate

But didn’t know who.

I filled out a survey

And hoped for the best,

They mailed me a contact

Now this was the test.

We first met on Facebook

We typed back and forth,

She came from the South

And I from the North.

The chats were so friendly

We found out so much,

This online bonanza

Was a personal touch.

It was orientation

They day we first met,

Our online connection

Seemed like a sure bet.

We now room together

Each day has been great,

A Facebooking frenzy

As if it was fate.

I guess we were once young

An innocent view,

But now techno savvy

We all must stay true.

DMA Week 4

Continuing this week's topic about Facebook use and how people feel whether it is changing society, I was lucky enough to have my friend Cameron voice his opinions on Facebook. This week I posted my opinion in the DMA's Facebook group. I believe that Facebook is great for communicating with friends and I think it is interesting how everyone in the world is able to stay connected with each other. I also like how Facebook updates friends’ on people’s birthdays and special events. However, I think it is good to impose rules on Facebook; such as limiting friend requests and also where I don’t friend any parents to create some privacy in a public environment. Furthermore, although I think Facebook is great for communicating and keeping in contact with people, there are times where I have other priorities instead of spending time online. I try to set limits but sometimes Facebook procrastination gets the better of me.

Finding someone to interview was exceptionally difficult for this project. No one was willing to voice their opinions in front of a camera. In a way, I think that people can use this opportunity as a chance to talk about what they believe in regarding Facebook, and how society is changing positively or negatively because of it.

Also, I am not too savvy with my computer, so just figuring out how to record a video on my camera was a learning experience. Let alone, after recording the interview video I was challenged to upload it onto YouTube, something I have never done before. After asking around for help and figuring things out on my own, I successfully downloaded the interview and uploaded my video. I am satisfied and proud of what I learned and my overall experience with this project.

DMA Week 3

DMA Week 3

For this week’s theme of boundary-dissolution I wanted to pick two songs that were in the same key but represented opposition like classical and contemporary music. It took me awhile to figure out what classical piece I wanted to work with because I had so many options from all the ballets I know. Also, by choosing a classical song from a ballet I would be going along with my ballet alignment theme from the first week. After deciding on a classical piece which is a Waltz from the ballet Swan Lake I was able to chose a contemporary song called Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics. However, looking for the right contemporary song I experienced many tried and failed attempts. Through many attempts to figuring out which songs would sound the best I realized that the songs needed to have greater “drops” or silences. This way, with the contrasting songs I could make transitions sound more exciting and surprising to the listener. Before I started to fiddle with and mash up both the classical and contemporary songs, I wanted to listen to both songs fully through so I could get a sense of how the rhythm went and figure out which sections of the songs I enjoyed listening to more. After a few times of listening to both songs I knew what and where I wanted to mix up the different parts of both songs. In the process of figuring out where to mix and add the two songs together I saw similarities in the sounds lines on Audacity which was a weird coincidence but in the end it worked out well and in my favor.

My piece is a mash-up between a classical waltz in Swan Lake by Tychovski and the contemporary song Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics. My piece symbolizes the major reduction of personal space and boundaries in new-media. My piece is combined with sections of each song playing alone and then a mash-up if the two songs playing at the same time. Normally, when two songs play at the same time they clash and do not create a pleasant sound for the listener to enjoy. However, I have carefully selected the two songs, Swan Lake and Sweet Dreams to be in the same key and additionally I have analyzed on Audacity where the pieces sound best together. Furthermore, boundary-dissolution and the new- media era allow people to instantly share ideas or personal information with friends and people around the world. My piece represents this idea for since I was so proud of my finished work on Audacity I was able to send the sound cloud link to all my friends and family through Facebook chats. This was a pleasant example of boundary-dissolution because I could share my creation and let other people listen to it. Technology continues to amaze me as I and many others are still learning and struggling with computers, phones, and new programs everyday; however, the dissolution of boundaries is a helpful and great advance to stay connected and share ideas.

DMA Remix WK 2

I decided to create a remix composition using a little bit of everyone's compositions from last week. I felt that I had endless possibilities of what I could create from morphing everyone's compositions into what I wanted. I was inspired by all last week's posts and was very excited when I could create a collage of all the compositions. In my earlier post on remixing and whether it is considered stealing, I expressed that when you create something original you should essentially own it. Consequently, I felt guiltily powerful being able to cut and paste someone's artwork and then crop and rearrange it into a new piece of artwork that I can call my own. Therefore, I would like to give credit to everyone in the group for using their original compositions. At first I had trouble contending with so many works but once I got started mixing and matching I couldn't stop. I enjoyed the creative process of editing, shifting, and rearranging the pictures that I had to work with. However, I did face challenges with creating my remix where I contended with "creative blocks" because I did not know how to fill up the page. In addition, without help I would not have known how to take a screenshot with my laptop so I could use an image from some of the group member's videos. Overall, I had a positive experience composing a remix as well as viewing other's remixes as well as one that was created from my original project. I am very pleased with my project's outcome and look forward to hear comments or responses about it.