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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Digmedstudent626/Raskolnikov_Complex#References

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Hybrid Art Assignment

Perhaps one of the most memorable monologues in all of film is the on the V gives to Evee Hammond in the first fifteen minutes of the movie V for Vendetta after saving her from the notorious “fingermen.” In the movie, the speech is mastered through the use of phenomenal and creative alliteration with the “V” sound, and the crescendo and decrescendo of the actor, Hugo Weaving’s, voice makes the speech come alive. 

Even though the movie is a work of art in itself, there is a method of internet media that was employed by a YouTube User to remake this epic monologue: Kinetic Typography. A form of media in which words pop up on the screen in a synchronized fashion with the audio, the words being altered to be large, small, bold, and move in a manner to mirror the fluctuations in the intonation and emphasis placed on certain words (the link posted on the bottom will take you to this particular example of kinetic typography). 

The first exceptionally notable aspect of this is when, after Eve asks V “Who are you?” at the beginning of the sequence, when V replies “Who?” in response, the shift is made through the deletion of “are you,” and the “who” carries over from Evee’s words to V. Within the movie, V and Evee are clearly characters that are meant to mirror one another: V after his ordeal, and Evee (for a time) represents the person he was before his imprisonment by the dystopia of England’s government.  While this overlap in their characters is made exceptionally clear in the movie, it is expounded upon exceptionally clearly hear, when the words that one uses melds into the words of the other, this mirror is made even more noticeable than in the movie, as perhaps the only thing that could demonstrate their reflection of one another to an even greater extent would be if their minds were to physically meld together. As the media progresses, the words fold out from each other, smash into each other, overlap each other, and so on. This helps to demonstrate the continuity and fluency of V’s speech, as just as his manner of speaking in the movie is incredibly fluid and without hesitation, as is the incredibly driven manner of the way in which the words flow onto the screen, further evoking the purposefulness of V’s speech. Another noticeable development is the size of V’s speech compared to Evee’s speech. Just as Evee is uncertain and timid in this scene in the movie, the size of her words in the kinetic typography reflect her mentality, being rather small, implying a sort of “meek and mild” quality.  V, on the other hand, is confident, bold, and dominates the conversation, so his words are naturally far larger, reflecting his domineering nature.

As I mentioned above, the words in the media stream at the same rate as they are said. So when V slows down, so do the words, ceasing to flow into one another and instead becoming more punctual and forceful, such as the part where V says “I’m not questioning your powers of observation I’m merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is,” where the words appear slower and slower, and also progressively becoming larger and larger, and in the end the phrase “WHO HE IS” being in all capital letters, all of this combined demonstrating the increasing forcefulness and power behind his words as he nears the end of the sentence.  Then, after Evee responds, V’s words become more fluid again, falling into one another just as before, shifting back to his original flowing and driven speech.  Then, suddenly (just as V’s movements in the speech are), a giant “VOILA” flies onto the screen: bold, large, and loud, commanding the reader’s rapt attention just as much (if not more so) than the watcher of the movie. Then it begins.

