1. How was your experience with the Olympus digital camera? How did it compare with other still or video cameras you have previously used? Were you able to successfully implement your Image Capturing Strategies using the features of this camera? In an ideal world, how would your still/video camera of choice function?

Well, the Olympus cameras we received were definitely annoying enough to use - especially because taking a long shot of anything is painstaking. I brought a second 1GB card with me on my walks, since the one that came with the camera became full of footage so quickly. Besides that, and the choppy, low quality of the camera, as well as its inability to capture light well, the camera was OK. 

Whether I was able to successfully implement my Image Capturing Strategies I think is more up to you. But I believe I was able to do what I originally set out to do, since I took into consideration how the camera would function when I created my Image Capturing Strategies. 

In an ideal world, I would own this camera:

 

A Canon XL H1S. Here's the specs.

2. Discuss your choice of video-editing software and describe your history with this software. If you used this software for the first time, explain why you chose this particular application and how you think it helped you to accomplish your creative goals (or proved detrimental). Will you use this software again for future projects?


I used Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects CS3 for my video editing. I've used Adobe Premiere products since I was a freshman in high school, and have used Premiere Pro for four years now. After Effects I've been using for several years, but have just used the new CS3 version for this project. After Effects CS3 is basically the same thing as all the previous versions (I haven't dove into it enough to get to any of the new features).


Premiere Pro has been having a weird bug in where it stretches any unredered footage or footage that has any effects on it to 16:9 aspect ratio in its 4:3 window, distorting the image and cutting off the sides. It's an easy problem to fix by simply creating a new sequence and stretching the original sequence back to 4:3, but its a hassel and I haven't got around to doing it for any of my clips yet. Besides that, the only problems I've been having is recently the Premiere Pro files I exported from After Effects have not been opening in Premiere, forcing me to export anything I work on in After Effects in order to edit it in Premiere.


After Effects works like a charm when it doesn't crash. If I could stop eating for a couple of months and get enough money to buy some more RAM for my CPU and get an extra hard drive, it would work even better. Overall, I love both of these programs, and will continue to work with them and try as long as I can to not convert to Final Cut, which every mac user has tried to convince me is better than Premiere (which is just not true).

Break in the Chain of Light

I went to the Experimental Tuesday of December 2nd, 2008. I will be commenting on all the showings briefly, then go more in depth into two of the showings.

The first show was Three Hours, Fifteen Minutes Before the Hurricane Struck, a silent 35mm film with still images and text. The next was Elements of Nothing, a 35mm film of assembled layers of imagery with very music over it (piano, bells, and other like instruments), captivating the audience with its imagery. Third was The Breath, a silent film of various shots of bamboo plants. Fourth was Brilliant Noise, a 16mm film that mixes NASA footage mixed with ambient sound (if you can call it “ambient”). Fifth was Observando el Cielo, which mixes seven years of field recordings of the sky with various sounds. Sixth was What the Water Said 4-6, which we saw in class.

Brilliant Noise was my favorite of the films we saw. The sound, as I said before, could be described as “ambient,” although that description falls sadly short from what it actually sounded like (though, like most ambient sounds, it is hard to describe the actual sound in much more specific terms). The sounds of the film I would describe as the sounds of the sun, if the sun did in fact have a “sound.” The film was very grainy and, exposing energetic particles and solar wind, which appeared as white noise on the screen. Interestingly enough, this footage was unaltered in this aspect, exposing what images look like before cleaned up by NASA. The sound fit the white noise-graininess of the film, using a lot of the same kind of sounds that would come from a television set that was not getting reception very well.

The sounds of this film had a lot of the same raw aesthetic feel to them as Aaron Ximm’s did when he presented his sounds in class. Glenn, though not really specifically addressing the issue of authenticity, is very important to him. The sound in this film could definitely be described as authentic, though it also has the feel of distortion to it. I think its very interesting that author of this piece chose to call it “Brilliant Noise.” The program for this showing says that the soundtrack was created by “directly translating the intensity of the brightness into audio manipulation.” It’s not completely clear to me what that means (or how you directly transfer brightness into sound), but the concept is very interesting. Obviously, sound is not an afterthought in this piece but is truly one with the images of the piece as the author goes through lengths to try to create sounds of the sun.

Three Hours, Fifteen Minutes Before the Hurricane Struck was a silent film. This film, and other silent films during this showing, reminded me of John Cage’s 4’33” piece from 1952 (in which Cage wrote a piece which informed the musician to play nothing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds). What I realized while I watched these films in silence in the Union theatre is that there is never really true silence unless you plug your ears. The sounds of the fans in the room, the sounds of people shuffling in their seats, and the sounds of my own breathing were only amplified in this environment. It became the symphony of the piece. I became very aware of the sounds (and self conscious of my own as I watched) while this piece was being shown. Glenn Bach talked about this in his lecture (and in the readings posted), about how we go through life numb to many of the sounds we hear because we filter them out, and that is really the point of sound art and the concept behind what Aaron Ximm does. Sound artists are trying to get the rest of the world to realize the sounds around them that they have grown numb to, to focus on the everyday mundane noises and find beauty in them.

