itp oddities

PERSONAL REFLECTION:

This week was thankfully the last week where I was balancing *two* Hypercinema courses in the hopes of possibly transferring into another to better align with my work schedule. And while I wouldn’t wish doubling up on a course when you’re already taking 18 credits and working on the worst of humanity, there has been a lot of good that has also come out of it.

On one hand it has forced me to take a step back and be a lot more firm in my boundaries with time. When I become busy and motivated I have a bad habit of becoming consumed to the point where I often neglect myself and lose myself in what I am doing. I am in this program for the long haul so finding ways to stay engaged while avoiding the ever-impending threat of burnout is top of my mind. I made a commitment to myself that as super-human as I might feel at times when working on the things I love, I wouldn’t let my school and work completely get in the way of my human needs like sleep, eating, and spending time away from screens. While I won’t say I was completely successful, these past few weeks really forced me to take this more seriously and for that, I am thankful.

The other major win from this was being able to participate in two groups in very different ways and work on very different projects. I really like how both came out and the range they show in interpreting the same prompt. One project is a more specific and easy to follow storyline with some fun narrative editing techniques and the other is a more conceptual and experimental project that pushed my creative boundaries.

Overall I enjoyed this journey into the world of sound and has made me look at the creative use of sound in a whole new light.

READING REFLECTION:

The argument of copyright and remix culture in art is far from a new concept, but I appreciated how On the Rights of Molotov Man provided a viewpoint from both artists perspectives.

On one hand, I see the power in having the context of the image, after all a single piece of an image cannot necessarily speak for its entirety. However I do appreciate and value the role of ‘remixing’ images and using artistic expression to re-contextualize visual elements.

At the end of the day Joy Garnett and Susan Meiselas both had very different goals for their work, both of which are valid. While Meiselas aimed to capture and document a historical moment in time, Garnett chose to remix images that evoked a certain overall feeling.

I don’t necessarily blame Meiselas for pursuing Garnett regarding credit and compensation for using her photograph, however I don’t think that Garnett needed to oblige on all fronts. Garnett should give credit to all works found, and in the age of the Internet there is very little excuse to not give credit where it is due. However, I do not think that Garnett needed to give compensation for using the work.

It reminded me of the case of the copyright monkey, where PETA argued that a monkey who took a selfie using a wildlife photographer’s camera should be given rights to their image. It really drives home the important argument of the subject’s role in the creation of art.

If that was the case shouldn’t Meiselas then give payment to the man who is the main subject in her photograph? By the simple nature of the framing of the photograph and capturing a single moment in time, one removes the subject from their wider context.

**And it is at this moment in time I wish I created a better catalogue of all my academic reading because I am reminded of a piece of writing that covers framing in photographing poverty and discusses Dorthea Langs’s famous Migrant Mother photograph that would lend itself perfectly to this exact point**

I found it interesting that this was the argument Meiselas used for pursuing credit and compensation from Garnett. Ultimately through capturing and publishing this image, Meiselas unintentionally turned this man’s likeness into a symbol that was fetishized, repurposed, and remixed over and over again based on the needs of the person reproducing it, all without the consent of the person actually photographed.

Referring to the lone figure of that Sandinista rebel, nmazca asked, “Who owns the rights to this man’s struggle?” – Joy Garnett, On the Rights of Molotov Man

I feel like the quote mentioned by Garnett of ‘Who owns the rights to this man’s struggle?’ really sums up the point nicely. The line here is blurred and I think it is really up to each artist to decide where their personal boundary lies and how much they value their right to create over respecting boundaries that other people or creators wish to enforce.

In the age of AI and deepfakes this becomes even more relevant as the legal line for repercussions regarding copyrighted material and reproducing content in another’s likeness grows murkier. Building upon the monkey legal issue, we are now facing even more complex questions about ownership and our understanding of creativity and ‘remix’ culture is truly being tested. But it begs me to ask the question, if we don’t own the rights to our own likeness, both image and voice, who does?

I definitely don’t have the answers (if I did I would certainly be making the big bucks at some fancy law firm somewhere). But in the end, I think that creators and artists have a responsibility to both the subjects and viewers of their work to document their process, give credit to their sources, and offer compensation when appropriate. And as viewers it is our responsibility to remember that context lies not just in the piece we are consuming, but in worlds outside of our own personal perception as well.

♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ

ASSIGNMENT // SOUND VACATION:

The prompt: In teams, collect sounds for a sound vacation. This could be informational, fictional, sensual, spoken-word, musical. It could be about infrastructure, architecture, people, or something completely different.  Be specific, and transport us to another location through a 1-2 minute journey crafted through sound.

⋆⭒𓆟⋆｡ MERMAID’S NIGHT OUT ˚𖦹𓆜✩⋆

My group (Beverly, Sana, and I) originally wanted to create something that was otherworldly but then decided that using reverb effects and other sound manipulation to create an underwater scene could be fun. We ended up on a narrative story of a mermaid getting ready to leave the house when she stumbles upon an anchor that is dropped into the water. The mermaid climbs up the anchor to find a boat with a concert going on and decides to swim over and enjoy the music.

For this project I recorded sound at a nearby beach, sourced some sounds online, was in charge of a lot of the underwater background sounds as she reaches the surface, and also contributed to the editing of the final piece.

✩₊˚.⋆ THE CALL ₊˚.⋆₊✧

This concept was conceived as a combination of all three of my group’s unique homes and backgrounds. Ege coming from Türkiye, Yilin coming from China, and me coming from California with a healthy dose of Austrian and Swiss heritage thrown in.

We all have different, at times overlapping, things that remind us of home that we all brought with us in our journey to New York City. As we answer the call to prayer, the call of friends, the call of loved ones, and messages to home we also answer the siren call of New York City to create a new home and future.

For this project I recorded beach sounds, sourced sounds of my dad discussing his day in German, sourced other sounds online, and contributed heavily to the editing of the project. Who knew editing only two minutes of sound would take six or so hours…? But in the end I am proud of how hard we all worked to push ourselves creatively in putting this more conceptual piece together.

Further documentation of our project can be found here.

♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