Planet New Media: The Final Project Video

Planet New Media: The Final Project

More than any other project this semester, our "Planet New Media" final product hides all the hard work and critical thought that went into it. And that makes me overjoyed.

By hard work and critical thought, I mean starting with Lev Manovich's "New Media" -- a book as dense as it is brilliant -- and trying not only to decipher just what he means, but also how we can visually represent the theory with the limited tools we've been trained to use this semester.

I think that was the hardest part of the project. Proof lies in the messy brainstorming sheets we produced. The difficulty reinforced the gap between theory and practice. There's the old saying: "Do as I say, not as I do." The point is it's very easy to say something intelligent and enlightened. Turning an idea into a productive visual output is a whole new ball game -- literally. Preaching versus practice is the difference between telling someone how to play baseball and actually playing the game. The two are alike only in premise. But nothing can compare with being brushed off with a 95 mph fastball, or the meaty thwack of connecting for scorching home run.

Thus, back to my original uber-satisfaction of our final product: it emphasizes the "practice," the "do" over the "say." We show rather than tell. And we use photoshop, video editing, and audio not because we want to make the ultimate project or show that we can blend different presentation techniques, but because we had to use all of the styles to make the project. I mean that honestly. And this interdisciplinary approach had a two-way-street effect. That is, the different mediums of representation allowed for a cohesion that helped us tie together the four main parts of our slideshow/video. But the cohesive story that this interdisciplinary approach furthered rebounded to help blend the the different representation techniques. What I mean is that the use of audio to narrate the photoshopped images seemed not only natural, but the only way to tell the story and by far the best way to represent new media.

The practice vs. preaching contrast was no the only binary that energized our project. Our presentation spawned from a fundamental contradiction: the decision to juxtapose the atom with the pixel. We rename planet earth as planet new media to point out that while physical earth is made of atoms, our digital earth is made of pixels. I found this contrast convincing and fascinating. The pixel really does create whole new worlds we inhabit. Look at online gaming communities. I wanted the video to focus on Manovich's principle of customization through the pixel.

This discussion of the pixel bled over into our very method of showcasing the project. Beneath all the pretentious philosophy and half-sensible connections to the nineteenth, Manovich writes that New Media is highly customizable and, because of this, can reach everyone in unique ways. It provides reams and reams of freedom for everyone. So why not practice what he preaches, I reasoned? Why not put his theory to use not only in the substance, but in our modes of representation? I think, more than any other project I've done, the connection between the rhetoric and the representation is most seamless. It's strange, but the theory is so homogenously integrated into our presentation that it doesn't get in the way.

Which was awesome, by the way.

Getting there was a million directions and redirections. We had lots of ideas that got canned, usually for being too ambitious for our tech skill and materials. But I'm extremely happy with the powerful symbolic compression of our video. We did Manovich justice while managing to eliminate his stuffiness.

Chalk one up for the good guys.

Gendering Babies

On the way to Yellowstone, we had a 3 hour layover in Minnesota. This time gave me a chance to talk to Dr. Peter Yau, a renowned scientist who has two PhDs and who was coming on our CHP:395 Biocomplexity trip to work with Professor Fouke.

Eventually, the conversation turned to fluorescent in situ hybridization, or FISH. I'm not sure how A led to B to cause C, but apparently, this technique is critical to gendering babies. Dr. Yau told me a story about a Columbia MD who came to work with him for a year. When the year was up, the MD told Yau why he wanted to study FISH with him. The reason: to gender babies.

Dr. Yau was angry. One of his discoveries had been used for what many deem an ethically unsound reason.

The story amazed, shocked, frightened me. For one, science fiction seemed to suddenly diminish the fiction aspect. But, Manovich's New Media prime on the mind, what truly struck me was how science could treat an embryo like a pixel. One of Manovich's key principles is how using the pixel as the smallest discrete unit allows digital media to be easily manipulated. In fact, that's what we've been doing all semester.

Has science taken this pixel idea too far when the same variability power is imposed on embryos? Are we playing God? And if so, why not? Who should say whether or not FISH can be used to gender babies?

Then I read this article on nytimes.com about kids getting tested for what athletic genes they have.

I go back to the Spiderman line: "With great power comes great responsibility." Because a fundamental tenant of science is that it is reproducable, any discovery is everyone's discovery. And I'm not sure every scientific hand is enlightened.

The End of Storytelling?

MIT's new Storytelling labette is predicting that storytelling in the 21st century is about to change. In a New York Times article I found here, the ability to tell a "meaningful" story is being challenged by consumer technology, such as text messages. Original storytelling is even more threatened, as the constant connection we all value to our outside world doesn't know when to stop interjecting.

How many times have you or someone you've known checked their cellphone during a movie? Interruptions from the outside world prevent us from immersing ourselves in a story. But even without interruptions, we're so used to the bombardment of phones, texts, emails, etc. that perhaps we can't sit and read a book for long, or sit and watch a movie for two hours. Is it as simple as boredom.

Old stories don't work in our new wired society. Or so the argument goes. Luckily, there are plenty of opposing perspectives and statistics.

The purpose of the lab: "Starting in 2010, a handful of faculty members — “principal investigators,” the university calls them — will join graduate students, undergraduate interns and visitors from the film and book worlds in examining, among other things, how virtual actors and “morphable” projectors (which instantly change the appearance of physical scenes) might affect a storytelling process that has already been considerably democratized by digital delivery."

I tend to believe that people hunger for stories, from gossip at a bar to novels to movies to the sports page. We can't live without them. If they're going to change form, then I'm along for the ride.

Final Project Proposal

For our project, we are focusing on New Media in cinema. We have decided to compile Lev Manovich’s most provocative points and visually depict these points in a film segment that mixes digital film, old movie clips we find in “the vault,” audio voiceovers, and still images. New Media, as Manovich defines it, is not confined to the use of computers or digital technology, which involves reverse engineering as a means to break down the whole (which was a staple of Old Media) to instead construct images, digital video, websites, etc. from the most basic building blocks (namely, pixels and computer programming code). New media has five main components: numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability, and cultural transcoding.

First, to show the idea of New Media’s micro to macro construction, we plan to start our video project with a close-up on a single pixel and gradually zoom out to show the entire earth. Complete with sound effects, of course. This introduction will illustrate the point that the pixel has become the starting point and most basic building block for New Media.
Next, continuing this “construction” theme, we plan to highlight the evolution of closed interactivity to open interactivity. New Media’s closed interactivity representation of reality uses binary. We will incorporate real images, such as a real tree, alongside binary equivalents, such as a binary tree, to illustrate the naturalization of closed interactivity. Transitioning to open interactivity, we plan to juxtapose a CGI image of a forest versus computer code. The will also help demonstrate the modularity aspect of New Media including fractal structures and that New Media lives on every scale, from the small (the individual tree) to the big (the forest).
Also, we would like to show the process as it applies to film and cinema, as this is our main focus. Through this we will show finished products alongside the actual process and true reality that goes into making these products. This will include showing how green screen is used to make complex images and backgrounds that would otherwise be impossible (or at least extremely hard) to show or represent in true reality. As this process is applied to many films, we will use clips from these films as well as pictures and clips of how they were truly shot to show the development of the finished product versus the true reality of what occurred. The automation aspect of New Media can be represented by this green screen versus finished product juxtaposition as it shows how human involvement in film (such as set design) has been (to some extent) replaced with computer programming of images.