Reading Response #2

I chose the article Introduction to “Avant-Garde Film” by Scott MacDonald. I chose this article because I was intrigued by the way it described the relation of commercial cinema to avant-garde films.

The article argued, “by the time most people see their first avant-garde film, they have already seen hundreds of films in commercial theaters and on television.” (MacDonald) Because of this, people seeing avant-garde films for the first time already have a sense of what a ‘movie’ is. The article talks of viewer’s responses to these kinds of films, which include that it is ‘too long’ (despite the actual length of the film), and that it is ‘not a movie.’ The article argues that avant-garde films create a fully critical response to what our culture trains people to enjoy, making people question what a movie really is. A person’s first experience with avant-garde film may be used “as a means of catalyzing thought about Cinema.” (MacDonald)

As a media artist who may some day call myself an ‘avant-garde filmmaker,’ the point that I could change a persons preconceptions of cinema and what people see as a ‘movie’ is critical to what I believe I want to achieve. I am a media artist so that I can inspire others. Our culture’s concept of a ‘movie,’ in a lot of ways influences their ideal way of life (and vice-versa), or how they believe life already is. Movies, for many people, define reality. If I can change a person’s concept of a movie, I also change, to some extent, their concept of reality, and even their concept of how reality should be. By changing a person’s concept of a ‘movie,’ I can change their ideals and their morals and inspire them to become certain kinds of people, or to become themselves and live the life they were meant to live. I can inspire people to fight for what matters and to look past what doesn’t. For me to become an avant-garde artist that goes against the grain of commercial cinema, I would affect the commercial cinema more than if I were an artist that followed the ‘rules’ of commercial cinema, because I could create a catalyst in the minds of my viewers instead of simply entertaining them and showing them what they’ve already seen.

Audio Hardware/Software Repsonses

Building the microphone was a very frustrating process. It was frustrating not because it was hard, but because there was a lack of supplies for the amount of students. We only had one wire cutters and four solder guns, one of which did not work well, for a class of over twenty students. I spent two class periods (four hours) waiting for supplies and attempting to use inadequate equipment, and had not yet finished my microphone. Then I lost the microphone I was working on and had to pick up new supplies. By this time most the people were done with their microphones and I was able to have a good working solder gun right away and instant access to wire cutters. It took me twenty minutes and they worked great! I then found my other microphones that I had "lost" inside my backpack and was able to finish those up. It took me five minutes. So, since I had two microphones, I hooked one of them up to a stethoscope I had bought to get some interesting sounds, and set up a wind screen on the other. I took a quick walk around campus to test them out and was pleased by the sounds I got.

The drift walk was really frustrating to find time for, since I didn't want to be rushed and wanted to do it all at once. I'm gone most weekends at ultimate frisbee tournaments, and don't have any long gaps in my school days. So I only had one shot on a Friday to go out on my drift walk. The pair of headphones I bought for the drift walk decided to break right as I was getting on my bike to leave for my drift spot. So I had to quickly grab my crappy smaller pair that fits into my ears and use those instead.

Because I had to use crappy headphones, it was very hard to focus on the sounds I was hearing and get in the mood of the drift walk. Another frustration was when I pulled out my stethoscope microphone rig and tried to record sound with it. I found out that in the process of biking to my spot the microphone had broken. My original microphone that I had the wind screen on, however, worked great!

My ideal microphone and recorder setup, with unlimited money, would include a large crew of sound technicians that knew what they were doing with sound. I would allow them to buy whatever equipment their minds could conger up to record the sounds around us. I would also hire a couple dozen traveling performers to entertain us while we went on our drift walks, a master chef, and a traveling tiki bar (all traveling with us as we went). We would tour the world and eventually go into space (since we had unlimited funds) and go to the moon and to Mars and record sounds there. Since we had unlimited time, I'd also like to visit other galaxies and see what the sound was like there. As for actual equipment I'd use... I don't really know... probably a shotgun microphone. I don't really know anything about sound equipment, but those things are pretty sweet.



The only thing annoying about the MiniDisc recorder was that each time before I started recording I had to switch it from automatic to manual gain. I've used MiniDisc recorders before to record sound, so it wasn't a new thing for me, and I don't really have much experience recording sound with anything else, besides a tape recorder and a video camera. Compared to those two, I feel a MiniDisc playing is more portable and records sound better.

