AWNM

I'm reading it right now.
I'd have read it earlier in the week, but it didn't make it into my carry-on for the flight to North Carolina.

Final Project Update - Sunday

Okay, so the final project is coming along quite well.

I still need to do a little bit of formatting on the blog (colors, fonts, images, etc.), but I'm leaving that as one of the later things I'm going to do. Its not going to change the content at all, and I want to have some good, working maps and things online first.

So far, technically, everything is working pretty much just as I expected it to.
I've had no trouble mapping out the walking routes, I've got pinpoints with the photos in them, and I successfully downloaded my walking route from the blog and imported it into Google Earth on my cousins computer, and it worked just fine.

Right now, the first map (in the first post) is the most complete of the set, wit a description of the route, the distance, and most of the photos that will be accompanying it. I was doing the maps and descriptions at the same time, but I decided that it will be better to do them separately. I can get feedback on the walking route descriptions separately from the rest of the blog.

If it isn't clear yet, here's what each blog entry should have :

__________________________________________

Title (Starting point of walking route - end of walking route)
Length of walking route (Feet listed in addition if under one mile)

[MAP]

Description of walking route (where it goes, what you might see, etc.)

Photos (selected blowups from the pinpoints on the maps, titled to match the pinpoints.)


LINK - download the map for Google Earth.

____________________________________________

One of the things that I'm planning on doing in the next day or so is putting some of my photos back online to be used for this project. A while back I cleaned out my photos, and took a number of usefull (for the project) photos offline. I just need to re-upload a few photos. (I expect this should only take about an hour to do.)

Final Project Update

Here's my final project link (I've done one example, I'm going to keep adding more as I go, I can think of at LEAST another 4 walking trails/paths to add in.)
I know the design and color aren't totally urban-y yet, but I should change that this afternoon (Thursday).

I'm currently working on trying to geo-tag the photos, so that the photos actualy show up on the map at the spot I too them from - the Longfelow Bridge photo will have a tag at the brdige on the map, the Pru photo will be tagged from the dock in the river where I shot it from, etc.

http://wanderboston.blogspot.com/

Axiom Gallery

"On The Corner"


"On the Corner" consists of two of the following, mounted evenly on each intersecting wall that form a corner of the gallery.

There is an approxamately 3x5 inch LCD screen (black edge) mounted on a threaded rod approximately 18 inches long. On the end of the threaded rod is a small electric motor that turns the threaded rod. The turning threaded rod causes the LCD screen to travel horizontally (left-right) across the length of the rod. When the screen reaches the end of the rod, it hits a switch with a click sound, and the motor reverses direction, causing the screen to change direction of travel and move to the other end of the threaded rod. There is little/no delay while the screen changes direction. The screen takes a few seconds to travel across from one side to another.

The screen is a very open design, showing some of the electronics behind the display, and giving off a slight green glow from the back. The video feed for the screen comes from an SD car and reader mounted behind the screen, so there is no external video source/player/generator. There are almost no wires going to the screen connecting it to a power source.

On the screen is a video of a streetcorner (in downtown Boston by that Bank of America building that cantalievers over its base and loos like a stiff breeze would tip it over), with cars, trucks, and pedestrians passing in front of the camera. The camera does not move, but stays steady as the traffic goes by. The scene is shot in daylight, maybe around noon, with "average" daylight lighting (no particular shift in color, no really steed shadows, etc.) Every now and then the video changes direction - instead of being played forward, the video stops and starts playing backwards. As the video changes direction, the speed of the cars appears to change too. Sometimes the cars are traveling forward (r-l) while the video screen moves r-l too. Then the video changes, and suddenly the cars are going backwards (l-r) while the screen keeps moving r-l. The more opposite the direction the cars are moving compared to the direction of the screen, the faster they appear to go.

"On the Corner" references other works in the Neumann show because it deals with the idea of what moves in a video. In his videos of flowers on a turntable, the subject is moving (the flowers spin.) In "On the Corner, " the cars move down the road, the camera stays still, and the entire video screen physically moves towards and then away from the corner of the wall.





