Monthly Archives: May 2016

How film photography has changed me

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A few weeks ago I found my Grandpas old film camera which hasn’t been used for over 30 years. The Ensign Selfix 16-20 shoots on 120 Film and is a fully manual camera. This means it is a tedious process when setting up a shot. When i first looked at the camera, i didn’t thing there would be any film still in it so I possibly ruined the photos when i opened the back. Turns out the film which was inside, was so old it that cant be developed anywhere in Australia. The only place you can get C-21 film developed is at a place in the UK. I would love to get these photos developed some time soon.

Screen Shot 2016-06-08 at 12.48.52 PMSo I bought new film started taking a photo everyday. It was kind of a learning curve because I have always used a DLSR camera for photography. I could rely on its auto abilities such as shutter priority. Now with this camera i need to learn how to compose a shot. I need to know the f-stop of the suns reflections, the shutter speed when shooting inside a car etc. To help I have to use a light meter app on my phone. Its actually been very useful and has only failed a few times.

I now look at photography differently. Film photography is counter productive (especially in the digital age), but it makes the photographer question whether the photo is really necessary because there are a limited number of shots on a roll (which costs a lot to buy and process). This is kind of scary because if you take an amazing shot, then when it gets developed it looks horrible, youre stuck witha bad photo.  If you had a digital camera you could have seen your mistakes and then taken another.
Theres a certain finesse with film photography as well. Theres also the anticipation of waiting for the film to be developed. When I handed in my first reel of film, I wasn’t even sure if the camera worked. I couldn’t wait to see the photos at Home so i looked at them on the train. i was happy but there were only three photos that i really liked. The whole excersise cost $32 for three good photos.
This one is my favorite because of the vibrance of the reds against the blues and blacks; it also has good framing which i tweaked in post-production.
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Im always cautious with the focus focus ring because its in feet, and theres no ‘live view’ to check the subject is in focus. I have to mentally or physically measure how far away the subject is from the camera. It does take longer to take a photo on a camera like mine for the above reasons but it make you think of why you are taking the photo in a certain way.It makes it rewarding when these photos you spent minutes setting up, come out so well.

My understanding of studios

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What i understand is happening next semester

  • Everythings going to be project based work which is really exciting. Theres going to be a main focus in which everything will relate to. It also means we can kind of ‘specialise’.
  • Theres a choice of 8 studios, can only choose 1. This means there will be a broad range of topics quite a broad range of topics.
  • Its a mixture or 1st and 2nd years. While this is kind of annoying its actually good because it means we can get advice on the course. It also broadens networking capabilities for employment as well as friendships
  • Groups of 25. Good because its intimate enough to actually get to know people. It is quite large but its a better size than workshops with semester

Learning Graph

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In lectorial today we talked about the learning graph. These are the components which we need to think about in reflecting on the term.

  • technical skills
    • blogging, audio recording, video recording, editing
  • conceptual theoretical skills
    • theory
    • media as an academic discipline
    • focused research
    • Storytelling
    • conceptualising
  • professionalism
    • work ethic
    • privacy
  • A sense of your media practice
    • creativity
    • passion
    • reflection
    • engage with media
    • contribute to the world

 

How to organise file names

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I have a problem that was brought up the workshop. I fall into this trap of not naming by files properly.13339674_10154245568274464_8378515282316709017_nAs Seth explained, its actually very easy to organise things so they don’t become messy. If i just name things V1.1, V1.2… it avoids confusion when wanting to go back to older versions, or even telling which version is newer. He also brought up the idea of saving these files on teh cloud to save space on computer. its not like ill be wanting to look at old files anytime soon so i may as well do it.

Part 2: New-age appropriation and ‘the remix’

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PART 2:
I believe that appropriation grows from the ideas of the past rather than obstructing originality and creativity, and therefore is an important part of cultural evolution. As Michael Mandiberg (Artist and blogger) puts it “Appropriation is a way to experiment with images and objects by shifting the context around them”; in effect re-framing their meaning in the process. In this way Koons’ art challenges the way people think about originality and whether or not it is actually important in this day and age; in doing so he also challenges the ethical standards of appropriating another artists work to heighten its existence. In many instances, Koons disobeys the moral rights of the artist by not attributing their name under ‘his’ work. In my opinion Jeff Koons did not distort Art Rogers’ “puppies” in a way that may haveharmed his reputation in breach of his moral and legal rights of integrity.

The problem with this type of appropriation these days is that the entire edifice of contemporary art is built on the idea of total revolution, of things new and challenging. The one thing that contemporary artist may lack however is the connection to the past when priding themselves as ‘original artists’. This is impossible to achieve as everyone who functions in society is bombarded with art and advertisements.