V slides right into his masterful speech, with v sound after v sound flowing into one another, and just as his speech becomes borderline confusing and jumbled in the movie, the words reflect it even more so, as they literally built on top of and to the side of all the words, with the emphasis he places on the “v” words demonstrated through their size and boldness in the text. And as the words continue to scroll continuously, smashing into one another constantly, it is alleviated by the word “vanished,” in which, fittingly, all other words have indeed “vanished” from the screen. An effect that the movie did not capture nearly as well.  Then V continues, moving into a sequence which separates the v words from the other words, with valorous, visitation, vexation, and vivified all set off to the right, bold and large, which places a strong emphasis on the alliteration that, while Hugo Weaving did a remarkable job, the words in the kinetic typography emphasize this even greater than in the movie.  Then the real fun begins, where V presses onward, he words growing larger and larger, bolder and bolder, as the words become louder and louder, and smashing even tighter together with his speech’s accelerating tempo until finally acuminating in the fully capitalized and ferocious enunciation of the word “VOLITION.”
            At this point in the movie, V whips out his knives and slices up a poster on the wall, capitalizing on his passion and wrath with the motion.  In this version, there are two massive flashes of light where each slash would be, which is arguably just as powerful (if not more powerful) than the scene in the movie, where we are left to our imagination what it is that he is slicing open with his knives. That, and the flashes of bright white light in stark contrast to the red background make the action even more notable than in the movie, where there is but a brief (bad-ass, but brief) streaks of silver in the form of the knife, while the flashes consume the entire screen, capturing moment more fully than the movie was able to. V then proceeds to once more continue his slurring v speech mannerisms, the words colliding into each other, growing bolder, etc. Then we reach the part where V laughs a very light chuckle. Undeniably, the kinetic typography captures this moment better than in the movie, as since V’s face is covered by a mask in the movie that is frozen in a perpetual smile, we are unable to see his facial expression while he does so. In this part, the tossing and jumbling of the words playfully on the screen gives us the best indication of what his facial expression would be—not an uproarious, jovial, belly shaking laughter face, but sort of that awkward laugh and expression you get on your face when you realize you’ve just made an utter fool of yourself. After the laughter expires, V rushes through the final part of his speech as to get his “Vichyssoise of Verbiage” out of the way, in which he then begins “simply,” which is illuminated on by the typewriter pace that the words take to pop up on the screen, which is certainly the simplest, or at least most basic measure of typing available.  Then, after the final accumulation of the monologue into a giant, size 48 font “V,” (certainly more powerful than the movie, which ends with a subtle bow), Evee asks him almost sarcastically “are you like a crazy person?” with her own confusion mirrored in the haphazard way that the words pop onto the screen and the awkward slant of the question mark, and V answers just as certainly and in just as much of a matter-of-fact tone as ever with “I am quite sure they will say so.”

I still hold a vast amount of respect for the movie and the acting abilities of Hugo Weaving in the film, yet I must admit that the power of the words and their movement in the kinetic typography is perhaps more breathtaking that the speech in the movie.  Either way, there is no doubt that the emphasis on V’s words is accented phenomenally in this method of digital media hybrid art, and regardless of one’s preference, there is not denying its remarkable artistic quality.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=v+for+vendetta+kinetic+typography&aq=0

Suggestions for Digital Media Assignments

The first recommendation I have for a reading is an article “WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY: Part of the paradigm shift—or part of the problem? (Part II)” by Paul Brunick, (http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/so10/onlinecriticism2.htm) who, among other assertions, makes the claim that the movement of popular movie criticism and reviews is shifting sources, and no moving from that of renowned critics who are published in newspapers or magazines to a “collective intelligence,” where hundreds of individuals will create a “macro level” review through each offering their different, succinct insights into the film.  While he makes an argument for both sides, defending the gargantuan, professional critical reviews (“a thousand points of light just isn’t the same as one roaring blaze”) and also advocating the new, amateur reviews over these mammoth pieces of critcism (“We need another essay on the Death of Film Criticism about as much as we need another 800-word review of Shrek 4. I’m sure the Sixties and Seventies were great. But frankly, if you’re longing for a transformative decade, then look around.”).  In regards to an activity for this, my suggestion is to go to  http://movies.yahoo.com/, then click on any one of the movies in the “Top Box Office” to the left. Then, in the box that says “The Critics” along with whatever letter grade they gave it, under the letter should be something that says something like “13 reviews.” Click on it, and read one of the official critics reviews.  Then, go back to the box that says “Yahoo! Users” and click on the thing that says how many ratings there are of the movie, and glance over several of the user reviews.  Then we can initiate a discussion where we compare and contrast the two styles of criticism, and about whether we believe the future of “film criticism” lies with the “collective intelligence” of the online community or the “roaring blaze” of the old-school critics.