Andrew Neumanns show at the Axiom gallery is new media because it involves the viewer with the technical aspects of the videos just as much as the visual aspects of the films. A traditional show of video might include some TVs mounted in the walls, showing a video loop over and over again, or possibly a projector showing a film on a wall. Neumann takes the viewer a bit past that point - his screens are small and open, with the circuitry clearly visible behind them. Some of his works have almost no wires at all, and appear to be self-contained TVs just pulling a signal out of thin air. One of his pieces specifically has 5 DVD players sitting in a stack on the floor, with wires openly running up the wall to connect to each small LCD display screen, as a reminder that video today is much easier then it used to be. No longer is the nitty gritty of video hidden away from the audience.


Neumanns work relates to the work we've done in class in many ways. Technologically, his work is mostly digital video, which we've learned to shoot, edit, and upload to the internet in class. Artistically, his work sometimes feels a bit like a storyboard. When you're watching some of his spinning works, like the flowers on a turntable, you almost feel that Neumann recorded the entire scene, then took only the three chunks you saw in the show and cropped them out to make his pieces.

Neumanns work is self-referential in that it challenges our idea of a video or "picture show" to begin with. The title of the exhibit uses picture show to refer to an old-tyme movie, yet only one of Neumanns works is actually shot with film, and then its recorded with a digital camera and displayed with a digital projector. Another one of his works is closeup shots of a film projector running, but again its being shown digitally. The title of Neumanns work also could reference the way that he displays his screens. Their size and positioning is similar to what someone might do when hanging snapshots or small photographs on a wall.




One final note, having read the Globe article, and seen it in person, I like the concept of "Projector w/Projections," but I found the execution to be a little bit lacking. I found the part with the backhoes to be very visually busy, to the point where I was uncomfortable watching it, and with todays video editing software, it reminded me of a video clip of someone exploring the cheezy filter effects in iMovie. . . Maybe I'm just too spoiled by digital video?

Why I embed things using third party aplications

Just a few comments about uploading video to your websites :

1. As my visual language teacher said (pertaining to video) : "Garbage in, Garbage out." (Jane Marsching.)

If you're going to upload video to Youtube, DON'T compress it first - Youtube will do it for you, and the better quality Youtube gets in, the better quality it puts out.


I try NOT to host video on my website, and use Vimeo/Youtube because :



1. It just works.

I used to host video on my website by myself. I got tired of technological morons who didn't have Quicktime whining to me that my stuff didn't play. People very quickly stopped watching. I also had lots of trouble with cross-platform compatibility. Flash-based Youtube and Vimeo should work on just about any browser out there. People are also hesitant to download files they don't trust.



2.Quality and speed.

Good quality videos tend to be larger files. Preloading is nice, but it can really mess up people on dial-up - and a LOT of the US is still on dial-up. Youtube et al. load fast, and offer decent quality.

The way the videos play is also better - they embed well, and can be re-sized quite easily (because they're flash.)

Vimeo can also host things in full HD quality.



3.The future is flash.

Youtube, Vimeo, et. al all play videos from Flash files - why can't WE use flash to post our videos on our websites? (I've been meaning to learn how for a while. . . .)



4.Interconnectivity.

When there's a video on Youtube/Vimeo, it can easily be shared, posted, embedded, linked to, blogged, about, etc. Basically, if its on Youtube, other people can see it and share it, which I believe is a key part of the "new media" concept. If you're posting it online to be seen, then let is be seen in as many ways as possible. If it exists only on your website, its harder to share. (Just look at the number of other works I've embedded in other posts - if those were all on individual artists sites, it might just be a list of links, which looks worse visually, and makes it harder to actually see the video.)

If you don't want to being seen/blogged about outside of your webpage (you want some exclusitivity), you can turn off ratings, comments, and embedding to keep your videos as "yours."



On a final note, for my stuff, right now I'm using Vimeo.
(I don't dislike Youtube, and its nice b/c it ties right in with Blogger.)

