Cheesy bumper, vox pops from the cool crowd, over the phone interviews collect from prison, a compelling topic, a conversational narrator, a cheesy bumper that returns as a Motif! Who wouldn’t be socially drugged by this show? Win win! [Cue the bumper music].
Koeng, S and J Snyder (2014) Serial. WBEZ Chicago
* on studio drive and online
http://serialpodcast.org/
Location, Location, Location.
I’ve decided on a key focus for my next production. Last week I was fixated by the montage inspired by class listening, the week before, it was audio quality in capture and editing, and this week, I really want to immerse myself in relaying location; whether that be communication by means of foley and sound modification or using raw… lesser treated O/B streams of action, I want the listener to be undoubtedly transported to the intended setting…
..by hook or by crook!
Here’s the thing, I’ve spent 15 years working with Protools, they have always given me exactly what I need as far as audio design is concerned and never have I had a qualm… until now!
All I want to do, is install Protools software on my new laptop… software that I purchased several years ago, and Avid, the company that facilitates the program, are putting me through the ringer with licensing. I paid good money for this program so why are they being so damn cagey about their licensing agreements?
Does the proverb ‘the customer is always right’ not mean anything in this rapidly growing yet precocious digital industry?
The Avid caged beast has been let loose. Gnnaaaaarrrrrrr!!!!
Yield’s Tin Llama
To open… begin the lecture with a face melting mashup/remix. Imagine that!
Lecturer Dan shed some light on this week’s dense reading entitled The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin. Benjamin was active in the time of the Second World War and spent much of professional life escaping the Nazi’s. Walter was far from the office working academic archetype but rather a gentleman living the human history that he was writing about.
In this paper, Benjamin, of Goethe University Frankfurt, tries to describe the essence of an original piece of art as the aura. This can be applied to all forms of media provided they are able to be reproduced, which brings to light the question of how the aura is compromised upon an artefact’s reproduction.
In the lecture we drew parallels to films, like during the golden era of cinema in the 30’s where films were remade for sound. But bringing this questioning closer to the current day was the question of Instagram and, does the process of adding sexy filters heighten the aura of the original? My answer is yes… absolutely yes! Having worked with photography in a time when digital was still very much in the beta stage of its rollout… when only the super privileged had the opportunity to use digital photo formats, we would work our darnedest in the darkroom to produce an image that was not dissimilar to the effects that we use today on the #igers forum. The darkroom was a haloed place of quiet contemplation of your next move, next chemical and how you could improve on your previous effort. It resembled a confessional, a silent, calming space that smelt funny. This could be extended by Benjamin’s notion that art is based on ritual.
The darkroom
…And here’s me conceding to the warnings that a career in the arts will amount to a lifetime of financial destitution.
How wrong was I!
This beautiful and historic piece was just sold at Christie’s Auction House in Rockefeller Centre for a cool 160 million.
For me this solidifies the importance of art in society for not only the aesthetic reasons, but for cultural identity and, how Marshall MacLuhan put it, to help us overcome our anxieties of modern culture and the abstraction of technology.
Les femmes d’Alger (Version “O”). Oil on canvas. 44.7/8 x 57.5/8in. (114 x 146.4cm.) Painted on February 14, 1955. © 2015 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
The second floor of the Swanston Library is a treasure trove of books, articles, academic journals and films. Being a cinema studies student and self confessed nerd, this may be become my knew home for a while.
“Draaainnning!!!!”
Film Literature Quarterly
Yield’s Tin Llama
Image by Panda Cat Gallery
Sal’s research unveiled a gem in the sand. It was Niklas Luhmann’s analogy about when an artefact becomes a bonafide medium. He likened it to a footprint embossed in the sand, where, without the embossed message that someone has walked here, the sand is just, well… sand. This will be the foundation for our group collaboration.
Minutes on Paper