Final Clutter

First final cut experiment was on Nidal Kram. This was fun, and successful however we wish in the Canvas section of Final Cut it actually played the video along with the sound. Also cutting of Mariah's video went smoothly.

Plan;
Take each bit cut from each interview - have them repeat each other using the different voices whether matched with their speaker or images that display misperceptions of the world. Along with an overall 'plot' surrounding these tidbits of information, that we have gathered from the interviews. We are not documentarians, although I have gathered we are artists trying to obviously address that missing link through a medium that ironically portrays the so called 'missing' link - even though it is right under your nose. I want to show the 'missing link' quickly and obviously.

Few changes;
maybe not going to interview Skran and Vetinde (although if the opportunity arises - most definitely will do so)


Also we plan to be a little more artistic in our presentation.

Sorry, there was an error uploading your video. Please contact support and include the ....

I am Woman, Hear Me Roar

What Abigail Disney chose to portray through her documentary was something ignored by absolutely everyone, making this film a connector for women all over the world.

She mentioned at the luncheon that her decision to not use a narrator was vital to the project because ' Liberian women have already been spoken for, too many times have they been spoken for'. This aspect of the documentary was not obvious to me when I watched it the first time, however it did make a big impact whether the viewer knew it or not. I imagine the film with a narrator and it could not have been as powerful as to hear Leymah and her friends telling the story themselves. Common Language has played its part in allowing them to communicate their story to the rest of the world.

Abigail Disney is an activist whose mind is set on demolishing weapons and joining all countries in the process of peace. This is good, and she inspired me. She also demonstrated that with new media this is possible, by bringing the story to us and connecting it with all women, in all countries. She mentioned some examples of when she presented it in other countries and how different women from Europe to America had all responded differently. In Europe some women felt it was insulting and some said it was the best thing they'd seen, and they were 80 (or something). She mentioned the different reactions in America and how Americans tended to separate themselves more from this documentary and did not connect or find similarities as did the European women. This reflects onto how most Americans forget we are involved in two wars at the moment and how we separate ourselves from deatha and destruction is unbelievable sometimes.

One cannot, should not, be negative or critical of Disney, she is aware she is a white woman trying to make a film about Africa. And in order to not be cliche she did things differently in the details of this documentary. I am sure none of her story is false, and to not believe the women who work for peace in Liberia again is pessimism at its worst.


In these viewings of a press conference, you see these women elaborate on the documentary.

Artineer or Engintist?

Nicolas Bourriaud on Facebook

A secondary root in addition to the primary one seems almost too much to handle, however everyone these days, due to globalization (caused by the communications revolution and therefore technology), has a secondary root, or can now finally acknowledge it.

Nicolas Bourriaud, when he wrote The Radicant, was explaining the direction artists are taking NOW. He discusses the exploration of these invisible pathways and this invisible yet powerful connection we have with each other made possible by a signal, a channeled void, or rather "semes". "Pathways within the cultural landscape", and Semionauts are those "inventors of these pathways, nomadic sign gatherers", aka artists. (39)

Putting altermodern into a visual interpretation is what Les Paul, Buckminster Fuller, and Laurie Anderson started. The first contributions to advancing the human mindset to think what they are, and where they are by "decentering, of setting in motion, of unsticking, of de-crustation", through some kind of art; music, performance, visual, 'finest', or architecture, and new engineered inventions. Engineering in my opinion is the new art, the engineers will be making the money, selling the new ideas, and they will be shaping the new mindsets of youth all around the globe.

Can an Artist be an Engineer? or an Engineer and Artist?
Artineer....Engintist
Yes, of course. Sure, why not?

Golden Gate Bridge Example

New words will begin to define these new concepts that try and explain these new ideas, which before all that, will be triggered by the mindset change all humans will undergo. Of course there will be controversies, traditionalists, nationalists, etc. but there will be those who talk and think like Laurie Anderson, and Buckminster Fuller, and those who grow to the kind of popularity like Les Paul who will in some way tackle those who doubt, and these "semionauts" will lead us to the next Age/Era.

The secondary root is the connector between one and all, publicizing whatever, and registering to be a facebook name, Blogger, myspace user, twitterer, or Void Citizen aka 'Net Citizen', is claiming your identity among World Population, U.S. and World. Subjecting yourself to everyone and subjecting everyone to yourself. It is a choice and by opening this door you take a risk but without this risk there can be no understanding of this connection. Understanding is knowledge and knowledge is power. Power to the people.

Peace.

Lawrence Media Minds

Interviews;
Sony Camcorder & Canon SLR-LIKE

Collecting material on media in Africa and media in America and the connection between the two.

Interviewing people has been difficult because most people have not thought of the questions that we have chosen to ask them. We allow them to review the questions beforehand however these questions are more complicated than we meant them to be. The reaction is something to explore as well, because our project is about what people do not think about. And we are shedding light onto this invisible connection.