In an ideal world, my recorder would do whatever I wanted it to do. I would not have to push any buttons or operate anything, it would just "know" what I wanted and do it. Also, my ideal recorder would not take up any actual space, so I wouldn't have to carry it around. It would just do what I wanted without me doing anything, and would exist in thin air so I wouldn't have to carry it around, and would be free.



I first started off trying to edit my sound with Audacity on the school computers. This proved to be very frustrating since the certain computer I was working on did not have the correct plug-in to export in MP3 format. It was also frustrating how many of the filters on Audacity were preset (ex. the user cannot control how much something fades in/out, just when it will start fading and when it will stop). The user also cannot preview the sound while they are using a filter. They have to apply the filter before they are able to preview it. It was also very frustrating trying to save one of my files on audacity (which took over 15 minutes to save - making me late to class). Also, working on the school computers are just frustrating in general.

Once I got on my own computer and started using Adobe Audition, I felt a lot more comfortable, and things moved a lot more smoothly. I believe these upper level programs are much more user friendly then the lower level, freeware programs. The interfaces just make sense, and the user is able to do a lot more without being constricted. Also, using my own computer that I am familiar with really helps, and it's really nice not to have to log in and out of it or save things to my flash drive every time I leave the computer.

In the future, I will probably never use audacity, and will most definitely use Adobe Audition. I've spent most my high school career working with inferior programs and equipment. It was good to teach me to be able to work with a broad range of equipment and to think creatively to get certain effects. But that phase is over for me, and I'm ready to start working with higher level programs/equipment.

Ten Questions

1. Are there any places away from constant traffic where I could start my drift walk?
2. Where could I find the most interesting sounds, and the most interesting culture and people?
3. Where is the "ghetto", since that was what I was originally trying to find and was unsuccessful in finding on my first drift walk.
4. Where/How can I find sounds that stand apart from their background? Where can I find sounds that are "single" sounds?
5. Would the sounds be more interesting if I went out at night as opposed to the day?
6. Can I find more experimental ways to record sound (hooking mic up to stethoscope, putting it in contact with certain objects and places it in interesting places, etc)
7. Is there any interesting tunnels or alleyways I could explore along my walk?
8. Is there any public parks in the areas that I am walking?
9. Is there any interesting architecture in the area's that I am walking?
10. Is there any thing small and seemingly unimportant details of objects where I am walking, that if I was to focus on would give me a very interesting and perhaps beautiful result?

Drift Assessment

Two situations that aggravated me on my Drift One Walk were the constant sounds of cars driving by, and the lack of what I perceived to be "good" or "interesting" sounds, and the boredom that resulted because of both. I feel I was lulled into some kind of evil trance by the constant sounds of cars driving by. It brought me into a kind of depressed state which was hard to shake off. I don't really even mind these sounds too much, but I don't like intensely listening to them, and certainly not trying to record them. So that was the most frustrating thing for me. The constant cars driving by mixed with the lack of interesting sounds.

When I got to the start of my drift walk and got everything together and working I felt a sort of peace, listening to the sounds through my headphones and getting "in the moment." This kind of peace also resulted later from being in Washington park, where I was surrounded by flocks of geese. I got "in the zone" then, knowing that great sounds were in front of me waiting to be captured.

I got to this place of peace by an unexpected event of finding a trail that worked with my drift strategy. The trail led down into Washington park, where I was surprisingly greeted with hundreds of geese. This was a pleasant surprise. But as I was walking down the trail at the park I ran into another surprise. I had clipped my microphones onto my sweatshirt as I was walking through the park recording sounds, and as a result my left microphone fell off and started dragging along the ground. The contrast between the two sounds of the dragging mic and the one still clipped to my sweatshirt really interested me. I ended up playing around with this for a while, and got some interesting sounds from it.

The third surprise of mine that wasn't so pleasant was the sense of boredom that came over me in my walk. I felt the place I picked to start my drift was not very interesting, and the sounds I gathered I felt were also not very interesting. Basically, my overall experience with my drift walk was sub-par (something I am going to try to fix in my second drift walk).

My favorite experience was, again, recording the geese in the park. I realized then that this is what I really love to record, and not the sounds of the city. Quite frankly, I hate the sounds of the city. The constant "hum" seems to get into my ears and fill my brain, hypnotizing me into a senseless state of mind. The sounds of nature, however, I love. Recording the sounds of the geese and manipulating how they sounded by running at them and making them all take off at once was very exhilarating to me. I love how interesting animals can sound, and how presenting them to an audience can be even more interesting. I hope my next drift walk will carry me farther away from the city and closer to nature.

116 Reading Response

1. Identify the article you have selected and why you chose it.

I chose the article "The Lure of the Local, Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society" by Lucy R. Lippard. I chose this article based on the title. Lately, I've been very intrigued by the idea of local things. I traveled out west for the summer, and I stayed at a random Co-op for a time where the people there (over twenty of them) strove to eat only local food. They would personally meet and know the farmers they would recieve their food from, and would not buy anything imported from out of the area (like bananas and coffee). I've also been intrigued by the idea of the local because of the community it brings. I hate how impersonal our country has become because everything is imported from another place. It makes it so we don't care where or how we get the things we want, as long as we get them. This rant is basically why I chose it.

