Lights

Response to "The Medium is the Massage"

One point Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore make is that collectively we expect "new media to do the work of the old." As a society we are always striving to create something new, but we're so set in our ways that we feel the need to relate the new back to the old. We need to go beyond this comfort zone and work to be open to new ideas.

Another idea I found interesting was "the poet, the artist, the sleuth," being anti-social can see the world for what it is. Being an artist allows people to view the world as it relates to them. Artists are not bound to view the world in a certain way; their perceptions are made up for themselves. Artists are encouraged to expose a new outlook on the world which is often more truthful than those examined by an "average" person.

The last idea that I was amused by is that the ear favors no point of view. We are surrounded by sounds. We can hear sounds from all around us, as opposed to vision which we can only see what appears in front of us. I found this to be an interesting observation I have not made before. This book plants ideas of the bizarre that most people don't tend to think about.

Response to "How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets"

Reading this article made me think about what an ugly situation the U.S. government is in. After September 11, 2001, the government just seemed to lose it and go full paranoid. The examples about Laura Poitras's life and the struggles she had at airports is astonishing. Is the government so paranoid they'd feel threatened by a documentary filmmaker? It seems so. It seems to me that the government is more inclined to protect its own prosperity rather than the of the people it's supposed to protect.

The marriage between Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras, and Glenn Greenwald is appropriate. As a government worker planning on exposing corruption, teaming up with reporters is a perfect fit. It does disturb me how the government reacted to the situation. The act of treason is revealing secrets to the enemy. By calling what these people did treason, does that make the American people the enemy of the government? A government so paranoid and corrupt that it needs to spy on the citizens they claim to protect. This is not the ideals of a democracy. This is 1984.  

Response to "The Art of Peeping"

As an introvert, I find the idea of people spying on me through my window to be incredibly unsettling. I, like most people I know, enjoy my privacy and like it to be just that, private. I go about making moments intimate through multiple strategies, closing my blinds on the window, speaking quietly during conversations I don't want to be overheard, etc. I'm not a devious or shady person; I just like my privacy and chose to internalize things.

In terms of Arne Svenson, however, I actually can appreciate this. I know how his neighbors must have felt being "spied" on like that, but his intentions weren't perverse.  He just wanted to make art. I believe that people are most themselves in the privacy of their own homes, and that is true beauty. Something about realness and ordinary nature of a situation fascinates me. People are all so very different, and I'm interested in observing these quirks. Like Michael Wolf said, though I would not be comfortable being the subject matter, I support the process and the art.

Sitting Down for 24 Hours

Wednesday September 4, 2013
I documented every time I sat down with a picture. Here are the pictures.

Surveil Yourself

September 3, 2013
12:00 AM- watching movie in bed
1:35 AM-go to sleep
7:30 AM-hit snooze
7:40 AM-turn off alarm  
7:41 AM-get up and get ready  
7:51 AM-leave room  
7:52 AM- use bathroom  
7:53 AM- go to dining hall
7:59 AM- eat breakfast
8:09 AM- leave dining hall
8:11 AM-go down Mt. Olympus stairs
8:16 AM-enter Shaffer
8:18 AM-sit down in class
8:19 AM- browse thru phone
8:22 AM- put phone away  
12:03 PM-leave class
12:09 PM-register at cage
12:20 PM-walk to Schine  
12:33 PM-get coffee and donuts  
12:42 PM-submit homework for TRM 151  
12:57 PM- leave Schine
1:05 PM- throw out coffee cup
1:07 PM-go up Mt. Olympus stairs
1:11 PM- enter Flint Hall
1:12 PM- enter room  
1:13 PM- plug in and use computer
1:39 PM- leave room
1:41 PM- leave Flint Hall
1:42 PM-go down Mt. Olympus stairs
1:47 PM- enter Shaffer
1:49 PM- enter class
4:30 PM- leave class
4:31 PM- chat  
4:38 PM- go up Mt. Olympus stairs
4:42 PM- enter Flint Hall
4:43 PM- enter room  
4:44 PM- use computer
4:56 PM- answer door for refrigerator delivery
5:00 PM- move refrigerator
5:03 PM- use computer
6:15 PM- leave room
6:16 PM- use bathroom  
6:17 PM- leave Flint Hall
6:18 PM- go down Mt. Olympus stairs
6:23 PM- enter Huntington Beard Crouse
6:24 PM- enter class
7:56 PM- leave class
8:01 PM- go up Mt. Olympus stairs
8:04 PM- enter Flint Hall
8:06 PM- enter room  
8:08 PM- put stuff in refrigerator
8:11 PM- leave room
8:13 PM- check mailbox
8:15 PM- enter room
8:16 PM- browse phone
8:28 PM- use computer
10:15 PM- watch TV show
10:37 PM- use computer  
11:49 PM- eat Oreos
11:52 PM- drink soda
11:56 PM- see if new Coraline DVD has special features (answer: no)
11:59 PM- use computer some more

Power Pictures

In-class assignment
August 29, 2013

Go out for 30 minutes. Return with four images.

The four images:

1) A "selfie."
















2) A person I think has the same amount of power as me.

Mike was in the same position in having the same assignment. In that regard we were on equal levels of power. I think this picture sums up pretty well the even distribution of said power especially considering we're doing the same thing taking a picture of each other.




3) A person I think has more power than me.

This woman stood out for me. She looked busy and angry. She demonstrated an aura of superiority and thus power. She stood up straight and fanned herself with the papers in her hand. I do not envy the person on the other side of that phone.




4) A person I think had less power than me.

I don't know who this girl is. She is probably older than me and in an average situation, would have more power than me. However, with her lying down and perhaps sleeping, there seems to be a vulnerability about her (hence why I used the word "had" in the description over the picture).