My second recommendation is more intensive in the way that the activity would have to be spread out over quite a time (not to mention the “homework” would be playing the video game in order to level the characters up) but here we go.  The attached pdf file (this site doesn't let me attach pdf files, I'll link the website I pulled it from at the bottome of the page) contains an article about “Social Roles of Players in MMORPG Guilds.” After we read it, I suggest we conduct our own social experiment, if we feel up to it, all of us download the game Ragnarok Online (RO for short), design characters, and form a guild.  Then, we form a guild in a sort of government manner.  I asked a friend over an instant message conversation about how her guild was set up when she played a while back, and she responded to me in this way:

“There is a guild leader. Sometimes there are sub-leaders. However, there are some guilds that stick someone as the official "leader" for strategic purposes, but the guild is actually run from behind the scenes by the more experienced players.

I guess you can say it's kinda like a government. Sometimes it's like a democracy where there are multiple people leading in cooperation (like president, house and senate) and sometimes it's like a dictatorship.”

 OR, if that felt like way too much effort, we could simply read the synopsis on the file and then go to the following website (http://www.frogdice.com/muckbeast/game_design/are-guilds-too-important-in-mmos.html) and read and analyze people’s response’s to how to deal with the problem of the clash two types of people within a guild: those who join for the whole brotherhood/friendship concepts and just playing leisurely, and those who take the role-playing aspect extremely seriously.

                        Finally, the last reading I will propose is “Online Communication and Adolescent Relationships.”  (http://www.jstor.org/stable/20053122?seq=9&Search=yes&term=friendships&term=internet&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dinternet%2Bfriendships%26gw%3Djtx%26acc%3Don%26prq%3Dinternet%2Bfreindships%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&item=10&ttl=517&returnArticleService=showFullText&resultsServiceName=null) Among other things, this reading mentions the “redefining of friends” through online social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace, where people will have hundreds of friends.  The activity I propose is for people to log on to their Facebook and MySpace pages and see how many “friends” they have listed, and then how many of them they are able to name.  This demonstrate the redefinition of “friend” through these networks, as we consider acquaintances, ex-girlfriends/ex-boyfriends (who we never hang out with any more), and friends of friends all under the single category of “friend.”

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a922956035&fulltext=713240928

Oral Presentation-Posthuman video 2

Oral Presentation-Posthuman video 1

Oral Presentation-Posthuman

Assignment 2

                                                       

My Avatar                  vs.                                      Doubleleaf’s Avatar

            There are endless possibilities as to what shape or form a person’s avatar can assume. In some cases, on such websites as facebook and myspace, the avatar is typically a picture of the person to which the web page belongs to, though there are certainly deviations from this norm, as some people will opt for digital or computerized images or drawings done by hand. While hand-made illustrations constitute only a small percentage of the display avatars of networking sites such as those listed above, they make up a considerably larger portion on the website “deviantART,” which is a networking site where thousands of artists post their original pieces on their own individual pages, similar to a blog, and allow their art to be viewed by anyone who happens across it. On such a site as this, it is understood as something of a “common courtesy” that you post an original work of art as your avatar.

            In this respect alone, the avatar image that I have selected (posted above) is different from mine, as this artist’s icon was hand drawn (with the possibility that photoshop was used to perform “touch up” functions and fine tune the little details to make it more aesthetically pleasing in its coloration), while my avatar (also posted above) was created completely through the use of an online avatar generator. Given that mine was designed online through a website with preset options, while there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of possible combinations that I could have manufactured, there were limitations due to the fact that there was only a certain amount of options. However, in the case of Doubleleaf (the artist’s identification tag on the website), she had complete freedom to draw whatever she desired. While it could be argued, conversely, that she was limited to the space on her paper or the extent of her artistic abilities, the truth is that she had far more freedom in what she was allowed to do. She had the option of the angle that she wanted to draw her image from, whether she wanted an image of just a face or a complete full body shot, the color of the clothing, the shading on the face, everything was under her control in the creation of the avatar. In this sense, her user ID is far more personal than mine, as while all I was capable of doing on the program I selected was to pick and choose from a variety of options and decide which combination I liked best, she was allowed to decide from the beginning exactly what it was that she wanted, and control every step of the process of its generation. The majority of the remaining differences link back to the process in which they were made. For example, the quality control of the site I chose did the best that it was able to, but there were still several minor flaws that were perhaps overlooked. The most notable one was the conflict with the first hairstyle I chose and the Santa hat. The original hairstyle I selected was far larger than the one I have now, and when placing the Santa hat on it, instead of the program accommodating for the discrepancy in size by cramming the hair (figuratively speaking) into the hat, like people often do in real life, the two layers overlapped, and the hair did not fit within the boundaries of the hat stuck out to the side, which made it necessary for me to readjust the image by selecting a different, more moderate hair style. However, in the case of Doubleleaf, she could have made the accommodation on her own by making the hair, regardless of how obnoxiously massive it may have been, fit inside whatever size hat she wanted, had she been in the same predicament while hand drawing her picture.

