Remix assignment

For this assignment I chose to create two videos and one still image.

Part 1:



The above was a remix of several Alice in Wonderland themed media, including Tim Burton's 2010 film Alice in Wonderland, Avril Lavigne's music video for "Alice", and Paramore's "Brick by Boring Brick." As well, there are clips from a short entitled "The Fairies of Blackheath Woods", which is not about Alice, but is another example of the little girl archetype who runs away into the forest and gets lost.

The still image is meant to create a space where the fantasy world collides with reality, and to work as a transition piece between the two videos. The top portrays elements of time and correlates to the first video about childhood fantasy, which is something that typically has a limited shelf life and is eventually grown out of. However, the middle is a confused time and space that is existing between fantasy and reality. Tea parties are real but this one is mad; a girl who is living in a fairytale and running towards a castle; a woman is trying to escape her life through the looking glass.
The lower part of the collage correlates to the second video. It depicts a version of reality in which these girls were thought to be insane because of their wild imaginations, and eventually were confined to The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls (a book by Emilie Autumn).
The castle that is central in many fairy tales is meant to be juxtaposed with the asylum;  in many cases they look very similar from the outside but are obviously very different places inside.

Part 2:



The final piece is all about madness - and how the fantastical worlds and dreams these little girls experienced never went away, and as they grew up they were deemed insane because they did not behave exactly as young women 'should'.
It cuts back and forth between childhood and adulthood.

Nuit Blanche

My experiences with Nuit Blanche every year are basically the same - tonnes of build-up; extreme letdown. Every year features more and more people than the last, most of whom are out to see the spectacle of the city being open all night, as opposed to actually appreciate art. 

But since every year I say I'm going to look up specific installations and travel around to them rather than aimlessly wander all night and see where I end up, and every year I fail to do so, I guess I can't complain. 

The large crowds make it really hard to navigate anywhere or stop to look at anything for too long, and when I do get a chance, I find a lot of of the works pretty random ... (and not necessarily in a good way.) 

Like this one: 

"Meeting Point: After a planner whose search for new forms pays tribute to existing and familiar places."

Whereas I was like, "There's a giant brick of cheese in that field!"

However, one of my favourite creations of the night was Matt King's Streetfigher II: 

Performers play an altered Nintendo game with modified controllers that play instruments and run a video projection.

                   Incredible! 

I would have never thought it would be possible to rewire a Nintendo keyboard to hook up to a drum set and a keyboard. Duking it out Streetfighter style while playing musical instruments is kinda legendary. 

Video games and music in combination this way is a really awesome remixing of art forms, something more classic with something more contemporary.

re: The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet

Initially when reading this article, I thought that the difference the author was trying to establish between the web and the internet was, in his own words, a "trivial distinction" - but he says it is not, and I am now inclined to agree as well.

Of course it is inevitable that capitalism will worm its way into every facet of society that is possible - that's just how the structure of our capitalist society is. In most cases people are willing to pay more for the guise of convenience. Maybe in this instance it isn't quite a guise; certain apps can certainly make life easier by way of their instant access, so one doesn't have to go searching for it; "the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen."
But at the same time, half of the fun of the internet used to be just that - the searching, the randomness, the stumbling across something via way of casting out this wide net and seeing where it took you. With an app for every function, the randomness is eliminated, and if you want to stumble across something, well there is an app for that too. (Not that I'm taking a shot at Stumble Upon; I love that particular service.)

imovie assignment: liminal spaces

"The in-between place, the dead air pause, in between thought and action."



This video is essentially about liminality - all of the in between places in life. The transitional places not only between physical spaces, but between thoughts or even vocalized communications.  No matter where the person in the video is they are in between something, being neither here nor there. Even when they find a bright and flashy electronic party, they find them self wishing for "organic cures" as opposed to the likely chemical distraction.
Afterwards, they come out of it, zooming out and emerging on the path for an oubliette. (noun, french; a little place of forgetting. A small, windowless room where someone is locked away, forgotten, left to go mad.)

It is also supposed to be a comment on perspective and perception. At some points in the video, it is intentional that you are not sure exactly what you're looking at until the point of view is shifted, which is frequently how I find real life to be as well.

"Thoughts seem to stumble out of my mouth
I can't seem to stop and talk to them
Fear tries, to pierce the armor of truth
Hollow point sniper hyperbole

I can't, seem
To follow a pendulum
And there must be organic cures for me
Report to base
Instrumental Case
Here's the map to my oubliette"

Source footage:

Hollowpoint Sniper Hyperbole by USS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpmC3tVfK2g

Liminality of twilight 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yMVU3lY-ZM

Liminal Spaces

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hv00ds6MP8

About Me ...

My name is Cassandra. I'm 22 years old, and currently attending York University in Toronto where I am a Communication Studies major.

The reason I am enrolled in the course "The Electronic Landscape" is because I have a background in photoshop and html from the college program I completed at Seneca@York (Corporate Media Production) and this was one of the few hands-on courses that was available to me. I wish to keep up to date with my new media skills and hope that this class will enable me to do so.

I am not terribly familiar with trends or artists in the field of new media and expect that I will learn lots. Broadening my understanding of this particular area will hopefully contribute to my career in event production and make me more knowledgeable about different mediums I can work with.

Visual Representation - Lab 1

The above image was comprised using the three following images:

The eye represents the way in which I see the world, and the positive and diverse outlook I try to maintain. (And I may just have a soft spot for rainbows.)

When I googled the word "communication" (as I am a communication studies major) one of the first images I saw was that which says it is a Mayan symbol for communication. I had never seen it before and it struck me as interesting and I really liked the symmetry. 

The third image was found when I looked for images of fire. Of all the pictures of fire that I was met with, I chose to work with this one because the dragon is my Eastern zodiac symbol corresponding to the year I was born (1988), and the fire is my Western zodiac element (I'm a Leo) - so this image was a culmination of both of those in a sense. And wings are just pretty nifty in general.