After illustrating the live action versus production aspect of New Media, we will show the different aspects that go into making digital film. This will include live action material, paintings and drawings, image processing, compositing, as well as 2-D and 3-D computer animation. Just as we used a split screen for the live action, we will amp up the visual complexity yet again by splitting the screen multiple times for each component of digital film.
To bring in multiple forms of media and clarify what might otherwise be an eclectic compilation of images (as confusing as Blair’s WaxWeb), we have decided to use voice-over dialogue to explain just what we’re proving with these processes.

The process of our project will mainly be focused on old videos that we ourselves did not create, but rather will have to use to help illustrate our point. We will have to find effective video and images through searches and research and collect, edit, and incorporate them into our finished product. We have several films in mind: Alice in Wonderland (Manovich references this a lot to underscore the “rabbit hole” effect of New Media; we plan on muting the audio and adding our own discussion of New Media), The Matrix (to show a completely digital reality), Star Wars (the first fully digital feature-length film),and The Polar Express (Tom Hanks acting in front of a green screen for the whole time).

This will require us to use the video editing training we have received in this class to create the final product. Also, with the voice-over explanations, we will need to use the audio recording technology and equipment we have used in this class. And finally, we might even have to use our photoshop ability to manipulate digital images.

Quantum of Solace

The new James Bond might be known as a ruthless lone wolf, but he could take a hint from the sharp new hybridized performance from rocker Jack White and pop artist Alicia Keys: "Another Way to Die."

Its spunk might catch you off-guard, especially after Chris Cornell rocked Casino Royale. But that's not a bad thing. It took me two listens to get into it and appreciate how it explores a teetering middle ground between the two artists' styles. Kudos for refraining from coming out and blasting away (good in Bond films, not so hot in music). The fragments of music showcase each singer's talent and they are confident enough to throw a few pauses in and an elongated intro, too. The song is patient and explosive. Keys and White complement one another rather than compete with one another; remain true to their roots while blending lyrically in the chorus. It deftly blends all kinds of contrasts.

Not even Q could choreograph such a pitch-perfect surprise.

Michael Crichton 1942-2008

The day after Barack Obama's election rocked my world, I crashed back to reality with the shocking news that Michael Crichton had died.

It is neither hyperbolic nor rash to say that I am who I am today because of Michael Crichton. Just a week earlier, I was talking about him with one of my friends.

"Michael Crichton is the one person I want to meet before I die," I said.

Spoken too soon.

Every child is fascinated to some degree with dinosaurs, and I was no different. After reading Jurassic Park in third grade, I wrote two book-length stories entitled "Island of Extinction 1 and 2" that immersed me on an island of dinosaurs.

I've since moved on to more original writing, but this intense curiosity that reading Crichton gave me has remained. He taught me that life is best lived when one sees the world as a source of endless fascination. He taught me how to think critically, and that the smartest people aren't the know-it-alls but those who are courageous enough to admit to their own unanswered questions.

He taught me the virtue of simple writing -- a virtue so many, including me, consistently break. He was science's great translator, a friend to the majority who doesn't have access to and can't decipher the difficult language, math, and impact of modern science.

Most of all, he enchanted me with his stories. No one melted pages away like Michael Crichton. And he lived the lifestyle of his novels -- tumultuous, jumping from adventure to adventure, taking risks and throwing himself in harm's way because there might be a story in it.

I can't count the times that I've turned to Crichton not only to be sucked into a new universe, but to help sort out my own life. His essays "Happiness" and "Love Is" still give me shivers. They refresh my perspective. And they do it as only Crichton knows how: not by complicating things, but by showing the simple forces at work behind what was heretofore a mystifying enigma.

What a loss for us all.

Check out minute 44:00-45:30

Response to Glenn's Question

1. Bolter uses the term hybrid media to describe a conglomeration of different medias. How is a video game such as Gears of War or Little Big Planet an example of a hybrid media?

Gears of War is a sick game -- in both the colloquial and new-age meanings of the word. Since I've, ahem, beaten it on its hardest difficulty, ahem, I know a thing or two about different medias let me tell you LET ME TELL YOU!

The two main structural medias are gameplay and cut-scenes, which isn't very different from past video games. There's also a whole slew of different sounds based upon the weapon you wield, the spatial relations on a battlefield (where the bullets slam into -- near or far), and other things going on in the gameplay world that make it come to life. One of the noteworthy aspects is the way the chainsaw attack goes to a cutscene that splatters the screen with the instant-kill blood of the opponent unlucky enough to get cut in half.

So yes: hybrid media is HUGE to making an enjoyable gameplay experience. In fact, if we could do a regression analysis, I think we'd find a positive correlation between how hybridized the media of a game are and how that game is received by reviewers and the public.

Illini Wrestling Video

Embedded Video (YouTube)

Video Project Reflection

This project intimidated me from the get-go. I wouldn't call my initial thoughts technophobic, but I was certainly uneasy due to the control that the video project forced me to give up. Video afforded a lesser freedom than words in that I had to depend on other people and things – my partner Seth, the wrestling team, a camera with technological limitations, cables that had to connect x to y to achieve z. I knew this was good for my overly self-reliant lifestyle. When you're running 20 miles by yourself or writing a novel by your lonesome, you become self-reliant. So good for me or not, I wasn't happy about doing this project. It was good for me like brusselsprouts are good for me.

Now: I am not a complete alien to video. I've made my share of movies for school – often as writer, director, producer, soundtrack artist, actor, and motivator of the lazy-bum-partner I'm stuck with (not Seth; Seth was a great partner and an anomaly to the previous statement). In any case, videos are hard work – again because there's more components that go into a finished product than the key-clicks of simply writing an essay, and those extra components have to be scheduled. With scheduling, there's this whole new arena of practicality that I have to manage. I anticipated/dreaded that, so I asked my athletic friends who plays men's tennis for the Illini just in case Seth's wrestling friend, Vince, fell through. I also had my dad bring down the video software I was familiar with (Pinnacle) to simplify editing…only to find that my dad couldn't find it chez moi.

But I had never had quite so strict an assignment of following someone/something I knew little about. Coupled with a medium of storytelling that I already found constricting, this rigid assignment doubled the intimidation factor. Through writing, I can be a snoopy PI. I'll chat up a storm and ask penetrating questions as a good reporter does to get the inside scoop. I am confident in my ability to write in a way that fairly encapsulates the interview.

But having to stick a camera in someone's face and tell them to spill the beans makes me uncomfortable. The video camera is a star-maker in our Hollywoodized culture. People still agonize over and worship the talking heads on the tube – a fascination that I think has propelled YouTube to such heights. So when I shove a camera at them and say SPEAKETH, I feel like I'm looking at them as if they are naked as I both honor them and also make them show-people whose mugs will be on display before foreign eyes.

Of course the film interviews weren't as bad as I'd imagined them to be. I had a good time getting an exclusive preseason look at the wrestling team even though I was too timid to thrust the camera into their huddles. Seth and I made good use of the zoom function so we could snipe off camera shots from afar. Luckily, the wrestlers didn't seem to give us much attention. And the coach was very accommodating, very friendly. Didn't expect that.