I like Vimeo better then youtube because :

1. It's got HD support so I can post HD video.

2. It's embedded video system is better - you can change the size of the embedded video pixel by pixel, from a small 25x25 video, all the way up to embedding something up to 750x750. This means that I can size the embed to fit the design of the page I'm trying to embed it in. (Some of the Youtube videos are too wide to fit the Blogger themes. . . .) And it's not changing the size of the link - if you make it 25pixels wide, a little 25 pixel wide rendition of the video will play.

3. To me, the video conversion quality seems better - maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but I prefer it, so thats what I use.


Vimeo size difference : (Youtube can't do this)

50x34


How Not to Paralel Park (V. 2) from Mark Sylvester on Vimeo.



250x169. . and both play, with only one-click to change the size.


How Not to Paralel Park (V. 2) from Mark Sylvester on Vimeo.




Note to Self :
BEFORE THE 11- Written description of final project/proposal
2-3 paragraphs
scan storyboard
email examples of related studio work

Here's the plan!

View Larger Map


The above map is an example (albeit brief) of what I want to do.
My plan is to create a blog showing all the places that I've gone to walk/photograph.

Each location will have its very own mini-map.

I want each place to have a pushpin marker, a title, a brief description, and a photograph (or video) taken from that particular place. In the accompanying blog post, I'll have more of a written description of what was there, or why I liked it, or maybe even how to get there. Depending on the flexibility of Google Maps, I might even include routes that I've walked on the map itself, possibly with the distance included (so that if you actually decided to visit one of these places, you could have an idea on how far you could/would walk, etc.)

Each place will have its own blog entry, and its very own mini-map. (Depending on the powers of Google Maps, I might try and do a giant map also, just as an example of all the paces I've been, just to show the big picture - one with everything on it.)
All of these maps should be downloadable to Google Earth as well - so you don't need an internet connection to view the trails/locations.

I'm going to use a blog for this because :

1. It's easy to organize content - I can tag posts, its searchable, and things can be embedded in it really easily.

2. Although a Blogger blog structure doesn't have all the flexibility of a normal website, with a little HTML coding thrown in, you can customize a blogger blog to a very high level - I want this project to function well, and I'm willing to take the time to do the extra design work in blogger in exchange for its flexibility.

Final Project Post #1

If you see an embedded map of trolley mueums of PA below, then I"m making progress (ignore the subject, its the only map I've got saved right now.)



View Larger Map

AWNM : Empathy

My random ramblings:

-lugubrious sounds really funny.
----–(adjective) mournful, dismal, or gloomy, esp. in an affected, exaggerated, or unrelieved manner: lugubrious songs of lost love. (Dictionary.com)

Its really interesting reading about doctors and empathy. . .
I had this sorta really grumpy guy draw blood last week. Wasn't very empathetic, but he's the first person (maybe ever?) to actually FIND my vein on the first try, and I didn't feel a thing. Wow.


My actual commentary :

I think that the idea of empathy is really important, but I find it a bit of a stretch to have it as its own chapter. It seems to me that empathy is just a combination of story and symphony - taking the information learned from story, and using the idea of symphony to haromize it with your own personal experiences.

I agree 100% that things would be SO much better if people understood that sometimes shit happens, and it happens to all of us sooner or later, weather we want it to or not.

Marks Stop-Motion How (Not) To

How Not to Paralel Park (V. 2) from Mark Sylvester on Vimeo.

AWNM : Symphony

I was just thinking that its hard to respond to this chapter because there's so much in it, and none of it totally connects, until I realized that in a way that's the point of the chapter - to be successfull, you have to be able to see the big picture. You need to be able to see all the separate parts as a whole, not just as individual parts.

I found it really interesting that people like Richard Branson are (were) slightly dyslexic, and that it helped them succeed. Instead of being disabled, to quote Joe Swanson from Family Guy, he's "differently abled." (If I could find it on Youtube, I'd embed the video clip of it. . . )

I can definately see how how the idea of symphony is important and relivant for today. As companies are moving and spreading out (be in within or outside the US), there are going to be more and more bits, pieces, and parts spread around the world. People need to understand how they work (each part and its sub-parts, understood through story), and then people need to be able to put the whole thing together (symphony), basically understanding that each story needs to have the same ending to acieve success.