BCM206

The internet of things…all things

~ krysd ~ Leave a comment

Almost everything catastrophic seemed like a good idea. Both communism and capitalism, Catholicism and Islam are all beautiful ideas, but in the wrong hands, in hands that desire power and wealth those things have meant death and destruction to millions of people. The same is true with the internet of things.

Connectivity and surveillance are the same. Whilst we have convenience that means more and more data is being handed to corporation and state on a platter.

 

Posting movies presenting crisis situations and heightened emotional manipulations may see extreme, but it took less than two seconds on my university library site to bring up a screen full of companies published articles on pervasive surveillance uses for ioT.

Screen Shot 2018-10-29 at 5.56.59 pmWe’ve just been studying units on cyber warfare and cyber crime and how easy and common it is for data to be seized and used for nefarious purposes. I can’t wait to see the time where someone holds my fridge hostage.

 

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Conspiracy: the dismissive truth

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I’ve always worked with the assumption that what goes online stays online and that if someone has the knowhow that everything is accessible. There was a great conversation on the podcast Reply All sometime ago lifting the lid on just how many corporations and public entities had been phished or had some other type of malware attack. One Australian programmer has actually set up a page where you can look up whether your information has been included in any of these packages that are for sale on the darkweb.

https://megaphone.link/GLT9749789991

Britain only announced in September 2018 that they were forming a special unit to protect against cyber warfare. The reticence and disinformation in this sector is difficult to cypher through. I have no answers on these topics, only curiosities.

 

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Hacktivisim: The battle of two definitions

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Hacktivism and cyberactivism is contemporary response to a very old problem. I believe it lies in the conflict between the two definitions of democracy as defined here by Noam Chomsky in Media Control an audio-recording of a lecture released in 2013.

Let me begin by counter-posing two different conceptions of democracy. One conception of democracy has it that a democratic society is one in which the public has the means to participate in some meaningful way in management of their own affairs and the means of information are in fact open and free. If you look up the definition of democracy in the dictionary you’ll get the meaning something like that.
An alternative conception of democracy is that the public must be barred from management of their own affairs and the means of information must be kept narrowly and ridgedly controlled. Now that might seem like an odd conception of democracy, but it’s important to understand that it is the prevailing conception and in fact it long has been. Not just in operation, but even in theory.
There’s a long history that goes back to the earliest modern democratic revolutions in 17th Century England which largely expresses this point of view…
Chomsky (2013)

Governments and their affiliates and corporations are working with the second definition. Hacktivists such as Assange, Snowden and others as well as most the common populace are working with the first. Both entities are trying to force their definition on the other by means of actions to undermine and white-ant the structure of the other.

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Process Update 6: Making screens

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Okay – seriously running short on time, so . I’ve descended into making quick video diaries of what’s going on.

So, stuck in the cycle of trial and error, in true form I made the screen and found that I need to undo it and put the wood together the other way before attaching the MDF board. I’ve had to give it a miss for a few days while I completed other projects.

We gathered in the classroom on Wednesday this week for a feedback session. Everyone’s work is looking so diverse and interesting. Aaron had constructed some smaller screens out of ply. The paint on the projection surface is just a mixture primer coat and a light grey. 

Will be back to it soon. Need to get them complete.

*Note: in future – the non-structural timber that the girls sent me is actually bigger and heavier than I need. The MDF is also, very heavy, in hindsight ply would have been the better option.IMG_4155

 

Aggregating truth: making journalism from pebbles

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This discussion was a cross over from issues discussed in courses on data journalism and discussions on finding credible sources in the age of twitter. The landscape has changed for journalists everywhere and will continue to do so. No longer is the rush to get the story first, but the challenging is wading through the glut of information that hits the main pages of the internet first and finding the truth of the big story from amongst the tangents or ‘pebbles’ that line the twitter stream.

FFFO has become a norm for newsrooms as stories constructed of initial reports are often flawed, filled with inaccuracies that only become evident over the passage of time. Examples from the reporting different crisis are often spoken about in the On the Media Podcast. Examples from 2017/18 include the reporting of Hurricane Irene in Puerto Rico and the protests in North Carolina.

https://www.wnyc.org/widgets/ondemand_player/wnycstudios/#file=/audio/json/818760/&share=1

This flawed information is quite often due to reporting unreliable sources from Twitter and facebook. As discussed in the lecture, time is one of the ingredients that allows for the increase of sources and an accurate picture to emerge. There is an issue with the increase of misinformation increasing with time also. This is one of the new problems that the modern citizen and journalist has to learn to sort through.

#Factcheck is on the increase.

 

Process Update 5: Sound bed triumph

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Over the past two weeks I’ve been editing the sound bed for the film project. It has taken a long time to get the present cut of about 15mins of sound. It has been school holidays and mid-session break so it has been particularly challenging to find time. Every time I go to work it seems my kids want to witness it first hand or to kill each other. Killing each other seems to be a popular activity at almost anytime.