Regarding editing, I knew from past video experiences that the editing process is best when it's a ruthless chopping block. Short, interspersed clips allow the filmmaker to weave together a multi-perspective narrative with multiple storylines that reinforce one another. We elected to highlight a chronological progression of active practice with the commentary of interviews.

Ultimately, if clips are roughly sentences, I wanted short simple sentences in a messy cohesion that is honest to our ability as filmmakers as well as the back-and-forth intensity of wrestling.

One note on the lack of music: let me just go down on the record that I was tempted. Music is an easy way to add a degree of professional cohesion to the film, and though I wish I could say that the lack of jams is for a reason more enlightened than we both forgot our tunes…well, it turned out for the best. Music is a "quick fix" to fill in the gaps. But when not originally recorded (a la John Williams) all it does is reflect the taste of the filmers by draping a false skin over the gym environment that lends itself to a distorted interpretation of the project. Music would enforce a certain tone and divert focus from the actual visuals and echo-quality of the gym.

Plus, we wanted viewers to hear the bodies hitting the ground during parts of the interviews.

So do I still fear video? Yes. I sold cameras and camcorders for a year at Best Buy so I know how easy it is to make a lousy video. I maintain that clamoring upwards for quality in video is arduous and frustrating, especially when we have the professional standard of professionally produced media in our heads (or even really clever YouTube vids). But I am growing more comfortable being that pushy film-guy, though I doubt I'll ever jump at the opportunity to invade private space with a spy camera. Writing with video is rewarding. Watching the final product for the first time was like opening a Christmas present: you never know what you're going to get. I'm satisfied -- not thrilled, but happy -- with what we produced. Having a good partner made things easier, although my level unease was highest for this project. But hey, as they say in wrestling holds true for video: no pain, no game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3enYkESuDk

Bolter Questions

1. Think of several concerts that you've seen. Did they use other forms of media in addition to music? How did the music/performance integrate with the visible presentation? How close did the concerts get to achieving hypermediacy, and what was preventing them from more fully creating direct experience?

2. Even for a 1990s theorist, Frederic Jameson says some pretty extreme things. For one, he writes that, "In fact, television, film, and now computer graphics threaten to remediate verbal text both in print and on the computer screen-indeed, to remediate text so aggressively that it may lose much of its historical significance" (Bolter, 57). This remark was published in the early 1990s. We've now seen the "future" of his prediction. So with the 20/20 perspective of hindsight, to what extent has Jameson's prediction come true? Where has it been proven true; where false?

3. Are you a cyberenthusiast or a technophobic, and why? If you're not sure, start with this question: If technology is quintessential to progress, what is the dark side to such progress?

Response to Ashali's Question

3. Could one argue that most texts now all over the world have a definite author as a result of the Western world's influence?

Major authors are celebrities. Stephen King, JK Rowling, Michael Crichton, John Grisham...their books get translated into so many languages and displayed at the forefront of bookstores around the world that the influence of "singular author as God" is all over.

Here's some trivia to illustrate the point:

I remember reading in either Time or Newsweek the following graph: what author has had his/her work translated into the most languages?

If you said Shakespeare, you're wrong. Not JK Rowling (she's not top 50) and not Stephen King.

It's Agatha Christie, with some 6,000 languages (if I remember correctly). Twice as many as Shakespeare.

In either case, the vast majority of the writers are Western writers with household names. The people behind these texts become godlike, and in our monotheistic Western culture, it's no wonder that they are worshipped. Extending their names across the world cannot help but iterpellate non-Western cultures into the same one-author, one-God, one-text consciousness.

All Dressed Up and No Place to Go

Look at that poster.
Look at it again.
Now, gut reaction -- is it eye-catching?
How about this: is it eye-catching enough to make you read it?
And finally: After reading it, would you consider attending the event?

I thought so, too. I'd been working for months to bring two of my favorite crime writers, Chicago-based Marcus Sakey and Sean Chercover, to come to U of I. I was thrilled to meet them, and figured I'm a normal enough college student with normal enough interests to be an accurate gauge of what other college students liked.

No, they might not have read these guys' books, but what better way to start than to meet the makers themselves?

Well, ten people showed up. Total. Including my brother and I, who had organized the event. I broke into cold embarrassed sweat as I smiled and "addressed the elephant" -- or lack of one -- in the room. Piles of books sat near us as we began to talk with the writers.

The conversation was incredible. We talked for two hours about everything -- college majors to why English courses worship boring books to writing quirks; everything -- but I was still in shock that no one showed up.

I emailed some of my writer friends. College students are f'ing stupid, one of them said. You made lemonade out of lemons, my mom said. Plus, a confounding variable was the time: smack dab in the middle of the day of the day of the week in the middle of mid-term week.

But goodness, the English Building was across the street from the venue of the event. Couldn't someone stop by? One professor? One creative writing student?

Okay: I'll tie a bow on the rant and troubleshoot my own actions.

I think my error in advertising this event was not the lack of the event's visibility on campus, but the lack of a human connection in personalizing an invitation. The poster was cool. I advertised it to a bunch of groups that dug this stuff -- Campus Honors Program, English and Creative Writing students, etc. But people who saw the poster didn't come because even a flashy visual is not enough to bridge the gap between interest and action, between thought and response. We think of lots of things we don't act on. The world our minds inhabits has freer range than the physical world we inhabit, which is constrained by things like transportation, weather, time, and health. I'm sure many people were interested in going, but interest does not equal action. And a poster was not enough to bridge this gap.

Just like special effects in movies: they're not memorable if there's no reason for them other than to look pretty. Likewise, in our class, we're learning glitzy ways to present information. But we can have all the cool fade-ins and fade-outs, explosions and alakazams that we want...but if there is no human element behind the presentation of information, then it's a forgettable display of fireworks...most of them duds.

Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford "Intertexts" questions

1. Discuss how the mantra "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" permeates so many of the example quotations in "Intertexts." Choose one of your favorite quotes and see how the mantra applies.

2. Are there any modes of work, arenas of employment, or fields of study that are more suitable to individual work? Why? What might happen if the identified field were done more collaboratively. If you can't think of one, do you think it's even possible to have a completely isolated, 100% individualist, purely self-run project?

3. Why do you think the authors decided to structure this publication as a series of quotes rather than a traditional essay?

Response to Ashali's Question

1. Do you think the opening scene of a movie with using a metaphor is or is one of the most powerful ways to set the tone for the rest of the movie/documentary/program?

An opening scene is crucial to get right because it sets the tone for the rest of the movie, but also allows for the most freedom of content and film making because there is nothing that comes before it (unlike in a conclusion) to hold it accountable to depicting certain themes, tying certain loose ends, or portraying a nice denouement.

Let's consider a type of film that does opening scenes right: 007 films. In Bond films, the opening scene is all about high-adrenaline action. The story hasn't even started yet, and it seems the filmmakers want to have fun concocting the most outrageous and awesome action sequences before story constrains them. While I'm sure there are metaphors that link the opening to the rest of the film, a metaphorical depiction is not the purpose of the 007 openings.

