#fully making use of the variety of art forms available in the digital age between music animation video editing etc

[destinyandcoins]

hey remember that time i wrote my final paper for my digital literature and online culture class and chose puppet history as the born-digital text i was going to analyze?

[emilyloudwellartblog]

Page to Screen- Evaluation

For this project, Page to Screen, I had to develop some outcomes based off a novel that has been made into a film. The main focus of this project was target audience so my experimentation was reliant on in depth research in association with the target audience of the book/movie. The book/movie I received was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows which was difficult to pinpoint a target audience for because it is a story loved by so many people of different genders and ages. The outcomes developed were digital pieces of work in the form of a movie poster, a book cover and an animated gif. 

To arrive at these outcomes I had to go through experimentation and research, looking at artists such as Lotte Reiniger (a well known silhouette animator in Germany) and many processes including lino cutting, screen printing and papermaking. Doing research allowed me to explore and experiment with my artwork to find out what fit best with Harry Potter. Throughout researching I decided to dip into the aesthetic of real life witchcraft and started to completely reimagine the Harry Potter aesthetic. I didn't want to stray too far from the dark personality the books had already set out, and I had to keep the target audience in mind. Would they be attracted to something so different from the original style? Would the audience read/watch the story in the same way if the artwork was different? Would they be confused that the artwork did not match the story even though it will still based on witchcraft? These are all questions I answered by doing research on redesigned book covers and film posters and understanding how other artists reimagined the artwork. 

The target audience for Harry Potter was so wide it was difficult to design a cover and poster that would appeal to all ages equally. To overcome this issue I looked at the differences in designs between books and posters aimed at a younger audience against books and posters developed for a more mature audience. I noticed that book covers made for adults were more refined and detailed whereas children’s covers were more about large simple shapes and bold colours which would naturally grasp a younger audience’s attention. I experimented with posters and book covers directed at both groups of target audiences and decided to make the book cover for adults, opting for a simplistic but detailed layout, and the poster for a younger audience, making this look more magical with bolder colours and larger shapes. 

This project really made me think about who I'm making this artwork for. In previous projects I was making the artwork to just complete a project. However, in this project I valued the processes behind developing target audience profiles because it allowed me to create art that had a purpose and I had one main goal to work towards which was “will this attract the right target audience?”. I will take this new learning away for future projects and set a target audience if the project does not already ask for it. I have found my outcomes are much more thought out and suitable with a clear target audience in mind. 

Throughout the page to screen project I have used a wide variety of materials and both simple and complex processes, each have helped me develop experimentation to lead me to my final outcomes. Typography processes and techniques used on Illustrator at the beginning of the project really helped me to understand the links the audience automatically makes to a movie based on the fonts on the poster (if a poster has a western font the audience immediately knows it's going to be about cowboys). 

My hand based processes haven't been as developed in this project as my digital based processes, which is something I will take with me to new projects and focus on creating more hand based textures to use. Throughout the project I have been filling up a small booklet with collages, screen and lino prints, typography experimentation and illustrations which has served as a creative way to get ideas down and to just experiment with available materials whilst on my offsite weeks. I have also experimented with making my own paper which then led me to develop some minimalistic posters using screen printing techniques. I used my screen prints in multiple developmental pieces which shows my ability to incorporate both hand based and digital techniques to produce a well refined piece of work that attracts the target audience. 

My focus for this project was on digital based processes because I wanted to pick up old skills that had started slipping from me during lockdown and further develop those skills. To create most of the digital drawings I used a mixture of Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop. I used Illustrator for vector outlines and typography, and Photoshop for adding colour or editing an image (for example using image, adjustments, hue/saturation). I really enjoyed using digital based skills because I was able to continuously develop posters and book covers by swapping and changing parts that would evolve into a new design. To create the digital drawings, like the skull, I used my touchscreen laptop and digital pen on photoshop. 

As a result of the pandemic we had to be split into offsite and onsite groups. To make it easier to showcase our work we had to set up Tumblr blogs where I creatively analysed research and my personal practical development. Having an online blog worked well for me because I was able to focus on writing the information on my posts instead of finding ways to creatively show my analysis within my sketchbook, and a blog looks much cleaner, neater and more professional. One thing I've learned with keeping a blog is I have to be more organised, so if I wanted my posts to run in order I had to plan ahead and get those posts out before other work. An example of this is uploading my screen prints before I can upload poster experiments with them so that I can show where they have come from. For my next project I will aim to organise my work in a way that makes the blog flow and transition between processes and practical work seamlessly. 

The biggest part of research that helped me the most was visiting the Harry Potter Studio Tours. I was able to fully understand and see the aesthetic and style that the films were adapted into. I gathered many images that I used and referenced from as well as a great amount of knowledge about the books and films. 

A weakness within my project is not adding in all the research I've been doing onto my blog. Whilst I have kept up with including research on main processes and artists, I will work towards having much more in depth research on everything I look at in my next project. However, a strength is that I have been undergoing lots of experimentation exploring different styles, compositions and design techniques to produce the best outcomes that I can. This project has proved to be a challenge for me in ways to do with not being at college every week as well as opening me up to new ways of producing art for the target audience.