First I moved the recorded sound into Audition to clean the tracks. Then I moved the resultant audio into Pro Tools to start the edit as I quite like the tools that are available within the program, and I’m really comfortable with using it (which is probably closer to the point, as Audition is actually perfectly serviceable).

The audio is now a mix between poetic narrative, sound effects and music.

Now the most interesting thing is going to be editing the footage to the sound bed, and playing with the way they relate to each other.

Process Update 4: and we wait

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My unfavourite part of making in the digital sphere is definitely waiting. Waiting for software to work. At this moment I am waiting for Protools to completely open on my system—5mins.

My schedule this week was as follows:

Monday – filming

I have been noticing light. So, in my photography work I’ve been studying what I like in certain photographs and film, notably the work of people like Sally Mann. What has stood out to me was how light falls within the frame. So I’ve noticed for a while that my garage is a pretty interesting space as far as light and surface textures go. The man who built it was a carpenter, so there are high windows that let the light in and windows at the opposite end from the roller door that open behind wooden shutters. There is also power in the garage which enables me to plug in extra light if needed. And it’s close by so if I need to reset and refilm anything it is close at hand, with the same light.

So, I filmed some dancing, and some close ups from different angles. I need the footage to edit side by side the sound. All in all I took about an hour’s worth of footage which took most of the day to complete. I liked the result. Much of it is very dark, but I really like the aesthetic.

The writing studio a.k.a Corrimal Beach

Tuesday – editing in class

Well basically this plan didn’t work. The computers at uni hadn’t been updated for a while so I was unable to open my files on Adobe Premiere as they’d been saved on a newer version. Beyond annoyed, I thought of the other tasks that needed doing. So, I took myself to the beach to write the narration/poetry for the soundbed.

img_2102
The hall studio

Wednesday (today) – Sound recording

Today I’m taking everything that I have written. I recorded it all into Adobe Audition using my Rhodes NT USB condenser mic, it’s very sensitive, but it has a nicer timbre to it. After removing most of the impurities from the tracks I’m moving them into protools. I have a better range of plugins etc available, and it’s just a personal preference. I’m going to make an audio poem of sorts from my fragmented vocals and see if I can find clarity here. I’m a bit excited about it.

Thursday – Uni

No time for the project today.

Friday – Uni & Continue sound edit

As far as the research for this project goes, I’ve been looking at a few artists. Referred by my tutor/lecturer/provider-of-cake I looked up Isaac Julien who I have looked at previously, but in this case I was looking at ‘Black Skin White Mask’ about Franz Fanon. It was beautiful and thought provoking as Franz Fanon is already a great inspiration to me in my study of post-colonial theory.

Film Still Black Skin White Masks
Isaac Julien, movie still ‘Franz Fanon Black Skin White Mask’

In his film, Julien uses simple framing and both digetic and non-digetic sound. There is narration and music in addition to on screen dialogue. He uses music to create a powerful aesthetic and connect to sound to the imagery. It’s a layer that I would like to experiment with in my own film.

Bill Voila
Bill Voila, ‘Earth Martyr, Air Martyr, Fire Martyr, Water Martyr’, 2014

The other artist I’ve been looking that this week has been Bill Viola in his work the ‘Martyr’. His use of video as installation is simple. It is almost as if they are still photographs in composition but are moving pieces of art. I am really interested in the way he uses place to create another layer of meaning to his work. Awareness of not only the space within the frame, but the space around the frame and how the people viewing it will interact with it.

This coming week, I’m really focussing on just getting things made so that I have time to edit them and have a buffer for any technical difficulties.

Process update 3: Peeling back the layers

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Last week I had the studio booked and ready to go, but I have reached the base camp of the next mountain and have decided on doing the dramatic and following my own intuition which was seconded by my presentation feedback. I’m changing this up a little bit, well quite dramatically.

The work, though interesting, seemed quite distant and clinical to me in some ways. It was too journalistic and for this particular project, moving it towards the abstract and figurative is the direction I’m heading. Staying with the theme and the messages that I have recorded so far, but making it go deeper. There is also the opportunity to work with the poetic and lyrical which is part of my larger work.

Mark Bradford in his studio

Physicality

I’ve been trying to find the materiality of the project. Not happy with just a screen, I wanted to play with the idea of textuality. LA artist Mark Bradford has been working with the idea of peeling back layers. He plays with the materiality of the world around him. He has an interesting dialectic between the street and the art world that is interesting.