Now, consider the film W. that does open with a metaphor that is returned to throughout the movie. We see W. in a baseball field going back to catch a fly ball. The metaphor acts as a unifying agent throughout the movie, as it ends with a similar situation. It works, kind of. Personally, I prefer a high-octane intro that gets me on the edge of my seat rather than some metaphor that, at least at the get-go, leads to nowhere.

Hampe Questions

1. Stephen King once wrote: "To write is human, to edit is divine." How might this belief hold true for documentary-making? How might it apply differently for documentary films rather than novels?

2. Hampe says to "recognize that some ideas just aren't visual ideas" (54). What is a visual idea? What are components most good visual ideas share?

3. Hampe writes, "It takes time, training, and experience to look at your own work and see it for what it is" (57). What argument about intent and evidence does this quote relate to? Why is there a tendency to read evidence into film based upon intent, and how can we combat this intent?

Handball and Hampe

I had a cool new experience last week interviewing on TV, which you can watch here. Go to Episode 5. Handball footage starts around 2 minutes 30 seconds, then starts again around 10:40.

My brother and I cofounded the Illini Handball Club, and serendipity just so had it that one of our members is a TV producer.

Now handball is a fantastic sport. I grew up playing sports and handball is the best. It's the most technical, the most physically demanding, the most fun.

The problem is, handball is not the most exciting game to watch. In fact, there's a near-unnavigable chasm separating the enjoyment one gets playing handball versus the snooze-fest one enjoys watching it. I imagined it would be even worse to capture it on camera -- yet another mediator diluting the joy of actually being in the court and smacking the ball.

And I was right. The footage of us actually "in action" and playing the game is spotty. The girls filming were getting bored so they let the camera wiggle.

As Hampe writes in Visual Evidence, "It is the actual scene as it's recorded on film or videotape that has to provide the visual evidence for the audience of what occurred while you were there" (p. 53) And that's it. The film of choppy footage of a seemingly mildly enjoyable game is all we have to convince people to come to Handball Club. You can barely see the ball in the video. Maybe my interview made up for the gap between playing, watching, and watching on video. But I was pretty nervous...

But I swear it's a great game. I do! I do!

Marathon Talking Script

I followed this script tightly in some places, loosely in others in order to make it more "talky." Only some of the sound effects are noted.


BANG

A sea of thirty-three thousand push towards the start, a surreal mass of lean butts, bunchy calves, and nervous chatter. To our left looms the Chicago skyline. We inch towards the start line, and it is here I realize that this run…well, it's going to be different. Now, I didn't cry when Bambi's mom died. But right now there's tears burning my eyes. I can't stop grinning. And as our chips bleep activation as we cross the start, a crazy, wild thought slips through my head: I think: Man, this is so cool that 26.2 might not be enough.

Boy was I wrong.

Mile 1: We gallop into the tunnel. I'm weaving in and out of runners (Excuse me, pardon me) – lateral movements that will only increase the already daunting distance. (Mile 2) But I can't slow down. It's magic: the runners' whoops and yells creating a distortion that knots us all together. (Mile 3) The flushed crowd pressed against the sides of the course.

Cow bells chime. Posters flap in the wind. (Mile 4) "Go runners!"
I see a man in an Illinois shirt. "I-L-L" I yell. (Mile 5)
"Free Beer, Free Beer." Four young men are handing out Natty Light. (Mile 6)
We pass bands – "Ain't nothin' but a hound dog" (Mile 7, Mile 8, Mile 9)
Cheerleaders – "2-4-6-8 Who do we appreciate! Runners, runners, goooooooo runners!"

Mile 10 (Mile 10): Chicago-strong. The city of my birth, of Byron's hot dogs, (Mile 11) my Navy Pier prom, of Cubby blue (Mile 12) and fat cat crime. This…this is finally really it. (Mile 13)

And then I hit halfway. The surreal cloud nine that carried me here goes out with a (Poof) and now there's only this searing sun of late morning. My legs ache. (Mile 14, Mile 15, Mile 16) "Go Eric!" My mom and dad. Gulp back the pain, run over, give my dad a high five.

(Mile 17) From the loudspeaker: "We have now elevated the alert level from yellow to Red." Red is one level below black, which means race cancellation.
(Mile 18) I yell at myself: "Come on you will-less, pathetic noodle. Tenacity!"

(Mile 19) My endurance is gone. I've got nothing left for these seven miles.

(Mile 20) : I take a mental snapshot of myself. There's the hot puddle my right foot keeps squishing in. (Mile 21) Probably blood. There's the spasms that freeze my whole leg at once. Can't bend my knee. I have to stop and stretch it out. (Mile 22) But it keeps coming back. It's then that I realize that a Marathon is little more than four months dieting on bite-sized pieces of self-inflicted pain (Mile 23) to prepare yourself for a big wallop of hurt that hits you with a sledgehammer. (Mile 24)

Screw Chicago. Screw it. Screw it all. The pain, the heat, the puddle of blood in my right shoe. Just let me stop. Just let me rest. (Mile 25) I have nothing left. I am slowing down. People I've passed are passing me. Old people, overweight people, nails in my pride. I am too exhausted to do anything about it.

(Mile 26) The finish line. A corral of screaming people. I kick, pump, eyes burning towards the end and kill the Joker who tacked on that last .2

I realize how, dreamless, helpless, how simple my life is. The pain has whittled away my dreams. I haven't been this happy in years.

Marathon Audio Reflection

Before the fatigue castrated all other thoughts from my head, I kept thinking about the blend of high-energy sounds from runners and crowd not only electrified the Chicago Marathon but would also make for a fun audio project.

The challenge was, of course, recreating as best I could in a woefully small time frame the skyscrapers and deep trenches of emotional tumult that I went through running. I also wanted to recreate key sounds of the race, especially those that somehow linked to the emotion of it. Because the collective emotion is really what makes running 26.2 miles special and horrible. I decided to roughly use a 60 to 1 scale. For every minute running the real marathon, a single second of audio would play.

But this scale did little to infuse the emotion of the race. So one crucial strategy that helped me negotiate the contrast of size as well as emotional infusion was following a blueprint of tempo. When running, the pace you're going correlates with your emotional superstructure. So I figured by talking fast during the beginning, I could capture the excitement that strapped a rocket to my back and made the first half of the marathon a joyous flight. During the first half, I was acutely aware of the cheering crowd, the sounds they made and the things they did. After training primarily alone on Los Angeles beaches and in Champaign cornfields, having a crowd to cheer me on was energizing.

I also decided to record two separate tracks: one of me speaking with vocal inflections that match the emotional state, the other a more monotone mile marker that counts from one to 26. That way, the tracks would grate against each other. Sometimes, the mile marker interjects mid sentence, which I though was an accurate representation of the way the miles bleed into the runner's reasoning in a way that both structures and unravels thought – structures, because at each marker I knew I was one closer to the end; unravels, because there are so many markers that they seem infinite and you have no beginning and this race will never end and all your world is a gutting-out of pain so as to avoid embarrassment and cash out on all the training. While running, I welcomed and despised each mile marker. It was like: "Yes, I'm finally half-way! But dammit, I'm only halfway and I want to quit now!"