[garp19-alexgorcik]

Quotes from “On Being a Feminist in Games Studies” re-upload

“The difficulties were more about not being a hard-core gamer. Really, to stay in the industry you needed to be a gamer who loved games more than anything else. More than having friends and relationships and, basically, a life.”

 “During crunch times ahead of milestones, people were working 80þ hours a week.”

 “But the ethos of “manning up” and working really long hours at the expense of any other priority in life is also one that permeates the industry in ways that make it hard for anyone with parenting duties, relationship interests, and so on, to participate fully in the industry.”

 “Issues of labor conditions in the games industry and their gendered implications continue to the present day (see de Peuter & Dyer-Witheford, 2005, for an early depiction of conditions).”

 “But it was clear that the structures and ethos of production were quite masculinized."

 “The pathways into gaming are social––we often learn to game, are introduced to games, and find our way into competence, through our social connections (Taylor, 2008). We sit in front of the console with our friends and play together. We learn together and spend many hours gaining expertise.”

 “Scholars in games studies have tried to counter the myth of the socially isolated and inadequate “gamer identity,” arguing for the sociability of games.”

 “Social context is a big part of games and gameplay. Which makes it difficult for someone like me, who has friends my own age and older, who are queer women with feminist politics, who look at the games available to them and say “I don’t want to waste my time on that stuff––it’s violent, sexist and horrible” and then refuse to play with me.”

 “Inclusivity is a constant project. Exclusions don’t just “happen” in games or in games studies research, just as they didn’t just “happen” in the furniture-making industry. They are the product of active behavior on the part of those in power. If we want to have an inclusive society, culture, subculture, medium, or academic discipline, we have to work at it by pushing through the barriers of exclusionary behavior ourselves, or making sure we are not part of the snarling pack defending its territory from the “threatening other.”

 “In games, we still have the princesses and hyper-sexualized characters, but there are more games with women characters I can bear to look at, and play as. And online there are spaces in games where I don’t feel vilified and hated. But there are also persistent spheres of misogyny and hate that work to exclude me and other women. Just as in the offline world.”

 “If you identify as a hard-core gamer, maybe you wonder whether I should be entitled to write about games because I am a casual gamer, or a middle-aged lesbian, or really, more a media studies researcher than games studies. But does policing the boundaries of who is entitled to identify as gamer, or write and research about games, make the discipline of games studies stronger? What do we lose by such policing and what do we gain? More broadly, in games cultures, the boundary policing of gamergate embodies some of the drawbacks that can ensue.”

 “Culturally however, digital games negotiate a constant struggle for legitimacy, derived in part from the way that games are not seen as serious. They are still seen as marginal-to mainstream culture, as are the people who play them. Yet, they can be seriously tied to the cultural production of values and norms, just as other forms of media can. It is this very position on the edge––of the mainstream media, but also of serious/not serious––that is used as a rhetorical tool of some of the worst outbreaks of misogyny and hate speech we have seen in recent times.”

 “Eglash (2002) points to the ways in which geek masculinities are racialized, with African- American men cast as an opposition to the geek through tropes and stereotypes that align African American men with physicality and White men with more intellectual pursuits. That geeks and the bearers of other nerdy styles of masculinity have been the recipients of bullying behaviors from other men and sometimes women is observable, although with the rise of the importance and valorization of the high-tech industries, the geek male is less on the outer than he used to be.”

 “Gamergaters characterize themselves as out siders, maligned and misread, trying to protect the safe spaces they occupy in games from the invasion of diverse “others.” This strategic foregrounding of the marginalized characteristics of games and geek masculinities neatly elides or obscures the much more central and powerful positions these men occupy through their race and gender positions in culture more broadly.”

 “The stereotypes of gamers perpetuate the idea of marginal geek masculinities, and at the same time virtually obliterate women and anyone else from the category of gamer. In this, they are aligned with the gamergaters.”

 “the context of games cultures rather than broader cultures, we can see that hard-core gamers are at the center––and this group is generally young, White, heterosexual, and male.”

 “The marginalized geek gamer of the broader culture here occupies the center. The games industry perpetuates this centrality of the hard core. It also perpetuates the centrality of the Triple A titles as the most important games. Triple A titles tend to be the most risk-averse titles, while the indie games and mobile and casual markets exist on the margins.”

 “But the industry, perhaps because they view the hard core as central to their profit margins, is slow to change.”

 “Consalvo (2012) points out that publishers perpetuate the idea of the Triple A titles as the ones that matter through discourses which suggest that casual games are feminized.”

 “In other words, “real games” are the hard core Triple A variety and they are also the masculinized games (Vanderhoef, 2013). Vanderhoef also suggests that feminized casual games are perceived as an active threat to the hegemonic White male hard core. This concatenation of identity, content, and capital is potent.”

 “I want to touch on in this consideration of shifting margins and centers is games studies. As a discipline carving out a space for itself, it exists on the margins of the more established disciplinary areas. It maps onto the Humanities and Arts, but also exists in relationship to the IT, Computing Sciences and Design disciplines.”