In the age of the Internet and advancing technology there is a sense that no one owns the copyright of their own work as it can be freely distributed outside the gallery system. This allows others to appropriate your own appropriation of authenticity. Now the medium we choose to express ourselves is not an original direction; it is not an original idea.so-long-copyright

Literary theorist and philosopher Roland Barthes argues that ‘no artist can create something new and unique’, but rather everything is ‘recycled regurgitation’ of what preceded it. Koons’ remix of society is ‘recycled’ and ‘regurgitated’ into living visual history of kitsch and readymade. This issue and debate on originality is an ongoing dilemma.

PART 1: Challenges in the Art world

Abstract

Mediums and Technology

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What are the media: Think about in terms of the way we describe the technology we are in

Conduit or container (textual analysis, languages through history and how we need to gain the literacy in them(affordances), environments (medium analysis)

As we can see on this graphic shows the relation of Technological expectations in relation to Time. What does this mean? Well the graph tells us that 3D printing was at the hight of expectations, then over time the “trough of disillusionment” came followed by the Plataeu of Productivity. It would be interesting to see the current ‘Hype Cycle’ of 2016
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Work attachment

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Over the next 2 years we need to complete 80hours of work attachment. This involves being supervised by a professional ‘media’ practitioner. The idea of this that we will have the opportunity to apply skills you’ve acquired so far and use it in a professional context. It also provide the beginnings of a professional network so this is vitally important. RMIT insures us higher than personal injury e.g. you pull out a plug and their servers go and they lose money, everyone is covered. Sometimes students get a role in channel 31 but this is not classified as work attachment as anyone can work there. After the attachment we have to write at least 1,500 words about our experience.

When we find a place we need to contact the careers officers, this gets the ball rolling. There is also a process of registering
What to do when contacting:

  • Figure out priorities and what you want to achieve
  • Start with a list of the skills you currently have, and the specific skills you’d like to develop. (say you want to gain experience)
  • Look at the organization and find out what youll actually be doin
  • Identify yourself as an RMIT media student and specify looking for attachment rather than a placement. You need to differentiate yourself as a tertiary student

To get help with a CV resume the careers hub can help. A letter of introduction or Expression of interest should be used when sending an email to the organisation .

One question i have is whether it would be better to email off my personal email or RMIT email. I need to find out

My ideal attachments are:
Film Victoria, Film Australia, Working Dog production, Oh Yeah Wow
these would be very hard to get an attachment to however. So ill need to have a look around at some smaller ones.

Selected Listening N°10: Come-n-Dance by Blekbala Mujik

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kZGm0B137k

The way an artists performs their work influences how the listener, listens.  The live version of “Come-n-Dance” by Blekbala Mujik is a great example. The song mixes  Reggae, Rock, Traditional and World genres to create something truely unique using clapsticks and didgeridoo together with Western instruments. The lead singer and band founder Peter Miller asks the audience to sing and dance along. You can sense a feeling of community and togetherness in this footage form 1995 in Arnhem land. I hope we see a resurgence in this type of music because it is truely unique.

Real developments this week

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After last weeks disagreements, I feel like our group is now back on track with Project brief 4.
At this weeks workshop we gained an extra member, Amelia. This has taken a lot of stress off Elise as she would have had to edit the audio with no previous experience. Even though I don’t know how good Amelia is at editing, I feel like we can trust her with editing the audio essay. She’s already brought some great ideas to the table despite only just joining. The others are a bit wary of giving her control of the audio essay editing because she did leave after the first 20minutes of our meeting in workshop, and missed 3 weeks prior or workshops and lectorials. So we will see how everything goes.

In this session we also sorted out what our project will actually be about, because until this day we had only a generalised theme of how children’s narratives are structured. We came to the question of “what makes a successful children’s narrative”. This question allows us to explore the way children’s narratives are built, with the three act structure, as well as using examples, such as Bridge to Terabithia, as a counterpoint to say this is not always the case. I also want to explore the backgrounds of why we associate children’s narratives to fairytales, and where they came from and developed. Im going to do some research on how children’s literature has evolved and become more like Adult novels.

In this workshop I rented a Zoom H2N Microphone to record VOX pops around the classroom. I thought this would be a cool and different way to introduce the topic of “what makes a successful children’s narrative” in the audio essay. I ask a number of questions such as ‘what happens in a typical fairytale’ or asked groups to discuss narratives which end differently to the expected structure. From this i think there is a gold mine of interesting quotes. Ive expressed to the others how we could use these recordings. I think the best way to edit these clips together is to start off clear then slowly layer them over each other to give the audience a sense of confusion. then when it reaches the loudness ‘climax’ cut it, and frame the question being answered. This will signify to the listener how broad this topic is, and that we are only focusing on a small section. Amelia will put her own spin on this which will be interesting to see.

So yeah, the projects going better than at our last meeting on Monday. I feel a lot more comfortable now