But by 13.1 miles, halfway, the race changed as if night and day. I no longer cared about the crowd, so I took its screams and hoots out without fade. I began to realize my various aches that got worse and worse. I breathed harder and harder, thus the breathing soundtrack (that I got lightheaded making). I began to beat myself up in order to force myself to keep going. I focused on my own world, no longer mesmerized by running in the Chicago loop. I don't think I even heard my footsteps. Just my pulse thudding in my head and the indescribable fatigue. In this case, less was more, especially when the second half's "bare bones" presentation is done in light of the first half's pizazz.

A psychoanalyst or dirty-minded college kid might find the intensifying breathing around mile 26 a bit orgastic. I thought about dialing it down, but found the sexual innuendo a fitting twist on traditional emotions associated with physical excess. After all, the flood of endorphins that swarm your brain is the highest high; the aches and pains are the lowest low. Marathon running is a blending of binary oppositions. One that twists your mind and guts your will for a long, long time.

The Marathon is the hardest thing I've ever done, but that statement does little to recreate just what I felt when. This project, with all the bells and whistles of sound editing, helped me recreate the awful prospect of being absolutely physically taxed yet still having a gut-wrenching distance to run. Despite the challenge, when sitting here and writing about it or creating an audio presentation, I still can't completely remember just what it felt like. Memory does a disservice by recalling only the parts of the race I emphasized in the audio, and not those long gaps when I was just a slow moving figure of bright and glorious agony. It can't recreate just how long the race was. A good thing, yes, but also a dangerous one.

Because now that I can walk again. I can't wait to do another one. If only to find out how to more accurately recreate the race in a space far too small.

Chicago Marathon 2008 Sound Project

Chicago Marathon 2008

Response to Glenn's Question

2. Why is it that reality t.v. is scene as truth even thought it all could very well be scripted or planned? Does the fact it is live change the situation and add that element of reality or is it something more?

Ah, so the gig is up on reality tv. You mean to say it's not all unscripted? Honestly, I don't think reality TV is seen as truth, but as a simulation of "Worst Case Scenarios" and dramatized incidents of otherwise mundane occurrences that are consistent in the environment of reality TV. It's not that our own lives are too boring to simply be filmed a la Truman Show, but that the creation of "reality" at least so that it is consistent with the hyperbolized drama of related events needs to be molded to our expectations: some sort of story line, resolutions to problems, all fitting within the commercial breaks.

Hampe Questions

1. What is more effective: a spontaneous interview or one in which the interviewee gets to prep some responses from a list of questions? How does the latter method either enhance or constrain the dialogue of the interview?

2. If you could interview one person, who would it be? What would you ask him/her? What strategies would you use to prepare for and conduct the interview?

3. Recall a very good interview that you watched/read. What made it so good? Now recall a bad one. What made it so bad?

Response to Glenn's Question

1. Have you ever had to do a project that included sound, such as a movie or song. If so, were you conscious of the sound being used or was it simply that it was there?

For an English class, twice. I've made two movies. It's amazing how much more involved students get when there is the movie or song project. I remember devoting my entire weekend to making the movie, "Transcendentalist Hunter," and being thrilled rather than pissed off, which I would be if I spent all weekend writing a paper.

Sound was probably the most fun part. From the gunshots, to the slow motion sloggy sounds, to the soundracks, adding sound was an integral component that really made the project feel alive. For the second movie I made, I actually wrote my own soundtrack, recorded it, and exported it into the movie. Not often you see someone get writing, directing, acting, editing, and Music By credits. Ahem. Yeah, but I did. And it was glorious. Now where's my seven figure contract and bottle of spring water?

Literariness in Videogames

This New York Times article on "The Future of Reading" is pure INFO 390 in 10 years. It discusses how videogames not only are a gateway drug into reading, but how print is merging with videogames to create environments as complex as those created by literary megaliths, with benefits: games are interactive, you can fail at games, and you can control the story.

Reading isn't dead. It's just changing forms, slowly but surely.

Sound-storm

Speaking of sounds.

This summer I was in Comalapa, Guatemala doing some voluntourism. When I wasn't busy noticing the rampant third-world poverty or choking back vomit during hairpin turns over mountain roads, one of the greatest differences was the immersion in a whole new environment of sounds.

Night sounds, in particular, were the scariest. You wouldn't believe how blood-curdlingly loud a rooster is at 5 a.m. Fireworks exploded at all hours of the night; Comalapans were always celebrating something. Then there were market days, where rows of tiendas lined the streets and vendors shouted out at we white -- and thus obviously rich -- tourists wandering about.

Sounds were integral to sustaining the difference of the environment. Sounds notched up the intensity of the foreign-factor. Sounds were constant reminders that we were far away from the shady boulevards back home, quiet at all hours.

Shipka Questions

1. Shipka writes: "A potential difficulty is encountered, however, as many of the “wide and alertly chosen materials” students may draw upon while composing multimodal texts are often equated with playing, or with artist- or childlike expressions of feelings and emotions—this as opposed to the communication of scholarly, rigorous arguments or ideas, something more often associated with the production of linear, print-based texts" (p. 2). What does she mean? What are the differences between the materials conducive to "childlike play" and those conducive to "scholarly, rigorous arguments or ideas"? Is one method of representation better than the other?

2. By arguing in favor of "activity-based multimodal courses," Shipka reacts against the traditional "five-paragraph essay." What points does she make in favor of activity-based multimodal courses? Do you agree or disagree, and to what extent? Argue for or against the form of thinking the five-paragraph paper prescribes in relation to her more amorphous lessons.

3. You're the teacher. Who gets the higher grade: Dan or Val? Why?

Response to Seth's Question

1. Early in the semester a you tube video was posted of a fake trailer to the Shining with happy music and a different storyline voice over to it. Why do you think we associate certain music and background sounds with happiness and others with horror and suspense? What would our opinions of horror films like the Shining be if they did not contain the suspenseful music?

That, my friend, is one of the great mysteries of music. I think much of our reactions to certain chord progressions, harmonics and melodies are culturally created. That means that the Shining music spooks us because we've our ears have been processing sounds our whole lives and have learned to associate emotional, tonal, and mood reactions to certain types of music/sound, so we know we're supposed to be scared when we hear Shining music.

But it is fascinating how some vibes of music and sound are pleasing, others cacophonous, others create drear, others inspire happiness. From a biological standpoint, I would expect that certain sounds stimulate different areas of our brain and, based upon that, create a mood. A simple mystery of life, I suppose, and one that, if lacking, would strip our world of its wonder.

McKee Response Questions

1. McKee opens her essay by recognizing all the ambiance noises that we seldom take note of. Stop now and listen. Type out what you hear. How do these sounds shape what you write (other than being the answer to the question, you card you)?

2. Name several examples of your lifestyle that hinge upon sound to imbue them with meaning. What is the nature of these sounds? How does it fit in the context of the related "event"? What meaning do these sounds achieve? How would changing the sounds distort or change meaning?

3. McKee cites a pretty jarring quote: In 1762, Thomas Sheridan (1968) pronounced in A Course of Lectures on Elocution that “some of our greatest men have been trying to do that with the pen, which can only be performed by the tongue; to produce effects by the dead letter, which can never be produced but by the living
voice, with its accompaniments” (p. xii). What does Sheridan mean? Can you think of any examples that prove his point or disprove his point? What benefits does an aural delivery claim over "silent" text?