 “Wasn’t the whole ludology/narratology debate of a decade ago about trying to create a meaningful and formal distinction between games and literary texts, and therefore methodologies?”

 “Although the Triple A titles were the predominating form of games in the earlier years of games studies, it is notice able that there were gaps in games studies around some very popular genres––sports games, children’s games, early casual games, games that didn’t reflect the researchers’ own interests, and have left gaps, some of which persist.”

 “Chess and Shaw (2015) point out that the initial academic event that captured the attention of gamergaters was a “fishbowl” session designed to attract more of the game studies scholars into the discussion on diversity. They felt the need to do this because of the ways in which “diversity” was being hived off into a marginalized strand of the field rather than incorporated into the key concerns and rhetoric of the field.”

 “As J. Sunde´n (personal communication, October 21, 2016) has commented “separatism is not primarily (or even secondarily) about exclusion, it is not about those who are not there, but about gaining strength collectively as a subordinate group”.”

 “In terms of gamer cultures and groups set up to support women and gay or lesbian players, Richard notes that “ . . . counter-communities within subcultures offer unique affordances for pushing boundaries and rebelling against hierarchy, and they allow members to form and foster skills, confidence, and networks that begin to level the playing field” (Richard, 2017, p. 173).”

 “The vestiges of marginality still permeate the sensibilities of at least some of the gamergaters. The ways in which gamergaters have constructed and us against- the-world mentality that is manifested through a kind of besieged and defensive reaction to critique”

 “While not trying to defend gamergater actions, we can see where the rhetoric of marginality might have arisen from. This does not make it acceptable. Clearly the kind of misogynist rage we witness in gamergate and other events like the PAX dickwolves, or the trash talk on Xbox live, comes from men wielding power that emanates from a privileged central position.”

 “The reality is that making more diverse games will not cause the current range of games so beloved by the gamer gaters to disappear. It is not a zero-sum game. “Having multiple game cultures does not inherently displace others. . . . Multiple communities can exist without taking away from one another” (Shaw, 2017, pp. 159–160).”

 “The impacts of these enraged attacks on women and on feminists and on women and/or feminist academics are clearly to chill speech (see Chess & Shaw, 2015, p.22; Ruberg & Shaw, 2017, p. xxi). If you think you may be subjected to campaigns involving doxing, hacking, and public humiliation, you think very carefully about whether you are going to say anything. The very same people who perpetrate these acts will argue they have a right to their hate speech as free speech. This “all rights, no obligations” approach ignores the limits to free speech that have always existed, and the ways in which hate speech curtails the ability of others to speak.”

 “It aligns with the cyber-libertarianism of the much broader cultures of geek masculinities. The culture of hate speech and hate mobs in cyberspace is heavily gendered and needs to be understood as such––it is not an accident (Citron, 2014). It draws from the structural power that men gain from their position at the center of a patriarchal culture. It functions to exclude women, queers, anyone else who games but is not part of the hard-core male center.”

 ” For as long as the industry understands this to be their core market, it will continue to validate the values being expounded by the hard core. This tacit acceptance of misogyny is not confined to games publishers. Shaw (2014, p. 275) suggests that “Misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc., were not invented by the internet, but they are enabled by technology and the cultural norms of internet communication in which this behavior is supported, defended, and even valued”.”

 “This is borne out in Massanari’s (2015) study of Reddit moderation, and the ways in which controversial posts drive up ad revenue. Sarkeesian (2017), in a talk at 2017 VidCon, also pointed to the ways in which the misogynist men who harass her constantly make money from their harassment. Fox and Tang’s (2016) study on sexual harassment in games shows that, as with more conventional organizations, if management is seen to act to close down harassment, then women will stay, but if they are perceived to either condone, or only pay lip service to censuring harassers, then women will often choose to exit rather than endure. The ability of games publishers to create change in this space is clear, and their unwillingness to do so on occasion can be attributed to either a supportiveness of the culture, or a perception that it is more profitable to allow it than not, or both.”

 “The games industry is diminished as a result. For as long as it remains risk averse, conservative, sexist, and complicit in cultures of racism and homophobia, it will remain marginal to other media cultures. It misses the opportunities to explore the complexities and nuances available––the rich possibilities of games to be so much more than they currently are. It puts a brake on innovation. But the impacts of the practices of gamergaters and the industry’s complicity in them are much broader than that. The exclusion and silencing of all but the few hard-core gamers, and the hate attacks, and execrable behavior toward all who are seen as “other” have a terrible impact on those people.”

 “Now, 30 years later, with the gamergate hate crowd, I did think twice about whether I wanted to write about identity and margins. Having witnessed the harassment of some of our colleagues, I really don’t want that going on in my life. Even though the gamergate crowd might be relatively marginal, they can have a strong chilling effect on speech. Again, there is a self-censoring process that is related to safety as Sunde´n also writes about in her research (see Sunde´n & Sveningsson, 2012, p. 149). However I also understand that if no one stands alongside those women who have been targeted nothing will change.”

