I’ve watched this video before in a class during freshman year. We were shown this video so we could understand each other better and to get us used to living in such a diverse environment. Rewatching it now and keeping in mind the context of why this video was assigned to us before our project, I realize this could also be applied to the artists who need to make sure they realize the responsibility they have while showcasing their work. They are responsible to not paint a concept or culture with a single paintbrush. A very prominent example would be that of how Africa is seen because of the stereotypes promoted by the media. It is important for artists to show the real truth they believe in, not only what the majority of people would want to see and accept. It is normal for people to be subjective about certain things, but it is important to be mindful so to convey the truth as fully as possible.
Response to Medium is The Message – Manal Masood
At first, I was really confused as to what McLuhan was trying to portray. I didn’t understand how medium could be the message itself, because I always saw medium as a way to communicate or to convey our message. As I kept reading, I realized that I wasn’t wrong, it’s just that in addition to that, message itself would be another medium. McLuhan stresses on the point that the way we choose to convey the message is just as important as the message itself, if not more. When people are given a medium, it’s their responsibility to use it with care. For instance, when celebrities use instagram as a medium, they have a responsibility. They can use this medium to promote things that are important because millions of people who follow them are being influenced.
Audio Project – Manal Masood
imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~mvb312/commlab/week-5/group-project/index.html
website:
For our project, we agreed to keep the site as minimalistic as possible. Because our project was about ASMR, we thought that it would be best that everyone’s attention was more on the sounds than the website itself. SO instead of anything else, we chose different colours that would go best with the sounds. For instance, we used red for the sound of the fireplace.
sounds:
We decided to just get sounds from online since it would’ve been hard for us to record these sounds ourselves. I converted them into mp3 and used audacity to edit them i.e shorten,smooth, fade in/out.
reflection:
In conclusion, we were both satisfied with the end project however I do wish we could’ve recorded some sounds by ourselves. I think it also would’ve been better if we gave people the choice to also go backward or to choose what sound they want to play rather than it being just a loop.
Internet Art Example – Manal Masood
Link to netart: http://archive.rhizome.org/anthology/starrynight.html
After going through some pieces on the rhizome net anthology site, I found this one to be the most captivating. This piece, done by Alex Galloway, Mark Tribe, and Martin Wattenberg, actually uses emails in an archive represented as a “glowing point of light against a dark background”. These points then get brighter as the email is accessed. What’s really creative about this netart is that it resembles the Space and it’s possible to create constellations by searching a specific keyword and then the relating emails found in the database will connect.
Once you open it, you can hover around the image, and click on the glowing points which would then open the respective email from the archive called the "Textbase", an archive that saved emails from the forum, which was the Rhizome's email discussion list. These emails could be important resources, exchanges or even artworks were saved in the form of emails.
Response to On the Rights of Molotov Man – Manal Masood
This was a very interesting piece that in a way shows that how actions such as appropriation of art do have consequences. No matter what was the initial intent was, the message the picture that was conveyed after the meaning being changed a little entirely changed people’s perception of it. This story is somewhat related to Lethem’s piece, which acknowledges the fact that all art pieces are inspired from some art that the artists might have seen before. It makes sense if Susan feels like her image was violated by Joy when he used it for his work, but then again, she also used the man for her own work. This raises the important question that when is the line between inspiration and plagiarism crossed? Who determines this?