Week 5 - David Lasnier, iTouch artist, talks about his art with Wired.com.

David Lasnier graduated from Villa Arson art school, Nice, France, in 2000.  From that point he has worked as a video artist who occasionally draws.  Last month Lasnier started creating art on his iPod Touch with Brushes and uploading the art to the Brushes Gallery at Flickr. And there has been a result from his foray into digital arts. Lasnier is now painting again, using acrylics on canvas as his medium.

The app, Brushes, was the winner of the Apple Design Award in 2010 and was used to create the cover of the June 1, 2009 issue of The New Yorker.  It costs $4.99 at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brushes-iphone-edition/id288230264?mt=8/.

In the interview at Wired.com Lasnier talks about the limitations of the iPod and how it increases his creativity which in turn increases his productivity.  He spends one hour creating an image!  The objects he chose to work with are everyday objects such as the corner of his spiral notebook, ink jar and staple remover.  He mentions the fun he had with each image. 

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According to Lasnier digital art as he is creating it is not marketable.  How feasible is it to print?  And look how readily available it is through galleries in The Cloud. 

Do I agree with him?  He certainly has a point.  Have you ever tried to print out a color document and had it match the exact color you had painted?  In my view a printer cannot mix colors as an artist can.The only place it remains as creative as the artist meant it is in The Cloud.

But there is a progression toward viewing digital art as an art form.  The Austin Museum of Digital Art - located in Austin, Texas - sums their philosophy of digital art quite aptly at their website:

"AMODA defines digital art as art that uses digital technology in any of three ways: as the product, as the process, or as the subject."

My foray into the digital arts world has included the creation of two paintings. They took quite a bit of time and effort.  I first used ArtPad and then decided to use SumoPaint because it offered more tools which I thought would be necessary for this course.  It certainly was fun. 

The ArtPad image titled “Summer in Vermont” can be see at ArtPad where they show the creation of the image from the very start.  The SumoPaint image titled "Fall is Here" is shown below.

Resources:

http://www.wired.com/culture/art/multimedia/2009/02/gallery_brushes

Interview with David Lasnier

http://www.amoda.org/about/digitalart.php

Austin Museum of Digital Art

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/

Digital Arts Gallery

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/

A magazine for digital artists

http://www.withdigitaleyes.com/pgs/digiart.htm

A digital artist's website

"Fall is Here"

Creative Commons

Week Four in Multimedia Apps and Tools at CCV

This week’s blog assignment is to write about Creative Commons.

What is Creative Commons exactly?  It is a non-profit organization which offers artists of all media (art, music, and print) the option to alter the copyright to his work.

Sharon Housley at RSS Specifications (http://www.rss-specifications.com/creative-commons.htm) writes a clear picture of the exact nature of Creative Commons.  She lists the different ways an artist can change his copyright as follows:

NonCommercial - A non-commercial license lets others copy, distribute, perform creative works and derivative works, but only for noncommercial purposes (anyone using the creative works cannot profit from it).

ShareAlike - A ShareAlike license allows others to distribute derivative works under a license identical to the one held by the original copyright holder.

NoDerivative Works - A NoDerivative Works clause allows others to copy, distribute, display and perform the exact copywritten works and no derivative works can be created.

Attribution - An Attribution license means creative works can be copied, distributed, displayed, or performed and derivative works can be created, provided that appropriate credit to the original copyright holder is given.

Many artists use Creative Commons to offer their art free of charge to the public.  They may want more exposure for that specific work or for themselves as an artist.  I hesitate to write more an artist’s reasons to acquire a Creative Commons license because each artist would have his own personal motivation - which might not include business reasons.

There are a number of sites that offer music, art, and published works with Creative Common licenses.  Here are a few.

Magnatune

http://magnatune.com/

This site offers music of all genres for a monthly membership fee of $15.00.

Free Music Archive

http://freemusicarchive.org/

This site offers music with creative commons licenses at no charge.  You do need to register for an account and they have a donate button located at the top of the page.  Recently they have added a page to include individual subscriptions to DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music) which has only been offered to universities and libraries.  A donation is required for the individual subscription.

These sites offer listings of free video, photos, and music.

http://freemusicarchive.org/curator/creative_commons

http://www.socialbrite.org/sharing-center/free-music-directory/

http://top40.about.com/od/top40andpoponline/tp/freemusic.htm

http://www.socialbrite.org/sharing-center/free-video-directory/

There is an interview with John Buckman, founder of Magnatune, at Rules for the Revolution which was hosted by Colette Vogele which is required before writing this week’s blog.  It proves very interesting and certainly clarifies Buckman’s stand on free downloading of music.  His website offers free music downloads with a membership requiring a monthly fee.  Buchman believes musicians should keep their rights to their music.  He also explains Creative Commons and describes how his company works. 