2. What are the main points of the essay?
This article talked a lot about this idea of home, and brings up the question on whether home is a community or a place. It talks about the ambiguence of the concept of "home" or of "community."

"Home changes. Illusions change. People change. Time moves on. A place can be peopled by ghosts more real than living inhabitants." (Lippard, 23)

The article also talks about how the home is viewed as the "center" in many communities, like the world revolves around it. It talks about the fifties and how the home became a fortress and a place for a family and about the suburbs.

It talked about the suicide rates in those times, and how though the suburbs were good places to come home to, they were not good places to be stuck in.

It talks about mobile homes and RVs, and about how people stopped viewing home as a place as much as just a structure, something that could be mobile.


3. How are the ideas or arguments in this article relevant to your own practice as a media artist?

"A starting point, for artists or for anyone else, might be simply learning to look around where you live now. What Native peoples first inhabited this place? When was your house built? What's the history of he land us around it? How does it fit into the history of the area? Who lived there before? What changes have been made or have you made? ... What is divergent from when you were young? ... What is your house's relation to others near it... " (Libby, 25)

Lucy Lippard goes on listing things to practice and research to get to know your local community better. I think this is all important, especially to a film artist, since projects usually take a large amount of collaboration. Local communities have always intrigued me and still do. I believe the world can and is constantly changed by them, and that if any movement or revolution in this world starts with a solid, local core base.

Soundwalk Response

* Were you able to find places and spaces where you could really listen?
It was hard at first to listen to the sounds around me, but after about five minutes I became accustomed as was able to block the thoughts running through my head and really, truly listen.





* Was it possible to move without making a sound?
No, nor did I really try. Just because I'm listening to the sounds around me doesn't mean I tried to not make a sound. My sounds became a part of the symphony of sounds around me.


* What happened when you plugged your ears, and then unplugged them?
The sound of my body seemed to fill my mind, as if I were hearing my heartbeat. Then, as I unplugged my ears, the sound of the environment slowing came to me, much like a camera fades in from a black screen to a scene.

* In your sound log exercise, what types of sounds were you able to hear? List them.





Water fountain splashing
Scrape of Tennis shoes
Skateboarders knocking against the concrete
Beetle mating call'
Laughter
"...and the Lord said..."
Swoosh Swoosh
Loud talking, echoing off walls
Keys jingling
Piano playing a symphony





* Were you able to differentiate between sounds that had a recognizable source and those sounds you could not place?
Yes. I heard a lot of high pitched humming noises from time to time. Later, asking a friend about it, I was told it was the mating call of some kind of beetle.
* Human sounds? Mechanical sounds? Natural sounds?
All sounds are only natural, since everything is composed of something from nature. And yet, all sounds are only mechanical, since they are merely comprised of vibrations that can be shown visually through a wave module. And yet still, all sounds are human, since my human eardrum is what picks them up and my human brain is what interprets them.
So, basically, I don't understand the question.

* Were you able to detect subtleties in the everpresent drone?
No, not really. The ever-present drone soon faded from my mind. It's strange how our mind can filter these sounds so easily, but how it takes a lot for a microphone to block them out.
* Extremely close sounds? Sounds coming from very far away?
No. And yes. I don't really understand the question. The source of the sounds I was hearing were both close and far away, traveling towards me at 700 mph. Though I only heard the sounds as they got close to me, since the eardrum only picks up the sounds that are already inside the ear.

* What kinds of wind effects were you able to detect (for example, the leaves of trees don't make sounds until they are activated by the wind)?
air hose hissing
wind blowing through the trees, making them sway and creak.
The sound of wind going past your ear.

* Were you able to intervene in the urban landscape and create your own sounds by knocking on a resonant piece of metal, activating wind chimes, etc.?
Yes. I knocked on this mailbox like thing. And punched a sign. They were interesting sounds.

* Do you feel you have a new understanding or appreciation of the sounds of our contemporary landscape/cityscape?
I would say I have a new understanding of both. But my new understanding is definitely negative. The whole time I was on the walk I was thinking about how annoying these sounds are when you really listen to them. The sounds of traffic, the sounds of motorcycles backfiring, the sounds of car alarms, of the constant hums of electrical units I don't even know about. We shut these sounds out everyday from repetition, but the simple microphone will pick them all up equally without bias. But I hate all those sounds.

* How do you think your soundwalk experience will affect your practice as a media artist, if at all?
Seriously, I don't think it will effect me at all as a media artist, but maybe that just shows my naivety.