  “We need to take these ideas seriously. As game designers, working out the ways that the affordances of games can minimize the game becoming a conduit for misogyny and sexist, racist, homophobic cultures. As publishers, the perception that the misogyny of the hard core is more profitable than the reduction of harms to the nonhard-core needs to give way to understanding that in the long term publishers are about culture as well as money and need to be alive to their responsibilities to cultural diversity. As players, users, and spectators of games, we also need to not be bystanders when the hard core exerts their power. And as games studies scholars, we need to maintain the current path toward inclusivity as a norm and be alert to the gaps and silences in the field.”

[drapesmagazine-blog]

Beat the heat with printed cotton!

Megha Kaveri

Summer is here and it is about time you go shopping for cotton fabrics that soothe your skin. Cotton fabrics are in fashion around the year, but it is, in fact, during summer that their value is fully realised. That being said, Kalamkaris and Ikat prints have been riding on a high the past year. Faces of Buddha, Kathakali motifs, animal and bird prints along with intricate patterns of ornate flowers, Kalamkaris come in a number of varieties. 

Kalamkaris derive its name from the word ‘Kalam’ which means pen. Essentially this was an art that was done using pens and vegetable dyes. Gradually it evolved to using blocks and vegetable dyes on fabric to get the desired look, after which pens were used to draw the more intricate work. 

Evolving to its peak popularity under the Golconda Sultanate (17th Century A.D), Kalamkari fabrics are made these days in Machilipatnam and Sri Kalahasti in the state of Andhra Pradesh. With the advent of digitally printed fabrics, one can also have the same look at a lesser cost. 

In Chennai, Kalamkari fabrics are available in Cotton Street, Pantheon road. 

Cotton Street, Pantheon Road

Located in Egmore which is home to buildings that oozes history — the Egmore Museum, Connemara library and the Government Art Gallery- Pantheon Road 1st lane is known for something else. The street, also known as ‘Cotton Street’, has 67 shops that sell cotton fabrics.

Women of different ages can be spotted browsing through the fabric collection in the shops here before going towards the shop to strike a deal. In a way, these shops work like a modified version of the stock market, where there is an asking price, quoted by the customers and there is a selling price quoted by the shopkeeper. Ultimately the two prices meet at some level and business happens here. It is all about the bargain.

These shops sell varieties of cotton fabrics at throwaway prices. The price per metre of cloth is between Rs.100 and Rs.150. Shopkeepers source their stock from Andhra Pradesh, Bangalore, Erode and Salem, apart from MC Road in Korukkupet and Vannarapet in Chennai. 

“Our guys in these places send us pictures of stock through WhatsApp and if we like it, we send them the cheque and buy it,” 

says Kamaraj, an employee in a shop here. 

Contrary to the general perception of e-commerce killing traditional brick and mortar shops, the shopkeepers here owe their booming business to technology.

“Earlier we had customers who bought single or double pieces of fabrics. Now with WhatsApp and Instagram, we have people buying bundles of cloth from us,” 

adds Jayabalan, another employee in a shop here. 

Jayabalan, who has been working here for 20 years, also adds that demand for cotton fabrics have always been there irrespective of any competitor coming in.

“The fact that I can bargain and buy here makes me revisit this street. I think we need some benches for people to sit, washrooms and some food outlets to make this place a better shopping centre,” 

says Tabitha, a Catalogue Quality Associate in Amazon. 

She also adds that Pinterest [A social media platform to share images in the form of pin-boards] influences her choice of designs and with a little customisation she can create wonders with the materials available in these shops.

“Since shopping can be done in under an hour here I am not too worried about the non-availability of washrooms. However, I would like it if there are juice shops since summer is here and the street has no shelter to beat the heat,” 

adds Sruthi Raj, a consultant, who shops here often. 

Have you shopped there yet? Share your experiences with us at drapesmagazine@gmail.com

[finalmajorpiece]

Proposal PT1

Name

Owen Clement

Pathway

UAL Art & Design Photography

Project title

 Section 1: Rationale (approx. 150 words)

In my  first year of photography I was learning everything from scratch this  included all the basics such as aperture which has influenced a lot of my  work such as my sense of place project as well as part of my time project. My  favorite part of aperture is a shallow depth of field as I try to use it in  my work as much as possible if it suits the project this is achieved easily  as I use a 50mm lens for most of the work. Shutter speed has also been also  been used a lot in my work standing out mostly in my location and time  projects as it helped to achieve the best photos available and that I able of  capturing with the skills I had at the time.

 I also  learnt about film a lot in the first year specifically in the first and forth  units which were a sense of place, this included pinhole and photograms and  also basic film photography which helped me within my book project in the  second year, We also learnt about photographers such as man ray in this  project. The location project helped to teach me about working to a brief and  working for a client with was important because I will need these skills for  my future and it has given me skills for the future. Studio work although  definitely not my best subject nor be it my favorite has influenced me a lot  as it has taught me to focus a lot more on framing as well as working with  models. I backed up my studio work by doing my first year FMP in the studio  and although it did not turn out how I wanted it to, it influenced me to work  harder on my second year projects and pick projects I would enjoy a lot more  as I feel like I gave up on my FMP last year as I lost interest in it.