Colette Vogele is a copyright attorney at Microsoft as well as a President and co-founder of Without My Consent (a website for artists who have their works taken without regard to their copyrights, founder of Rules for the Revolution  where Ms Vogele offers podcasts about copyright laws and Creative Commons.

There are a number of other sites with Creative Commons projects and one has rapidly become a favorite of mine.  It is called The Commons and was put together by Flickr and The Library Of Congress. You will find photos there that are part of the public’s photo archives as well as have the opportunity to share any information you have about the photos posted on the site.

A list of other Creative Commons projects can be found at this site http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-creative-commons-projects-pay-attention/.

 

 

What I mentioned in this post is just a bit of what is available that will describe or explain Creative Commons and how they help artists. 

Week 3 – Kevin Kelly talks about “the next 5000 days of the internet” at Ted.com

Kevin Kelly’s discourse on the future of technology at Ted.com left me with some reservations about open-source software and the progression of technology in our lives.  Some of his comments stood out more than others.

At one point he talks about the next 5,000 days on the web culminating in construction of “a single global machine” that works the same as a brain.  “The difference is the machine is doubling every two years. However your brain isn’t doubling every two years.”

 He goes on to say, “If we say this machine right now that we made is about 1 HB (human brain) and if we look at the rate this is increasing, in 30 years from there will be 6 billion HB’s. So by the year 2040 the total processing of this machine will exceed the total processing power of humanity in raw bits and such.”

Kelly states three consequences of this. “We are giving it a body.  We are re-structuring its architecture and thirdly we are going to become completely co-dependent on it.”

There is so much he said before and after those few quotes I have written here and each point resonates.  But it was at this point I began to wonder if he was talking about a concept I had just heard a bit about – singularity.  Singularity is described as “the technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence” at the Singularity Institute website.  Other words used to describe Singularity on the Institute's website are as follows: “Artificial Intelligence, direct brain-computer interfaces, biological augmentation of the brain, genetic engineering, ultra-high-resolution scans of the brain followed by computer emulation.”

Then I went searching for more on Kevin Kelly and found that he "dismisses singularity."  He sees it as only one scenario according to a 2010 Singularity Institute interview listed on YouTube and on the Singularity Institute weblog.  Right at the start Kelly notes that he has one side of himself “that likes to keep technology at arm’s length.”   He goes on to say that “we really do not know what intelligence is.”  Kelly also talks about his past experiences in this interview.

Just watching the video at Ted.com does not give a total view of Kelly and the more I found about his ideas the more interesting and less ominous they became.  The 2010 Singularity Institute interview certainly helped made more clear what he meant by become “co-dependent” as a consequence in the scope of thought about a single global machine with links or “portals” to it that need no storage because everything will be in the cloud.

Resources

http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.html

http://www.singularityweblog.com/kevin-kelly/

Ted.com

http://singinst.org/

"Computing on the Cloud"

“Computing on the Cloud” has been part of my online experience since 2004. At that time I started University of Vermont’s School Library Media Sequence. We accessed articles and other information through an online system similar to Moodle and posted a number of times each week to that forum.

Before that my online presence included searching for information, accessing a game or two and sending emails through Microsoft Outlook. I can remember playing one game once and thinking I would not do that again. It seemed so risky!

Now I look to “Web 2.0” for email, e-books, Google Docs, blogging, social networking through Facebook, taking online courses, an internet telephone, as well as information and databases for my professional life. I also have an account on a library site where I keep track of items checked out. I use a pharmacy with an online system that is located in a neighboring town. "Computing on the Cloud" is an incredibly useful and amazing organizational way of computing.

And now the risky side of these amazing apps and tools has reared its ugly head.  I just read “Computing In the Cloud: Who owns your files?” by Laura Sydell posted at NPR. This article is one of the reading requirements for week two in this course (Multimedia Apps and Tools at CCV). The article (podcast also available) chronicles one person’s loss of email and photos posted “in the cloud.” One day a password stopped working and all was lost. Thankfully NPR intervened. As a result Google checked into the situation and restored access stating
“some sort of security issue” according to Sydell in her article.

Have you ever read the user agreements to those accounts you use? I haven’t. I just downloaded Google Drive today and checked “I agree to the terms and conditions of use” without reading the particulars. 

After reading Sydell’s piece I am wondering if I ought to invest in the latest Microsoft Office Suite and an external hard drive allowing for backup of all my documents, emails and photos. Perhaps I ought to find that "Terms and Conditions of Use" where I checked my agreement and read it.

As I am writing this I know I will not be doing that until I purchase my next computer.  However, I will purchase a flash drive.  And I will continue my Google account as well as all my other “Web 2.0” connections.