            Aside from the obvious similarity that both of the avatars are male and have similar facial hair patterns, the only truly profound similarity that they have in common is that each of them represent something that characterizes each of us through our interests. On my end, the dark clothing represents my preferred style of dressing, the Santa hat signifies an accessory that I enjoy wearing around the Christmas season, and the sword allegorizes my past affinity towards medieval weaponry, which led me to start a collection of various objects such as swords, axes, knives, and the like. In the case of Doubleleaf, her avatar represents a key interest in her life as well in the form of a video game character. Instead of choosing to design a character that mirrored/gave a representation of herself, she selected to draw a character that already existed. Her avatar takes the form of a “fan art” drawing of Malik, a character in the first Assassin’s Creed video game. By glancing through her profile and discovering facts about her such as her favorite video game being listed as Assassin’s Creed, her personal quote being “Safety and peace, my brother,” (a quote that comes directly from the game), and the fact that the vast majority of her artwork is Assassin’s Creed oriented, it is fairly safe to assume that selecting a character from this particular game is an accurate reflection of her interests.

            There is one aspect of her avatar though that does interest me: the fact that her avatar is a he. When I first stumbled upon this artist and complimented how much I liked “his” work, my girlfriend, who showed me the page, pointed to the profile information in the top left of the screen which listed the artist’s gender as female. The reason that I made this mistake was not due to some sexist approach in which I naturally assumed that all the artists on the site were male. In fact, as far as I had seen there was a remarkably low population of male artists on this particular forum. Instead, it was because I had made the assumption that the artist’s icon was representative of her gender, and had been sorely mistaken. Such incidents though are not uncommon in cyber space, as one such MUDder once said that when he “viewed MUDs as a REAL reality,” he fell in love with a female character, but as it “turned out ‘she’ was a he.” Another topic brought up by this is a word that Belle and several others term ‘hypergendering,’ which could be described as being the online malleability of gender, and how in several situations it is difficult to discern a person’s gender because of the nature of the site and because of the ambiguity and anonymity created by the internet, and how very easy it is to masquerade as another gender. While in the case of Doubleleaf, exploring “new eroticisms” (as Belle points out as the motive behind such people’s actions who masquerade as different genders in his book An Introduction to Cybercultures) was definitely not her intention. She was merely trying to represent a part of herself by drawing a picture of a character from her favorite game as her user ID. Though this does bring up the issue of cyberspace being a male dominated arena, and how my mistake of assuming that Doubleleaf was male may be me subconsciously categorizing her as male due to the fact that she is online. Lourdes Arizpe, a contributor to the collection Women@Internet calls on women to take a stand against the male dominance of cyberspace by creating “the meanings of tomorrow” through creativity, and especially calls on young women, who have the creative and free spirit necessary to inspire this change. Perhaps unknowingly, Doubleleaf is being one of those young women, for as her impressive list of artwork commissions displays, she has made a visible impact in the “deviantART” community, and is being requested by a variety of people to draw something for them. Through her skill in art, she is helping to forge a way for women in cyberspace, for as she made her presence known on the internet and turned it into a rather lucrative business, she helps to light the way for other women to follow.