 In the  second year I have focused a lot more on black and white photography in  particular film noir this began with the moving image project in which I made  a music video that showed the journey of a guy walking around town, but shot  from unexpected angles which didn’t always show his face, these scenes where  well lit and where shot at night though this project I learnt that while  filming I am meant to manual focus otherwise it would never truly focus this  also meant keeping the shutter speed at constant 1/60 and keeping the  aperture around f/8.0 while changing the ISO if anything needed to be changed  this improved the quality of the overall video and I believe it also made the  edit easier which I preformed on premiere pro.

 Though  the book project I carried on with black and white film noir but I shot on a  film camera and used a 400 ISO film and pushed it to 3200 ISO so that I could  use it at night this made the images noisy although I think this helped me add  mystery in to my photos and have people read more into them so them become  more enjoyable. Learning to push film was an important part of this project  and was relatively easy to learn but was rather difficult to get perfect,  although I believe that I was unable to perfect the process I think that I  have learnt enough that in time and with more practice I can perfect the  process. I used InDesign to create the book and for printed and then used the  saddle stich to put the book together while laser burning the title of my  book onto the cover.

 Through-out  the past two years of photography I have learnt a lot including writing  pitches and proposals this will be fundamental to me getting jobs in the  future as I must pitch my potential ideas to future clients. These proposals  would have to be matched with portfolios with would showcase my best photos  and in turn my best editing, with has improved a lot over the past few years  mainly because I came into the course having never edited a photo before and  learnt everything from scratch. The editing process has been heavily improved  thanks to programs like Photoshop, Premiere Pro as well as InDesign as they  have all in some way helped me to enhance my work on one or more projects.  Another form of editing which I have partaken in during the course would be  the darkroom process e.g. developing film this has been useful through-out  multiple project and has allowed me to widen the options I have for projects.

 The  theoretical side of photography has been the most influential piece of  information I have learnt during the course. Roland Barthes connoted and  denoted has probably influenced me the most out of the theories as I believe  this is what I understand the most and the most I can write about because it  allows me to release my imagination a lot more within the denoted part. With  Stuart Halls encoded and decoded although useful I fell it is the theory I  struggle the most with as it is a lot more technical, statistical and  opinionated than Barthes theory which is a lot more free flow. Context is the  most important of the theories in my opinion as it gives you a lot more  information to work off of as by knowing the photographer and style you can  understand a lot more of what he is trying to say within the image.

 My  pathway to choosing to do a landscape documentary style series based around  the old Bridport railway is based around the fact that I think that this  style of photography are my strongest which I think I have shown to be true  within my location and sense of place projects which although my sense of place  project was not based around documentary it could be viewed in that way, by  doing documentary/landscape it also allows me to take colour photos which I  have not done this year and fell I need to get better at because in my  opinion all my best work has been in black and white and for me to excel I  need to get better at taking colour photo. I also want to do a project on  something that I have a strong chance at succeeding at as I believe that last  year’s fmp is my worst piece of work so far.

     Section 2: Project concept (approx. 200  words)

The aims  of my project are to create a series of image documenting what is left of the  Bridport railway line going from west bay to maiden newton and which most of  has been turned it to a cycle route I will follow this route taking images  while also going off the route and finding the remains of the railway and  photographing them these image will also be backed up by archive images I  will either find on the internet on selected websites or if possible find  some at the Bridport museum this is so I can so the compassion of the railway  then and the railway now.

 The aim  is to get as many images of the old railway as possible and use photos of the  route to fill in the spaces and make the series look complete and give it  some variety. I think that finding old archive photos will allow me to  develop my project and give me more ideas of what to do this will also be  backed by my analysis of Mitch Epstein, Paul Graham and Jem Southam. I aim,  at this moment in time, to create a Book in which I will display along with  three of my strongest photos

 I am  going to take the photos on a digital camera and shoot in colour which in my  mind will elevate the project to another level as it will hopefully give the  railway a new sense of life and show the remains of the railway at its very  best I will hopefully do this by slightly desaturating the images during  editing so they don’t look and modern and have a slightly aged look to them  which would suit the project. I plan to present it as a book which will be  showcased on book pillar and will have three photos above it which I plan to  have framed I plan to present it like this because I feel it will emphasize  the strongest pieces of my work while showing it in a professional manner.  All of this is unlikely to go completely to plan and which is why I have  planned the project rather loosely at this moment in time as it will allow for  development and fresh new ideas which will all lead to a better more  realistic end product.

Section 3: Evaluation (approx. 150  words)

In order  to evaluate my work I am going to make a weekly reflective journal in which I  will account what I have done that week and how it can be improved and how it  will affect my work going forward. This will be accompanied by a peer  assessment between me, another member of the class and the lecturer at the  time this will also be written about in the reflective journal. The final my  of the weekly evaluation, although it is more likely to be fortnightly, will  be a reflection on my work so far with my tutor. I will conclude my project  with an in-depth evaluation using my reflective journal which will help me to  fully remember almost every detail of the project and provide a proper  analysis. By preforming a peer assessment I will able to improve my work by  taking on a in-depth critical analysis which I can use to further pieces of  work and make them to my desired standards from the feedback I have received.

