5 curated blog posts
Another day another blog post.
The 5 blog posts I’ve linked to this post I believe best demonstrate my engagement with the course each for a different reason.
This post best demonstrates the way I approached group/class feedback on my creative endeavours. it also provides a snapshot into my creative process/mindset.
This was one of my favourite lectures because of the level of engagement, I really got something out of analysing the film “Ritual” and feel like the post shows evidence of my critical thinking during the lectorial when given the activity.
Advancements in technology, how far is too far?
One of my more thought provoking posts. This piece gives an insight to my opinion and views on evolving technologies. In the post, I feel like I went on a bit of a thought spiral where my ideas kept flowing and not necessarily in a logical fashion, but I believe this is why it is one of my better posts, because it shows my level of thinking and that I do have some really interesting views on the topic of media.
We never stop being an audience
This post is in my top five because of the media relevance I invested in my thoughts outside of uni. I talk about audience and how we never stop being one. Its not an original thought, but its relevance to my personal life at the time was strong enough for me to write about it …..
Lastly;
This post was one of my last and had me thinking about creative possibilities in terms of photography or video that I could address in future projects. I felt the question of whether or not ‘electronic littering’ is a bad thing, really thought provoking, and personally, I’ve never come across this topic before, so I was proud…
FINAL COURSE REFLECTION POST
Trying to think about the best part of this course is difficult. I feel like I entered this course half-hearted, I am still that year 12 boy who had no idea what he wanted to do but thought he best choose something rather than nothing. I think having to approach this course with that uneasy mind set has been the most challenging aspect (psychologically more so), trying to draw motivation for the lectures and workshops by telling myself I’ll never know unless I try. It’s a really unfortunate head space to be in and it has definitely hindered my ability to fully enjoy the course. HOWEVER;
I feel like I’ve kept up with the briefs well enough, and I am very proud of the media artefacts I have produced. Especially KASEY, mainly because the only other time I’ve ever used premier is for year 12 art where I filmed one continuous shot with one continuous sound track in which required very little technical editing. So with that, I am so happy and so impressed with myself for having created something like that on my third attempt, (my second being brief 2). This brief in particular has made me very excited for the second semester where I can hopefully show off even more of my creative vision and I can not wait to be able to learn more in terms of editing software.
The best environment I feel I belong in/learn better in (after being in this course), is any environment where we talk creative. I noticed myself tuning out at parts of the lecture that was just talk (I wish I could be more specific but as I said, I tuned out), and noticed myself tuning in when we were focusing specifically on artistic pieces/media artefacts. For example, when we watched the videos for the narrative lecture titled “Ritual”, I absolutely loved analysing it, I was so engaged. Also the workshops where we watched each others creations and provided feedback.
I think I really doubt myself. Well, actually no, I KNOW I do, and it’s half the reason I procrastinate or put off creating things and carrying out my creative ideas. I use to do photography all the time but stopped because I always felt like everyone was better at it than myself and that I had no skill etc. But after watching the video I had filmed and created (both brief 2 and 3), it got me really inspired to literally shut up and create. It makes me happy and proud that I can produce things like that, even though they are not the best films from a first year media student, but thats the whole point of learning, its practice and acquiring new skills and I look forward to it next semester, especially now with the studios.
Electronic littering
Something that crosses my mind every so often is the mark electronic mark I leave everywhere I go…..electronically.
I have this bank account I opened spontaneously but have never used, and every so often I’ll get that systematic email about the balance of the account. Obviously I ignore it and go about my day, but then i think about every other thing i’ve created but abandoned. Like all the e-mails i created, forgot the password to, then moved on to a new one. All the twitter accounts, myspace pages and youtube accounts that I’ve decided to just….well … leave behind me for what ever reason.
i mean, just this year I’ve created about three different vimeo accounts, two youtube accounts and who knows how many more is to come.
Is this a bad thing? Is this electronic litter? If the sites/accounts I have made were a place like CBD, the population would be 0 and the buildings would be boarded up, swarming with rats and in the far, far distance you can see the sites I am on not, juxtaposed with the ones I’ve left.
I guess its nothing to be too concerned about, but its interesting to note. I mean, I myself have so many, imagine how many there is collectively with a couple other people, couple hundred, couple thousand, the whole world (who have left their electronic mark). hmm…..
Advancements in technology, how far is too far?
The question of whether or not machines and technology are becoming too intelligent is one that i am both slightly concerned about, but at the same time not at all.
I do believe that yes they are, and that one day it could be quite problematic. But I feel like it won’t happen for years and so I’m not concerned about it at all. As long as it doesn’t affect me which I really don’t think it will in my life time.
However, its happening today all around us, the way technology is taking over our lives. You can’t walk down the street for more than ten steps until you pass someone glued to their iphone whether listening to music or interacting with it even whilst walking.
This is actually really coincidental that after the Lectoiral today, a friend and I decided to go to the Ian Potter centre and have a look at Start Up, the gallery showcasing 2014 VCE student’s work. One of the pieces depicted a young boy in the ocean surrounded by beautiful blue water below a magnificently cloudy day, looking down concentrating on his iphone. The artist statement was as follows;
the work aims to emphasise the disjointed relationship between humans, technology and nature; how technology allows us to view rich and diverse natural environments without ever experiencing them firsthand. This work depicts a human immersed in nature while being consumed by technology.
The work titled ‘Un-natural habitats’ by James Buggs and my interpretation of it is very relevant to the point I’m making about the advancement of technology and our engagement with it.