Splotches: Photoshop Project Creating a Visual Poem

Splotches

By: Eric Anderson

Townhouses gnash together

like shrapnel-studded teeth—

cloned assemblages of

bleached sentinels that jut

crookedly from the old dust.

They guard the rusted railroad

tracks on which,

lifetimes ago, I almost killed myself

during a game of chicken.

My limp resolve drags

me to this muzzle flash

In the mud of my memory.

The dust is gone but

the haze remains.

The old ice-cream shop’s

ripped booths have evolved

into glaring brass tables,

so children can sip

milkshakes in a bullet shell.

Condos have sprouted

from the ragball field

like pale weeds.

Here, my Bronze Star is

nothing

but a penny

flattened on the tracks.

The witch grass and

alfalfa that tickled our

hairless calves—

withered.

The sweet sweat glistening

on our budding stubble,

burning our blind eyes—

frozen.

When we had sufficiently

smeared the queer,

we brought out our sling-shots,

sipped coca-colas,

and blew smoke rings

beneath the lone eucalypt

in the world of dust.

We waited for the fireflies

to crawl out

from the witch grass

and illuminate splotches of night.

I remember catching

lightning bugs in

strawberry jam jars,

watching their silly bug brains

crash into the glass

walls of their death chamber.

We drew straws for the right

to empty their beady bodies

on the oily parking lot.

It was a thrilling honor to squish

them into the black concrete,

as the neighborhood boys crowded

around the fading streak

of iridescent yellow

smearing the earth.

The shiny medals pinned

on my chest reflect the streetlights’

bright white blaze bombarding the dusk.

Each blinding bulb spreads

the light of the world

across the dark face

of the earth.

With so much light

it is hard to see.

But eventually,

I place my jar on the rusty

railroad track,

then walk away

with a yellowy splotch

on the toe of my boot.

I wrote "Splotches" my freshman year. Unlike other old poems that cause me to cringe upon rereading, I still like this one. It's about a soldier returning to his hometown to rescue his younger self. He relishes the boyhood, those days secured in the innocence of jaded memory when spreading the light of the world on a sweaty summer evening was as simple as smearing lightning bugs. Now, the poem implies, he has returned from some battle where the violence of his mission -- just like the violence of smearing lightning bugs on the ground for some temporary pleasure -- has destroyed his direction. And now the images of warfare and boyhood inhabit the same environment. He has gone across the world to fight some war, for some "illuminating" cause, only to find that the lantern of civilization that he wields is only burning people -- including himself.

I was hesitant to use my own writing as a springboard into the visual realm. Just as, while editing, we overlook certain flaws or errors because we see what should be there rather than what is there, so too did I fear that my proximity to both creations would cause me to read clarity into the image. What is readily apparent to the creator is often baffling to the viewer. Sure, sometimes the very piece of art or poem or image that causes us to scratch our heads also causes us to grin in awe. But as brevity is the soul of wit, so too do I believe that clarity is a higher virtue than muddled complexity. We as humans seek to understand. As a general rule of thumb, I find it more courageous to represent a complex thing simply than a simple thing with complexity. Doing the latter will make you a genius sometimes and a pompous asshole often. And I, with five frustrated hours of photoshop fiddling notched into my belt, had rookie-blues lined up against me. Kind of like kissing a girl. Go in all the way if your name isn't Pitt and you're a psychotic-creepazoid. Remain completely aloof and you're headed for Lonesomeville, Population: You.

Mostly, however, I was curious to see how closely the visual related to the written word. How closely could I sew together the written poem and the visual poem without doing a disservice to or, worse, suffocating one or the other? I erected another barrier to prevent cross-pollination of meanings and representation (an event that, should I allow it to happen, would surely father some ugly ducklings): I decided to use my poem as inspiration for the image rather than a strict map of the visual. Regurgitating the words of the poem into an image promised to be uncreative, difficult, imprecise, and ultimately stale. A visual poem and a traditional poem should synergize, combine like gunpowder and sparks to burst with meaning, not bash the viewer/reader over the head with monotony.

So I decided to make the photoshop image the literary equivalent of what movies call "based on a true story." The poem served as an impetus to bottle some lightning from brainstorming sessions. It is not a strict visual representation of the poem because striving for such would betray the project instructions, the visual poem, the traditional poem and an achy-breaky heart. Plus, I wanted the image to stand alone, without needing the crutch of "Splotches" to give whatever meaning it may, if any. I'll toss that 12 oz. topic of debate into the hyena's den of literary criticism.

Ultimately, I felt thrust into gray area, that Somewhere Out There where I tried to hobnob a playpen for the two forms of representation that both attract and repel each other as if they encompassed both the positive and negative charges of a magnet. But just as kids can only play nicely in the sandbox for sometime before it becomes Sand Wars, so too were my creations biting and fighting. Didn't help that I hit myself with my hammer (i.e. photoshop) as much as I used it to constrain them.

Photoshop did have some nice features that allowed me to clarify the visual poem's message. One challenge I anticipated was that of getting inside the soldier's head. How the hell can I represent "thoughts" or "memories" -- such a huge staple of the traditional poem and the message I wanted to convey -- when my only tools were tangible, visible? This turned out not to be a challenge at all. The "ghostly" representation of all figures except the soldier allows the viewer to realize that the objects are not "physically" there. The viewer can logically assume that they are memories, ghosts, celestial bodies, or high-tech camouflage. I hope the overall vibe of the visual poem and the good taste of the viewer leads him/her to the "memory" reading. Ghost tanks in the middle of nowhere? Interesting, but implausible.

The head the soldier is holding might be confusing. But the lack of blood, the vitality and youthfulness of the visage, and the ghostly appearance should clearly clue the viewer to a variety of interesting and fairly accurate interpretations. I intended to illustrate that the soldier went back to find his youth, and there it is in the form of his boyhood head. The violence of the image is fitting. Trying to bridge back to memories and liberate a version of self long gone is a dire task, one that only drastic measures would force to endeavor.

At times this project frustrated me, worried me, angered me both in an aesthetic and technical sense. But I came to an important conclusion. Clarity, I realized, is not about portraying a unilaterally and universally accepted message. Nor is it about simplifying something to such a degree that any dimwit can say two sentences about it. Clarity is about providing the tools, whether through image or word, for the viewer or reader to formulate an argument or -- better yet -- a story about just what's going on. That's the fun and frustration of creation and interpretation. Because if you can't throw your two cents in and take some sort of ownership of what I the creator have made, then what's the point in looking or reading at all?

Response to Ashali's Question

3. Why would one want to design/view a stamp as a metaphor? Why is meaning needed behind sending something from one place to another?

Good question, and one that I think is harder to understand in our current communicative society, which values speed (in the form of email) over any sort of "art" or "metaphor." Snail mail is a secondary form of communication, except for boring things such as bills or political candidates searching for a vote.

A stamp is a form of advertisement. When they were designed, artists used them to glorify certain figures. Elkins uses the example of the queen.