Proposed research sources and  bibliography (Harvard format)

I am going  to research photographers such as Paul Graham, Jem Southam and Joel Steinfeld  and their work that involved a journey like Graham’s A1 and Southam’s Red  River. This will be accompanied by research of the railway and routes history  which I can possibly find at the Bridport museum but most likely online. Over  research will be practice shoots and the annotations of them. Bibliography  will be created on Refme and transferred to a word document.

[arealbarber-blog]

Final Theory of Writing

It's my belief that literacy, is above all else, a creative art form. It is subjective. It is unique. I explored the concrete use of paper in my first project, and found the sea of ways it was used for. As technologies and society progress as does the way we use literacy. To understand what came before us and identifying our faults, in writing or otherwise, prevents us from reliving the same mistakes.

Literacy, since its inception, has been a way to workshop words in order to exist as ideas to project unto others. Revisiting Ong's description of oral practices, the first ways to present and share information. This cultivated an exponential growth of more and more long lasting platforms of communication. While we have a variety of methods to connect with others, the common thread that has been woven throughout the history of literacy is the ability to communicate. We methodically find ways to eradicate the barriers that prevent this communication from spreading. From distance, to language, to culture, to time, we as a society consistently construct more and more efficient ways to bypass these roadblocks. As time progresses, as has been the pattern, we will continue to tear down walls. This efficiency in understanding others' minds will continue until ideas are spread intrinsically without hindrance.

Technology, as of recent decades, has undergone an exponential change. The way we view writing in the 21st century must be treated as a malleable substance that can mold to these changes. Defining yourself as a writer in this age requires you to format ideas in turn with the new platforms available to us. You have to be able to change the way you present information in order to capture a modern audience. With lifetimes worth of information at people's fingertips, writing holds a higher expectation of originality, unique style, and distinct tone.

With the immersion of technology and the opportunity to create conversations within a matter of seconds, a social aspect is added to the concept of writing. To be considered a literate in the 21st century, one must be able to willing to collaborate and allow others to change and shape your creative process. This linkage holds similar to King's idea of writing being a linking of minds. By utilizing a communicative aspect to literacy, you can better your writing by understanding other people's ideas, cultures and languages.  

When I first came into this class, I could only define literacy as one thing: the inherent ability to read and write. Because access to learn this skills are so prominent in our first world society, to press ourselves to further understand what we consider literacy is difficult. However, it is a requirement for us as advancing minds to move forward. John Green describes how "writing and the ability to read it are markers of civilization." A 21st century literate is able to identify their literary practices and apply it to define our current society. The act of writing has only ever always been a balancing act of an empathetic consideration of others thoughts and being able to expand and grow from them.

Because I see writing as such a creative force to be reckoned with, I wanted to compare it to another expressive activity that is featured prominently in my life: art. I was able to analyze my creative process when it comes to writing and find many similarities within something outside the setting of classroom. Ever since I learned the alphabet I've wanted to create ways to share the images I was seeing in my head. This is what I believe is truly similar about writing and art. In very little other mediums do you get such an intimate interaction with the workings of someone else's brain. It is not just to understand the information you are presented with, but it is the opportunity to see how someone else thinks or process thoughts similar to another's mind.

In both art and writing, above all else, I believe that reference are important. When presented with a blank canvas or an empty document, despite knowing the ideas you want to communicate, it is important to draw inspiration from others on how to most effectively do so. By observing the work of others, you're able to better pick out what you like and what you don't, and integrate them into your creative process. Without these refences, you run the risk of your work lacking in some way or another. In art, this may mean your anatomy is off or the shadows don't make sense. In writing, this could mean you have scattered ideas or poor vocabulary variance.

Let's take a look at my sketch before references:

It's okay, but it's bland and stiff. It could be improved.

So, just a handful of references I decided to use for some characters I had been working on:

With an idea in mind and references in hand, facing a blank sheet doesn't seem nearly as intimidating. Then comes the concept. This also can strongly stem from the influence of others. For these particular pieces, I initially started by studying the body language of people I observed, then creating pictures influence by that. In writing, this is also prevalent. By studying work by other author's you're able to use their knowledge to further your own. You create a unique connection between yourself and the author that can be simulated by your writing and your audience. In a perfect world, your work would then be used for the same purposes to further the thought processes of those who use your writing as inspiration.

With this, the outlines of an idea are created:

Lastly, to create a fully realized piece of work in 21st century, you have to be able to adapt to new technologies available to you. In the world we live in today, we have the opportunity to reach a whole world of cultures and audiences. To fully take advantage of digital literacies is has become so wildly effective that to only share work physically or orally can't hold a flame. To highlight this within an artist context, I decided to scan the sketches and create digital paintings in Photoshop. In this form, they're far more visually appealing, cleaner, and hold a truer message to the ideas I had originally seen in my mind.