For me, regardless of what the artist statement says, I see a representation of youth unable to engage and disinterested with the beautiful experiences life has to offer. The source of the problem being the addiction of a smart phone (representative of all technologies in the artwork).
I feel like this is an issue that won’t cease to exist. And in all honest its not that big of a deal. If someone gets more enjoyment out of an iPhone than they do from a magnificent view of the world around them, thats okay, as long as those who do enjoy ‘reality’ over the fake/false world that an iPhone provides, are not prevented from doing as such, than I don’t see a huge problem.
This reminds me of a reading we had a few weeks back about ‘faith’. It was basically about how human’s have faith that what they see in the media is true. For example, I’ve never been to china, I’ve never been on a vacation there, visited there or had any direct contact with the country. But I have faith that it’s real because people tell me about it. I see it on the news. I have friends that have come from China. So I have faith that China is real even though I haven’t experienced it for myself. What is sad and relevant about this reading to this weeks reflection is that people now rely on their technology to experience rather than physically and personally experiencing it themselves. Instead of hiking up a mountain to enjoy a view, we image search it. Instead of getting lost and finding our own way around we google map it. Instead of living, we’re relying. And it’s for those reasons that I am concerned about the advancement of technology, but also relieved and thankful that I live in a time where I can live in a balance between enjoying and utilising technology but not having my life depend on it.
week 11 lectorial
Skipped this weeks lectorial – sorrrryyy buuuutt needed time to work on the group project for media.
I filmed the movie, wrote the written language piece and threw together a collage. I feel confident now in the group assignment, I feel like this will be the backbone that reconnects all our pieces together.
Just a note to self; please at some point buy adobe premiere, God knows how much I need it. You can’t even do a fraction of what it offers on something like iMovie. It’s literally like riding a toddlers bike. It does get you from A to B, but painfully and slowly. Like madonna once commented on another pop icon “It feels…..reductive”
Break Time
This week I took a break. I’ve been needing a break from everything. I go to uni monday to wednesday and work wednesday to sunday. I know I know, one of the lecturers said something about not giving a hoot about employment and that uni comes first and blah blah blah but really, I need to work to save money for when I’m an unemployed graduate with a bachelor of communications.
So thats basically been my routine for months now and its really taken a toll on my mental and physical health. So if I say I need a break, nothing comes before me, not work not uni, nothing.
Fashion, more like FaSHUN
Fashion is something I have a huge interest in and hopefully I get to work with it in my future career. Whether its filming/directing fashion advertisements, or incorporating fashion as a main element in artistic short films. or whether I do a completely different degree after this course that gets me into the fashion industry directly. I don’t care, this isn’t the point of this blog post, the point of this post is to talk about fashion advancement and the lack thereof.
I am subscribed to a number of different fashion retailers that send me advertisements almost daily. And what I’ve noticed from these ads are the lack of innovative thinking. The more commercial brands like Glue and Edge continue to design, stock and sell very simple, plain and boring clothing. I got an email the other day that was split into two. The woman’s section that invited them to try these brand new beautiful and intricate designed outfits, and then the male’s section that invited them to buy flannels. Like seriously? flannels? The only reason someone should be wearing a flannel is if they are a farmer, or are wearing it ironically.
I feel like it’s time to progress and evolve in terms of men’s fashion designs.
Style goes in and out of….. well….. fashion…. constantly. And a huge culprit is media advertisements. They glamourise and glorify what styles they think should be in season.
The other day I wore a double zipped jacket where I pulled the zips up to the top so the jacket was opened aside from the two sides of the colour that joined, and I was shocked at the amount of comments I got asking about the style, if the zips were broken, what was going on etc. It was as if by going against the fashion culture’s ‘norm’, by challenging how jackets are usually worn/designed, I had done something that would deem me out of my mind.
Seriously, its time men’s fashion took a leap forward and we moved away from the typical jeans, a shirt, or a suit, and started designing intricate outfits that communicates so much more than, “these were in my wardrobe and they were clean”.
Rhetorical Form
In my cinema studies reading this week I came across the term rhetorical form. in regards to documentaries rhetorical form is used to persuade the audience to have the same opinion and possibly act upon it usually through presenting the facts in a partisan way. The text book Bordwall and Thomson mentions that this type of form is not only in documentaries, the media, formal speech but in our personal conversations. When speaking, a lot of the time we usually have an objective. Thats what makes our conversations intriguing. If you think about it, if we didn’t take some sort of side or adopt a certain tone, or didn’t have an objective in our speech, we would either sit in silence or be saying something for the sake of saying something.
Generic and Simple
the second half of this workshop class Brian saw us individually to talk to us about our marks and what was good about our previous brief and what we could have done better.
I was pretty happy with my mark so I didn’t really have any questions in regards to his comments.
Pretty psyched for our studios next semester, I’m really over this research assignment and want to go back to making things I can put a solid and obvious artistic spin on.
#3 progression
Again we presented our progress with the class in terms of our group assignment and listened/provided feed back to other group members.
not gunna lie – faiiiiiirrrllly boring stuff
However, as a group, we finally came up with better topics/areas we each can cover. Instead of music I’ll cover film. With this idea we can create a media piece and then adapt it using the different mediums. THIS COVERS US FOR THE CREAT ASPECT. furthermore we’ll be presenting through a website. That for me, is two home runs. Although I have to redo I’ll my research, we do have a fair bit of time left, and I’m really excited to get back behind the camera and start filming and editing again.
In terms of class feedback, not a lot has been said to be honest. And the same goes with every other group. I feel like we’re all just a bit like, live and let live, maybe because we’re all a bit uneasy about this brief?