gentleridevan

Here are some random notes I jotted down yesterday during Open Video Alliance’s Wireside Chat with Lawrence Lessig. Mind you, I *was* multi-tasking!

john philip sousa
infernal machines
reaction to phonograph – demise of music
technology and policy
2002 – began to change!
technology gave back
revival of the community culture that sousa celebrated
remix culture – music, Beatles white album, JZ black album, DJ Danger Mouse, grey album, girl talk remix 230 trax in a single performance.
anime music videos
technique has nothing to do with remixing importance
it’s that the technique has been democratized
2006 – another change!
youtube
facilitating a call and response in the way culture gets made and consumed
youtube video inspired spin-off youtube video inspired spin-off youtube video … millions of viewers
this begins to be precisely what sousa romanticized
rather than gathering on the back lawn
they gather on this online platform
creating bits of culture
ALL DEPENDS ON PRINCIPALS OF FAIR USE & FAIR USE CODECS
rip : a remix manifesto- movie
lib(ertarian) julian sanchez summation
new kind of amateur culture, extraordinarily professional in what it produces
walt disney’s greatest works were derived from those of the past: brothers grimm, inspired by other creative works, mickey mouse based on steamboat bill
every episode of disney’s little einsteins uses classical music or works of art
sonny bono legislation extending copyright
free culture, free codecs
a business that leverages user value through reviews, recommendations, feedback that channels people to things they want to buy
every search is a gift to google – market data provided by users working for free
on the other hand
flickr twitter yelp – build value by encouraging people to contribute something back
copyright holders are a share cropping vision of future of digital creativity
no reason to regulate amateur activity; there’s no market
with sharable licenses: consumers add value back

wild card! what does the science say: not what does the industry want it to say

“There’s slime in the ice machine” is a Houston saying made popular by the late TV personality Marvin Zindler, a white-suited, surgically-enhanced, makeup wearing investigative reporter cum restaurant inspector for KTRK Channel 13. “Slime” was the worst offense a food establishment could perpetrate; fashion was perhaps Zindler’s. I invoke Marvin Zindler in order to write about Buffet DVD, Volume 1, a DVD magazine of short artist-made videos, because they both address food, Houston and breaking the mold, so-to-speak.

The Drift, Kelly Sears, 2007

Buffet, Volume 1 features 13 artist-made videos related to Houston and food, plus interstitials (shot at Luby’s, Fiesta, Sengelmann Hall and a private kitchen) made by the creators of the DVD, artists Kelly Pike, Kara Hearn and Sasha Dela (I appear as a grocery shopper at Fiesta, however, the producers did not buy my groceries in exchange for this review). The self-titled “Buffet Chefs” describe Houston as “an endless sterno-warmed parade of variety (food, weather, culture).” It’s the perfect environment to grow cultures. The side of Houston that “Buffet” hopes to capture with this first release is the city where one can establish a career as a respected reporter while dressed as a dandy, build an amusement park in tribute to oranges, or barbeque on your car’s engine without worry. Read the rest of this review on Glasstire.com.

Travis Whitfield (left) with "The Porch Crew," 1973

One of the potential hazards of moving to a small town is that you may end up the Mayor. Such is the case with Travis Whitfield, an artist who was so enamored with the rural town of Keachi, Louisiana (pronounced Kee-chi), that he settled there, and inadvertently became the town’s appointed archivist, preservationist, historian and finally, Mayor. In the late 1960s, Keachi caught Travis’s attention during his regular drives between Shreveport and Houston (where he was an art student at U of H). If you recall the episode of The Twilight Zone, “A Stop at Willoughby,” Travis was like the commuter on that train who longed to get off at Willoughby, “a peaceful, restful place, where a man can slow down to a walk and live his life full measure.” Fortunately for Travis, stopping at Keachi was just the beginning of his adventure, unlike the fate of the poor sap on The Twilight Zone. Read the rest of this post on We Have The Technology, Glasstire.com.

The TEDxHouston website is officially live, and on Twitter, and on Facebook, and on Flickr, and so on.

Yesterday I received a curious message from artist Lee Walton.

“At this very moment, a man is locked up to a park bench at Union Square Park in San Francisco. To unlock him, find the woman in the red scarf at the Atlas Cafe in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She is the only one who has the combination to the lock. She will give it to you. Can you find a way to set this man free? He is hungry and wants to go home.” Read the rest of this post on Indirect Collaboration: Collective Creativity on the Web.