[shaymehr]

Music’s Manic Episode Over Digitization

Nestled on the side of the California coast breathing in salty air and luring in young audiophiles is Sound Spectrum, a record shop that’s been right where it’s sitting since 1967.

Wave Baker, a 15-year employee of Sound Spectrum, believes that in music we have “the best of all worlds for us today”.

Baker, a self proclaimed “student of sound,” says that for him the digitization of music has led to music becoming more convenient in “packaged tiny bites” and a growing appreciation of all live sound growing from concerts to the wind.

Baker makes the shift of music into the digital age seem expected and natural, but not everyone agrees with this sentiment.

In the last decade music has shifted more and more from something owned to something borrowed as listeners have shifted from purchasing physical copies of an artist’s work to streaming them online using a variety of platforms.

And regardless of where their loyalties lie, almost every music lover you meet has dipped their toes in the piracy pool if not cannon balled in.

Even music giant, Apple, which has dominated MP3 sales for over a decade is now joining the streaming business with Apple Music.

Streaming services for the first time had generated more sales than CDs in 2014 according to a report released by the Recording Industry Association of America as quoted  

It’s safe to say that the battle is over and streaming has come out on top, with a bevy of companies such as Pandora, Spotify, Apple Radio, Google, Tidal and others, now flood the streaming market.

As technology out grows the copyright laws in place, several problems have arisen. Artists complain that they aren’t paid the royalties they are owed with streams of their work. Streaming services struggle to stay afloat or turn a profit, as royalties and licensing fees are too high. And somewhere in between, 20 to possibly 50 percent of the fees are lost to a “black box” of middlemen according to the Berklee College of Music’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship as quoted by NPR. Industry insiders refer to this as a black box because the money is not traced back to the writer or artist, but is lost someone along the chain of companies used to pay labels and artists.

But there isn’t even agreement on who is to blame and the finger is pointed in several directions.

Ted Coe, Development Coordinator at KCSB FM, doesn’t think the finger should be pointed at any one entity but the system. He says, “Capitalism has always been a problem for art…it rips at the fabric of doing things because you’re passionate.”

Coe quoted Boots Riley, an artist, saying, “ it’s going to be a different economy for musicians”. He feels that musicians now have to make a choice whether to be viable and lose autonomy or follow their passion and scrape by.

A slew of critics from all corners of the music industry have suggested amendments to law and some other more creative solutions to try to appease all members of the industry.

According to RollingStone, The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, the music industry’s U.N., decided that one solution to music piracy would be to standardize music release dates. They have been backed by the Music Business Association, which represents many U.S. retailers including Spotify.

In the U.S. before July 10th music was released on Tuesdays, while in other countries the release dates varied. So if one country received a release before another there was incentive to leak the album illegally to virgin ears.

The IFPI announced that the new worldwide release date would be Friday after music consumers were surveyed on their preferences. It is their hope that this will reduce the urge to leak unreleased content and therefore reduce revenue loss for artists and labels.  

James H. Richardson, a UCLA law and management scholar, devoted his dissertation to how appropriately changing the compulsory licensing scheme could save the music industry. He suggests changing the foundation with a multi-part amendment to copyright law.

His solution involves tying licensing fees distributors pay to labels to distributor’s revenue. This would prevent distributors from going into deficits or out of business entirely.

Next it involves setting a minimum royalty rate so that distributors would still have to pay artists something even if they were making little to no revenue. This is key in the fledgling phases of more platforms.

And lastly Richardson’s solution involves putting a tax on the licensing fees. This would have the impact of music content being offered at market value, diversity in labels competing and funding for copyright governance boards to function autonomously.

Coe, of KCSB FM, states that industry members he respects are now backing copyright law changes to compensate performers as well causing him to lean in this direction as well.

Hip-hop artist Jay Z came up with a unique solution after trying to collaborate with several streaming platforms, according to NPR. He decided independence was key to artist control and he purchased his own service, named Tidal. With the backing of celebrities like Beyoncé, Daft Punk, Kanye West, Madonna and several other big names, he hopes to focus on giving the largest shares to artists and audio quality. Audio quality is one of the only gripes of users of streaming services. Jay Z hopes to provide uncompressed file options that promise high sound quality to avid audiophiles at a higher price tag. Tidal will have no free version like Pandora or Spotify, which should evade it falling into a deficit early on.

Stephen Masnyj, a long time audiophile and KUCI’s promotions director, believes that large labels are stifling artists. When artists don’t get paid sufficiently they can’t eat or live let alone create.

He proposes a reinstatement of a type of patron system, much like a tech start up. “Like Angel investors, investors would hold a five percent stake in an artist’s work leaving the other ninety five percent to the artist. The five percent would be enough to cover the cost of recording, producing and distribution,” says Masnyj. Angel investors are people who are not interested in being refunded or making interest.

He’s not alone in viewing this path as a solution. It seems to be an up and coming idea in the youngest generation of music industry hopefuls.

One form of this patron system already exists in the crowd-funding site, Kickstarter. Artists encourage fans to donate in order to fund their projects, usually albums, in exchange for gifts of CDs, vinyl, shirts and other merchandise.