Otherwise, I've used stamps to convey a certain tone. For example, when sending hand-written notes to professors who wrote scholarship applications for me, I put X-Men stamps on them. That's me: fun-loving, the spirit of a child, and thanking those profs for being "supernaturally" good at writing for me.

People can convey partiality to a cause, important historical figure, or nationalism through stamps. At my house we use "USA" stamps or "Liberty Bell" stamps. Figure that as long as we're sending it to someone in the US, most won't be offended or disagree with our choice of stamp.

Ultimately, it's better to convey something interesting and artsy than nothing. Stamps provide color for mail; I'm not sure we need to look too much beyond that except on a specific case-by-case basis.

Contemporary Depiction of Male/Female in Movie Posters

Berger says women in traditional European oil painting direct their glances towards the "one who considers himself her true lover -- the spectator-owner" (p.56). I was curious whether this standard holds true today. So I decided to conduct an experiment. I would look at one form of widely posted "modern oil painting," the movie poster.

My gut reaction was that movie posters would uphold this "flatter the male" standard. But I was hesitant to pronounce such a hypothesis as fact. Social standards have changed. Womens' rights movements have changed our perception of the female. And in Michael Crichton's travel memoir, Travels, he writes in a chapter titled "Them" how traditional male / female roles (a tradition established no clearer than in European oil paintings) have not only changed, but have been inverted. Males, Crichton argues, are the soft and sentimental ones. We're the ones who want flowers, want to cuddle, want foreplay consisting of conversation and "get-to-know-you" ice-breakers. Women don't, Crichton continues. Women treat men as sexual objects. Not the "centuries-old" other way around.

But, at risk of devolving into a nature/nurture debate, I think Berger touches on something fundamental to human psychology when he discusses why European oil paintings depicted women as the viewed. Something impervious to time and shifting cultural norms.


Now, here's a perfect example that runs contrary to the European oil painting model. The guy is looking at the viewer; Angelina Jolie is not. Angelina is, however, the bigger figure. She's in the foreground. Might this poster be trying to satisfy both male and female viewers? If we consider Berger's commerce-determines-what's-painted argument, I think it is clear that a dual-sex satisfaction is in order.


Hmm...same deal. The Titanic poster shows a fair representation of both sexes. Because of her open eyes, Kate acknowledges the spectator a tad more than Leo, who is immersed in his passion for her. But still, this poster is for a more egalitarian audience than the European oil paintings.


And one more. Both the guy and girl are completely captivated with one another. Never mind the audience.

Conclusion: Visual representation of the sexes certainly has changed. There are, however, compounding factors to consider. For one, movie posters are not European oil paintings, so any comparison is necesarily skewed. Movie posters are signifiers for a two-hour show. Clearly, they want to leave some mystery, otherwise, why pay a dime if the poster did it all? And posters would want to appeal to the largest possible viewership to maximize their viewing potential. So slighting a woman as the "visual apple" of a male is dangerous.

Berger and movie posters can agree on one thing: image depiction is dictated by commerce.

Unigo

This site, Unigo, is so spanking new that it's a glitchy wonderland of simple genius.

Just launched last week. But already it's changing the way high school seniors choose a school and how we perceive our own school.

Check out the New York Times article covering an absolutely fascinating article about young college grads harnessing the power of the internet to yet again change our access to information and, I would argue, our ways of seeing.

Unigo provides primary source college info -- typos and all. Once again the means of production are thrust into our hands. Let's crank the gears.

Discussion Questions for Berger

1. Berger distinguishes between the "naked" and the "nude." "Naked" is to be without clothes. "Nude" is a form of art (p. 53). Based upon these definitions and the larger discussion of the terms, are photographs in Playboy "naked" women or "nude" women? Why do you think Playboy photographs its models to achieve "nakedness" or "nudity?"

2. Berger maintains that "the nude in European oil painting is usually presented as an admirable expression of the European humanist spirit" (p. 62). He goes on to say how men conducted business beneath oil paintings of nudes to remind them of their masculinity. How have our cultural associations with nakedness changed in the digital age, where the internet thrives on pervasive palaces of pornography and advertisements follow the mantra: sex sells?

3. What separates great art from the merely mediocre? Rate the following factors on their importance in establishing great art, and offer an explanation if applicable.

- How widely produced or commdified the art is
- How malleable it is in lending itself to other form, content, spoof, tweaked reproduction
- How many people see and recognize it
- The sheer level of detail / complexity
- The originality of its content
- The originality of its idea
- The importance of the physical things it depicts
- The importance of the symbolic things it depicts
- The reputation of its creator

(Any other categories that determine "greatness")

Response to Ashali's Question

2. Why can't "realistic art" amplify the meaning of something like a simple cartoon can?

This question touches on one of McCloud's fundamental arguments. The simple answer is that we can see ourselves in a simple cartoon. He repeatedly gives the example of a circle with two dots and a line as a face. Even a face with emotion depending on how the dots are slanted and the line is positioned/curved. In fact, this image is so ingrained in our recognition that we cannot see it as anything else. I think a simple cartoon also frees up the artist to twist reality in a way that "realistic art" doe not allow. A simple cartoon thus champions symbolic descriptions through images rather than precise recreations of reality. A symbol, of course, is not sutured as closely to the signifier as reality aspires to be. So we as readers or watchers can bring the signifier (cartoonish symbol) back to the signified (what the cartoonish symbol represents or signals) by implanting our own meaning into the symbol -- a far easier task when the cartoon is simple.

McCloud and Berger Discussion Questions

McCloud:

1. How effectively do you think McCloud crafts the comic-instruction in such a way that he -- pardon the pun -- illustrates the very points that he discusses, thus meta-commenting and reinforcing the lessons his character states? What particular lessons and images work well together? Which illustrations stuck out in your mind as aptly capturing a point? Why do did image, text, lesson work so well together in these particular examples? How, ultimately, does he reconcile LANGUAGE (of comics) and SOPHISTICATION?

2. You are designing your own comic. Where on the picture plane do you think your style would end up? What corner (beauty in nature, art or ideas) do you feel most drawn to, and how would your comic reflect that value?

Berger:

3. Berger argues that "Today we see the art of the past as nobody saw it before" (16). He then argues that "the camera -- and more particularly the movie camera -- demonstrated that there was no centre" (18). Finally, Berger decribes how this decentralization influenced art, but how can it help us understand sociocultural movements, biases, wars etc. that occurred before such decentralization? How hast it influenced globalization? How has it morphed how we share information (our blogs, facebook, youtube) and how does that change the way we see ourselves?

School Shooting Stencil

People remember where they were when JFK was assassinated. Or on 9/11. When the NIU shootings happened, I remember sitting alone in a big Illini Media newsroom overlooking Green Street. Cell-phone plastered to my ear, I scribbled quotes on the back of a crinkled Potbelly's receipt with the first pen I could find: a red one.

Nick sounded stunned, but alive. As I madly noted his words, my thoughts drifted back to the nights spent jamming in his aunt's basement. He used to beat the drums so hard that the skins warped. We played at grad parties, even recorded a lousy five-song album. But college was the end of the band. I went to Champaign. He went to NIU. We left our friendship in high school.

Then the shootings happened. Suddenly, breaking through the frozen cellular network to hear his voice was the most important thing in the world. But whether that was because I regretted two years of lax communication or because I needed his perspective for the story slotted for tomorrow's paper, I wasn't sure.