Among the many treasures for sale in my marketplace

I’ve opened a virtual storefront to sell my books. From here on out, it’s the public library loan system for me. No more trees will be slaughtered in the name of Andrea’s entertainment, education, or mild curiosity. Kindly shop till you drop.

Subjects include film art, experimental film and video, trash cinema, cult film, horror film, video art, art, art criticism, art history, world cinema, documentary, boating, sexuality, feminism, ornithology, design, future studies, and music, if I can get Carlos Lama in on this. New items added daily! Prices so low, it’s practically insane.

Carleton Island Villa (Carleton Island, NY) looks so tragically beyond repair, that I can’t imagine who would buy it. Not me. Stop looking at me, you sad, beautiful old house. Built as a summer residence in 1894 for W.O. Wykoff (Remingon Typewriter tycoon), the home was designed by architect William Miller and had over 50 rooms, a crypt-like cellar, grand halls, libraries, and parlors. But with no inhabitants for over 60 years, this fixer upper is a downer. Creepily, Wykoff himself never even inhabited the villa, save one day. He died July 7, 1895, his very first night in his new home, of a heart attack.

Listed at $495,000 and “in need of major restoration.”

It reminds me a bit of another tragic ruin of the Gilded Age, Bannerman Castle.

Unnamed Skiff Project, Zach Moser

I’ve got nautical kitsch and art all mixed up in my head. As the daughter of a boat builder and an artist, I have a Pavlovian response to anything that combines art and boats. I grew up in a house that would have suited Captain Ahab just fine– stuffed marlins, whale bones, ships’ wheels, rope art, portholes, buoys, crab pots, fish lures, oil paintings of ships in storms, all that. Enter the Grover family residence and immediately feel like an extra in Mutiny on the Bounty. This posting has been a long time coming, but boat artists, you’re about to get your due. Look for future posts on Bas Jan Ader, Marie Lorentz, Roy Fridge, Swoon, Open_Sailing, Waterpod, and others. Suggestions welcome, mateys.

Art & Boats, Part 1: An interview with Houston (boat) artist Zach Moser

Zach Moser is a co-founder of Workshop Houston, an innovative art/education/community center based in Houston’s Third Ward. Moser recently conducted a boatbuilding workshop inside the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston as part of the exhibition, No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston. The project (conceived with Benjy Mason) was titled “Yacht Shop,” and invited the public to collaboratively build a boat over six months. Yacht Shop concluded with the ceremonious hull turning and launching of the vessel (by spontaneous night parade) down Montrose Boulevard. This was all primed with sea shanties and home brewed braggot, a kind of malt and honey beer. (You can imagine what the drivers on Montrose thought of this land-locked endeavor.) Moser, a graduate of Oberlin, has a keen interest in collaboration via unlikely platforms – “civic events, low income neighborhoods, dying industries.” And this was not Moser’s first foray into maritime collectivity; his earlier nautical-theme works include “The Shrimp Boat Project” (with Eric Leshinsky), “Voyages to the Unknown,” and the “Untitled Skiff Project.” Read the interview with Zach Moser on Glasstire.com.

Jill Magid, Lincoln Ocean Victor Eddy, 2006-2007, Courtesy Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York

The 60th anniversary of George Orwell’s science fiction opus 1984 came and went unnoticed last year. Why would such a prescient novel generate so little hubbub on its birthday? Perhaps the notion of a society numbed by perpetual war, newspeak (the reduction of language to suit ideological purposes), and constant government surveillance of the public is not that newsworthy. Do these ideas apply so aptly to the 21st century that 1984 seems redundant? Or is pointing out this trend toward total surveillance just harshing the mellow of the Net Generation who surrender their privacy with wild abandon? On my first day on Facebook, I jokingly posted my status as “Big Brother is watching you,” and was surprised by a slew of comments suggesting I was a buzzkill. Read the rest of my review on … might be good.

“Indirect Collaboration” is a blog that I and my indirect collaborators, i.e.,  SXSW co-panelists (Joe Alterio, Tim Lillis, Riley Crane & Josh Glenn), will be posting to in the lead up to SXSW Interactive. The theme of our panel is “The role of crowd-sourced input on the creative process.” I was invited to represent the art exhibition side of the equation, namely my involvement in organizing Phantom Captain: Art & Crowdsourcing at apexart, as well as a Never Been to Tehran, Never Been to Houston, and TxtMeL8r – all exhibits with works generated by the crowd. (Both of the Never Been exhibits were co-organized with artist Jon Rubin, my hero.)