Artists like the band, Crook and the Bluff launched their Kickstarter in May 2014 and by June had raised $5,680, which was enough to record and distribute their album both physically and digitally.

In merely two months they had raised enough to produce their art and do so autonomously.

Kenny Oravetz, general manager at KCSB FM and producer of “The Roadtrip”, agrees with the idea of patronage to support and fund artists. He says, “If I was rich and really loved an artist I would make sure they could continue to produce work.”

Another possible solution he offered was one in which labels and artists would change their focus from the store to the experience.

Oravetz believes listeners expect music to be free in a world where everything is instantly available online.

Baker, of Sound Spectrum, goes so far as to say, the “laws of nature are supportive of music being shared” to support this idea.

Labels should focus on the “live experience” and sell tickets, merchandise like shirts, CDs, and vinyl when artists tour. Oravetz states that ticket prices have gone up passed the inflation rate so maybe labels are in fact catching on.

Artists also tour much longer than they have in the past, often longer than a calendar year. This is likely due to the higher revenue stream from performing than producing the album and banking on sales.

Spencer Vonhershman, coordinator of an all ages venue known as Funzone and soon to be radio disc jockey, thinks it’s a little blurrier than simply directing all focus to touring and ticket sales for every band.

He believes that artists loosely fit into three tiers. The lowest tier is composed of “hobby musicians” that would be happy to move up but will take any opportunity. The middle tier is artists that require album sales to keep making music and “scrape through with tours”. And the top tier is artists whose livelihoods provide more than their own income and need album sales to remain at the top.

Essentially album sales are still vitally important to all artists.

However, Vonhershman thinks tying merchandise to albums sales at shows is a creative compromise.

“People want to be able to show their friends they went to the show,” says Vonhershman. He’s referring to when items are packaged with digital downloads.  Nowadays vinyl comes with a digital download so that the new wave of young audiophiles can be fully satisfied. They’re not just stuck with this large impractical though rich sounding piece of plastic, but have their portable bite sized MP3s for convenience too.

Strangely enough despite the grand scale shift from physical to digital ownership, digital piracy, and then borrowing through streaming services, vinyl has had a comeback of sorts. It can be found in every hip shopping mall and record stores that are now frequented by a much younger demographic then before.

Vinyl sales are the only physical media that is increasing in revenue. Vinyl sales soared to 9.2 million copies last year, according to Nielsen music as quoted by Stereogum. The average vinyl sold at $23.84, which is up 40% even when adjusting for inflation. So you have an old medium with rising prices and sales.

While the push back of vinyl is far from balancing out the revenue loss from streaming, it is an interesting phenomenon worth exploring since it might contain a truly viable solution.

Wave Baker believes that the draws of vinyl for young people are it’s “warmer and deeper” tones, which “most authentically reproduce the live music experience”.

With digital music the compression means that something’s missing; that the sound waves are crunched together.

It may seem paradoxical that while the mainstream music consumer is shedding their weigh in physical media and “extraneous” sound waves, there’s a growing niche circling back to a largely impractical vinyl.

But the fact is that the market is simply reacting to consumer demands for, as Baker said it, “the best of all worlds”. Vinyl is something physical that can be provided as merchandise at shows, can come with a digital download code for convenience, sells an album, and ultimately results in more of the payment getting to the actual artist.

So it seems that this solution of accommodating the industry by weighing heavier on the live experience is already naturally occurring, at least with vinyl, and is the most viable step in the right direction for the industry.

References

Stephen, Masnyj, promotions director, KUCI.

Kenny, Oravetz, general manager, KCSB FM.

Ted, Coe, developmental coordinator, KCSB FM.

Spencer, Vonhershman, venue owner, Funzone.

Wave Baker, employee, Sound Spectrum.

Geslani, Michelle. “Streaming Music Services Made More Money Than CD Sales For The First Time Ever” [electronic source]. (2015). Consequence of Sound. Retrieved July 28, 2015, from consequenceofsound.net.

Grow, Kory. “Music Industry Sets Friday As Global Release Day” [electronic source]. (2015). Rollingstone. Retrieved July 20, 2015, from Rollingstone.com

Hogan, Marc. “Have We Reached Peak Vinyl?” [electronic source]. (2015). Stereogum. Retrieved July 28, 2015, from Stereogum.com

Hogan, Marc.  “Is Transparency the Music Industry’s Next Battle?” [electronic source]. (2015). NPR music. Retrieved July 23, 2015, from npr.org.

Hogan, Marc.  “Streaming Utopia: Imagining Digital Music’s Perfect World” [electronic source]. (2015). NPR music. Retrieved July 23, 2015, from npr.org.

Richardson, James H. (2014) The Spotify Paradox: how the Creation of a Compulsory License Scheme for Streaming On-Demand Music Services Can Save the Music Industry. SSRN, 1-45.

Sanders, Sam. “Jay Z’s Music Service, Tidal, Arrives With a Splash, And Questions Follow” [electronic source]. (2015). NPR Music. Retrieved July 20, 2015, from npr.org.