We have so far interviewed;
Nidal Kram - African - American, Sudan
Mariah Mateo - American, Uganda and Sierra Leone
Natalie Fordwor - Ghanaian
David Frempong - Ghanaian
Sarah Ehlinger - American, Sierra Leone
Natalie Gratton - American, Sierra Leone
Harjinder Bedi - American, Ghana Togo and Benin
William Meadows - American, Sierra Leone
Chelsey Sand - American, Sierra Leone

So far it has been difficult with some and easy with others depending on how much they have thought about or been subjected to the issue. Engaging people is key, explaining and simplifying the questions, and trying to set them up in an environment where they are comfortable.

The Sound Effect

Laurie Anderson's style helped me think about new media more artistically and also as more of a toy. Her approach to the new technology that was emerging in her time when she was graduating was experimental and considered things very carefully and very closely. It does take a certain amount of patience to understand, if it even can be understood, her work and the level where it is. She mentioned she tries to portray some of the dumbest things she can think of, getting down to the very core of what something is. What technology is.

A very fast paced medium in which people are caught up in and that Laurie Anderson slows them down with. Her art is very rythmic, repitious, enhanced, and a ' technological overkill'. The amount of technology within her art is a technique which slows it down, sets it at a constant. And she mentions again explores the 'silence, which is when your are with someone either awkward or you are in love'. This exploration of different sounds inside the visual brings her into a state of mind very far from the categorical or direct but rather the circular, neverending, and contemplative. Her work reminds me of Lawton's project involving pandora and the video art that he will use.

She does express how she needs to bite her tongue when someone misunderstands her work. She does try to convey a specific meaning to her audience and that isn't a hatred for technology but a different way to 'embrace', and in fact more of an embrace than a 'being subjected to' action.

Her performance art has used a more classic form of sound, the violin, and combined it with a newer foreign visual or sound of techno, or 'digitized', making a stride to connect art with the unfamiliar and in that sense advancing it, and redefining it.

Dropping Knowledge

Living Non-Linear

Buckminster Fuller lived in his own world, which was beautiful and genius, however, it seemed to not have punctured the human mindset for quite awhile. His inventive and interesting ideas were not 'attractive' enough for humans to accept this interconnected mindset into their linear short-term, short-lived world.

The World of Buckminster Fuller portrayed Fuller exactly how a genius should be portrayed, speaking of his ideas with an awareness of his surroundings (putting him in a field was actually a 'natural' thing to do). Fuller's explanations of the visual in the documentary most likely confused people who could not or would not follow. However, he challenged this laziness and dug deeper into another world within his mind. He obviously was inspired by things in his environment that he did not himself create and yet he put them together to create a mindset he says we have not yet recognized but that has always been there. So, in a way he resembles Les Paul by bringing what is in front of him together and creating something, whether a new sound or a new mindset.

It is one's responsibility as a human being, as a citizen of the world, of a certain community, as a member of a family to do what is needed to better that group. The necessity of something, however, is determined by the individual and how it impacts those others in the group. Knowledge is power and Fuller's mention of literacy and its role in the the democratizing power of radio and new technology makes it easier to do what you like to do rather than something you are told to do. Technology is fulfilling Fuller's vision in a way doing more with less through advancements in sustainable agriculture, renewable energy use, less gadgets doing more and becoming smaller, making our lives less cluttered, and less polluted as a result.

Fuller would embrace the new technology because in a way he helped with the original creation of them.








check out the documentary~ also if you can find videos; "Eccentricty of Life", and "Fuller on Death"

Bridging the Multicultural Media Gap

Sierra Leoneon filmmaker,
Karim Bah

http://standardtimespress.net/cgi-bin/artman/publish/printer_4341.shtml
(highlight the text)

Babylon Illusion - a vision of a different culture with an accompanying assumption that that culture is better, contains more opporunities, and that life is more exciting there as opposed to where they are.

Karim Bah made a film Babylon Illusion that contains interview footage of Africans in western countries, UK, and the USA, where these gold diggers are complaining about how hard the life is there. The documentary is in a sense critiquing them, but also it is an attempt to desolve this illusion that Africans have that "the west is better", and it is an attempt to initiate actions that lead to pride in their own country.

Zenabu and I intend to investigate what type of media create such an illusion. Americans suffer from a similar illusion, based on adventure, excitement, or violence and war.

Goal; 10+ minutes of quality video footage containing a mixture of new media arts, politics, and entertainment that explains this "Babylon Illusion" that westerners have of the African world and that Africans have of the western world.

Media bridges this gap as long as it is not misunderstood. However, a gap may not be able to be bridged if there is no old media material to build it with. The Missing Link we deal with today is literacy.

Material;
-Video footage of West African interviews
-Audio clips of interviews
-West African music
-Interviews of Lawrentians effected by this multicultural media
-Youtube clips
-Skype examples
-Written script
-stories

Technology;
-MAC
-Canon SLR-like w/1 hr video footage
-LaCie backup hard drive
-flashdrive 4GB
-Final Cut
-projector