 

In time Bradford brilliantly manages to turn cold abstractions into living, telling totems of race, class, and orientation. But he didn’t stop there, scavenging neighbourhood ad posters for example as the pulp material for another exquisite and deeply layered series. In time Bradford never produces in a vacuum.  Jenkins (2017, p.110)

What I’m finding in Bradford’s work is mainly his connection with community. His rejection of the American aesthetic and the translation of the real. His materiality of using found objects from the street and using them within his paintings and sculptures embodies meaning within the layers of his work which he peels back and consciously reveals, not as a whole, but in part. Like the meaning leaks out.

Bradford’s work is like an example of Moten and Harney’s idea of the Undercommons. He is not out rightly rejecting the American aesthetic, he is creating his own space. When he presented at the American pavilion for the Venice Biennale he was shocked by the American Aesthetic. The building with its Jeffersonian architecture was quite overwhelming. He dealt with this by changing the way that people interacted with the structure. Preventing them from entering the building through the front door. Causing the visual destruction of the site, removing any pomp and power that might be projected by the site. He also installed sculpture that interrupted the way that the audience would be able to move through the rooms within the building.

What I have taken from this is inspiration regarding the surfaces that I am planning on projecting onto. I plan on constructing large frames from aluminium and putting ply on top of them and then wallpaper gluing newspapers (which are pale enough to still see a projection) and represent to me tools of representation and misrepresentation.

I had another idea for the projecting of image onto quilt, as quilt is imbued with African American history and experience for me, the experience of woman…

At present, it is just ideas and experimentation. But I really like the idea of working into the projection surface.

The vision now is just me and is assorted footage of living within’ my skin. Experience of my skin. As the central element of the installation. The smaller interviews maybe included in a more documentary element on small screen.

This is a filmed prototype. Nothing is as it will be. But, I’m just playing with the form and the way the vision and audio relate.

To do:

  • Find dimensions of profile projection and how before constructing the frame.
  • Start constructing the frame, collecting papers, wallpaper glue etc etc (in my garage)
  • … stay tuned.

References

Jenkins, B 2017, ‘Mark Bradford: The American artist heads to Venice with the hope of turning activism into an art form’, Interview, Vol. 47, No.5, pp.106-119

 

 

Thou with the longest tail winneth the game

~ krysd ~ 1 Comment

LongtailSpeaking of the closing of Borders is a very sensitive topic for me. The hours that my daughter, then partner and I took up residence on the floor of Borders in Bondi Junction and read story after story. Or slovenly reclined upstairs in Gloria Jeans which was tucked away on the mezzanine floor with infinite numbers of magazines and next to the CD’s and DVD’s which I would listen to through headphones after consuming my soy chai latte and dose of Harpers Bazaar or Oprah magazine. Quite often Oprah would include her booklist which may or may not be stocked at Borders, but would ALWAYS be available on Amazon…therein lies the rub. In patronising my wants of books not available within Australia I played my part in closing my favourite book/coffee hangout, enter the longtail economy.

more of everything

The lecture for Week 5 (yes I’m running behind) was on the longtail economy. It looked at how previous models such as legacy media were built on a principle of scarcity. This scarcity allowed for a high cost of entry, high quality filter, high  cost of publishing content, high risk and a resultant high cost to the end user. This is versus the internet which is founded on the principle of abundance. Features are no cost to the user, no risk, no quality filter, publishing content costs nothing to the producer, zero/low cost of entry, which results in accessing content costing almost nothing to the end user.

Hence the discussion about Borders and Amazon as an example of the abundance scarcity model. Which leaves me in a quandary. I love abundance and having whatever I want when I want it, but I really miss my cosy book store with passable coffee.

 

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Process update 1: technical setup

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The more responsible part of me has realised that I had made a commitment during this project to document my process more faithfully. I have been failing miserably on that count.

So, I’ll try to briefly play catch-up through the next series of posts.

The goal with this project was to gather my interview footage early in the development phase so that assemblage and manipulation of the material could take most of the time.

I arranged my first two interviews for the 17th August in the lighting studio. I had Karolina who is a forty-something writing student and Laura who is a young Communications student.

img_1694The equipment used was:

  • 1 x EOS750 Canon using zoom 24-105 lens, 1 x D5 Canon using 85m portrait lens
  • Zoom recorder (H2N?) with Sony wireless lapel mic
  • Black background
  • 3 x soft box lights

MEDA302 Karolina StillI had the studio booked for 2hrs. I underestimated the amount of time it would take me to do the first set up. So, Karolina ended up waiting for 30mins and we were unable to complete her interview.

What we did complete was great. She was animated and even though in the headphones the sound was echoing, when it was uploaded the sound was clean, but the levels were low. Aaron had dropped by and checked the audio, he said it was fine. I will play with the equipment before the next session to see if the gain can be increased to give me more volume.

The next interview with Laura was great, it only took about 30mins and the lighting worked well and the sound.

I’m going to start working with these interviews separately. I’m going to try cutting them together different ways.

I also need to start making them into shorts that can be used in my DA and inspire interaction and feedback from my online community.