The next day, the aftermath, my story's headline read, "Connected." I had quoted Nick: "You go to college to be someone, then this happens."

Since, school shootings as a phenomenon of my lifetime have wedged themselves like a chink of ice in my heart, my mind, my subconsciousness. Thus the opposing revolvers morphed into question marks that form the shape of a heart. I could go on for paragraphs about what I see in it. But that would be antithetical to my intent. In addition to a heart, the interior forms a Rorschach inkblot pattern. I've read a lot about NIU and school shootings in general. I've written a lot about it. I've thought even more about it. I've interviewed police men, clinical psychologists, students, the associate chancellor, the student body president. And I've come to the following conclusions:

1. Police responded to the NIU tragedy with poise, intensity and calmness. They deserve our thanks.

2. We at the University of Illinois are as prepared as we can be, our police as sharp as humans in uniform can be.

3. No one really understands school shootings. And there is no emotional scale, metaphor or stencil to measure the suffering victims endure.

Thus, the design as a whole symbolizes, if anything, the disconnect between assumptions and reality; between safety and peril; between the signifier and the signified.

I did decide to spray-paint it on a Booze News article as a satirical stab at dark humor. For those infrequent readers, The Booze News glorifies the parties, sex, alcoholic excess. It is one of my guilty pleasures, partially because it is a symbol of our safety and luck. We can drink the night away, earn a story or two about being idiots because all our other more primal needs -- food, clothing, shelter, education, money, safety -- are satisfied. Or so we think.

Finally, the quote "They Started It" is from Jodi Picoult's novel Nineteen Minutes. It is what the shooter says is his excuse for shooting. The shooter is the magnet of constant bullying (hyperbolized a bit in novel form, I think) and so he eventually snaps in the form of a barrage of bullets directed at those who have made his life a living hell.

It's a reminder of the power of kindness we all posses and all use, I fear, too little. Who knows. A small smile, a handshake, positive reinforcement, a hug -- that's really all that matters. Our hearts can flutter to unimagined heights on the wings of love or be shattered in an act of sudden violence. And while some things spin on the whim of randomness, the destiny of our lives is contingent on the quantity of our love. Give a little, get a little. Ying and yang. Do you see why the stencil is balanced in opposing symmetry of red and white?

Response to Seth's Question

2. How does a standardization of these variations of type and text in formal and academic papers limit the papers effective use of pathos?

I don't think pathos is the main concern of formal and academic papers. A shame, sometimes, too, because we've all fallen asleep in a book and had the splotches from the page on our foreheads when we awoke. Could've used some more pathos to keep us awake.

But as the Wysocki's article states, the purpose of formal and academic papers is to allow for focus on the content -- what the text is saying rather than how it appears. I was intrigued by that philosophy book that did include variations of type, text and design in an academic publication. That had pathos for a scholarly purpose. But I think that variations in type and text are meant simply to designate key turning points in arguments or outlines (such as headers, footnotes, bold-faced key vocabulary words) rather than establish some pathos. So in conclusion: variations in text and appearance serve a coldly organizational purpose, not flamboyantly inject pathos. Why? Maybe they worry about a distortion of meaning, a distraction from the content? Or maybe they don't want to keep readers awake.

Questions for Wysocki Article

1. Many typefaces were designed with respect to social preferences or broad cultural movements of the time (e.g. sans serif fonts functioning rationally, like a machine p. 7). What sociocultural evolutions have occurred, are beginning to occur or you predict will occur in the 21st century that might spawn a new typeface? How will that typeface reflect the whims, desires, and ambitions of the 21st century?

2. Why do you think that italicizing a word gives it emphasis? Is it simply a learned association, or does the physical appearance of italicization actually generate emphasis? Why should or shouldn't you use italics in a thriller novel? Magazine? Newspaper? Term paper?

3. The article discusses lots of bells and whistles to signify meaning. Different colors, boldface, fonts, sizes, CAPITALIZATION, etc. Obviously the usage and purpose of these modifying agents is situational, but is there a certain standard or mantra that we could follow that maximizes informational transfer in speediest, most accurate, most efficient manner? If so, what standards can we employ? Is less sometimes more, or should we always use lots and lots of "bells and whistles" to aid the reader?

Camp Out on the Quad is my fraternity's big fall philanthropy event for our national philanthropic organization: Push America. It works like this: We camp out on the quad 24/7 until we reach a benchmark funds goal. This year, that goal is $7,000. Last year we did $5,000. The Quad is prime territory as far as visual text goes, usually for advertising purposes. Walk around it once and you're almost guaranteed to find something chalked on the paths, benches or buildings. "Chalking the Quad" has become a slogan among RSOs looking to get the word out. Personally, I rarely work to decipher the scribbles of fading chalk.

So despite the heavy foot traffic and free audience, the Quad is not all milk and honey for advertising and text. For one, it's so saturated with text (chalk) that we're desensitized to ads. Plus, the Quad itself is so big that you need something big to match it. So we knew we had to go big or go home while designing this "Push America" poster. The goal is to make it big enough and lively enough so that people walking on the other side of the Quad can decipher it. Plus, the orange canopy and blue tent beg for attention. This year, we made Camp Out on the Quad shirts as well, although you don't see them in the picture because after a week of wearing the same rag, it don't smell too spunky.

But it's worked. We've drawn the attention of many students and even B. Joseph White, the president of the University. I won't tell you how much he donated, but we're still out there.

Response to Glenn's Question

2. Can you separate media styles, or does one inevitably lead to the other?

Good question. I have a two-part answer.

One: The simple answer is yes, you can separate media styles at any fixed point of time. Magazines are different from newspapers are different from TV are different from advertising billboards on the interstate simply in the way that information is presented which, in turn, decides what kind of information the certain medium will present. Now, these different "styles" can indeed share similar pools of information. A magazine, website, newspaper and TV show can all advertise for Budweiser.

Two: Despite fairly clear distinctions among media styles, I do think, as the Bolter asserts, that media styles influence each other, or, as the question states, "lead to the other." A quick example: I know that the Chicago Tribune changed its layout to appear more like a webpage with the end of attracting a young hip crowd -- we Generation Y kids -- into its readership. This convergence of media styles is a good thing in that we get more consistency in the various forms of presenting, making it easier for us to digest information. It's exciting to say the least. As internet news threatens to put newspapers out of business, I can't help looking forward to the future and wondering: what is going to be even BETTER that will, years into the future, put internet medium out of business?

9/2 Discussion Questions

1. What redeeming factors, if any, do older media -- books, art, cave paintings, even old TV shows or movies -- have that new medias, catering to our "insatiable desire" for immediacy and hypermediacy, lack?

2. If media are striving to present us with immersive experiences that mimic realities we might not be able to otherwise obtain, what effects do these "simulated realities" have on our actual lives? Essentially: Why do we thirst for immediacy in our media, and what does this suspension of reality say about our own reality?

3. What's next? Is virtual reality with 100% immersion the last best phase of media? What does 100% immersion mean, and is it even achievable? If so, what purpose would we have for reality, and how would we know whether we are in reality or living a so-called computer program? Matrix references welcome.