my mix tape or cd was constructed with my friend Jack in mind, but it can directed towards many people. he does seem to appreciate music, but has never been to a concert or played any instruments of his own. this cd's purpose was to not only introduce new music to Jack, but somewhat fill in on his lacking of concert experience as well as instrument knowledge.

i intended to introduce to him acoustic music, which i indicated on the cd as music at its "rawest and purest form". with acoustic music, he could somewhat listen to what could be a concert or the basis of a concert; music that you hear outside of the radio, tv, or cd player. in other words, music that is not generally the reproduction from a studio; the final pieces you usually hear. also, with acoustic music, he could again somewhat get a feel for what playing an instrument is like. in this case, he would hear just the purity of a single guitar, so that he would know what it sounds like without all the editing, the electronics.

digital drone

on Wednesday we discussed technology and how it is becoming a major incorporation in our lives. i feel it has become more than just an incorporation. it has become our lives. what has happened to our culture? what is this notion of "plugged in," and why is it everyone's necessity? what does it even mean? what is it about "digital" that draws us, compels us, make us desire it's characterization?

so these days all i see is everyone walking around with their headphones glued to their ears as if the ears extended out into a white wire and ended with a 3.5mm jack, searching for a plug. ipods, iphones, mp3 players, cell phones, laptops, organizers, schedulers. mostly everyone is always plugged in, to the internet, the stream, the digital dimension. what happened to the days where conversation was held randomly, a hand was used to gesture hello or goodbye as one passed another. i guess "i"pod explains it a little. it seems as if everyone is locked into the digital dimension and zoned out. like drones that are roaming from place to place with their starbucks cup in hand and vibing to the digital rift. what do we make of this? what's in the future? it seems as though "digitalism " has become our lives, the next step would assume that it take over our lives...

So i saw Emily's piece and the huge backwards copyright symbol gave me an idea. i added a yellow backwards copyright symbol that resembles Pac-Man and "anti-copyright" which it is eating up a regular copyright symbol.

my first collage was pieced together basically with a copyright symbol on top of each picture. these pictures included general media, such as websites, pictures, books, and film. i also included pictures of piracy and other relevant copyright images. basically each image is stamped with the symbol on top or has the copyright symbol embedded. this image symbolizes the power of copyright as well as the restrictions that it places on these areas of creativity. the image also suggest that the laws lift some copyright power since it seems that it will only be heavier in the future.

the second collage is very similar to the first one. since we were only allowed to use "common" material, i decided to use the Microsoft clip-art gallery, which is entitled to whoever has access to it, and does permit the use of it's images. many of the images i used here had to be edited. trying to make the same argument as with the first collage, i found very similar images and then further edited the pictures with a copyright symbol that the clip-art gallery provided. this entire image makes the same argument with a few tweaks and added points.

it is obvious that the second collage was more difficult. when working with the first one, many of the pictures already had an embedded copyright symbol and i did not have to take the time to edit one and place it on top. in the second collage, i had to place each copyright symbol manually which took a bulk of the time. even though i still had very similar images with the second collage, it still took more work and time. the difference is that i feel the argument comes stronger from the second collage. this may be due to the tweaks that i applied more frequently compared to leaving some images as is from the first collage. i also prefer the second collage to the first one, since i feel it is more my work than someone else's.

so is creativity being threatened? what do you think? i think it depends. creativity is such a broad term. there are so many areas where creativity can be applied so it cannot be threatened in all areas. the world is constantly changing with new technologies and discoveries by the minute. there is always room for something new, something better. if it isn't new or better then it shouldn't apply as creative.

don't get me wrong, i still believe that creativity is being threatened in certain areas. this would include literature, music, and film. music, film, and writing are expressive and there can only be so many ways to express a thought or feeling before it is expressed again in a very similar manner.

i think lessig's solution makes sense and it should have been approved. objects entering the public domain does allow for less complication if a similar work is created. i believe that many people will still not understand what the public domain is. also this would create more work for the government, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. overall it's still the best idea so far.

so i have used image editing software frequently for minor works, such as birthday cards or raw image editing, but i have never created a major project digitally. this should be an interesting assignment since i am totally software savvy but believe myself to be artistically challenged. it is said somewhere that as we age we progress in most things we do. it seems that my artistic skills as well as mind set have declined from my younger years in which i was known as an artist.

i did not understand the assignment at first since i could not make clear how to make an argument out of a piece of art and especially a collage. after the example that was shown in lecture, i "re-realized" that all pictures and art are arguments. pictures are a 1000 words right?

i have not yet decided or even brainstormed any ideas for a topic; not to mention my argument. this is an open assignment which makes it flexible and invites more interest (if i am wrong and we are given a topic already someone please let me know). this should also be interesting since i have never used images or pictures in an English class before.

on Wednesday we spent the class in the writing center mimicking instructors in search of plagiarism. i think either my group did a pretty good job at concealment or perhaps my first attempt at plagiarism spotting did not go so well. when Scot and the other instructors came in to speak about plagiarism, they made it seem so easy to detect and find the source. i definitely had a hard time and found nothing for about half an hour.

at first i was searching entire sentences with quotations as Scot had suggested. that returned very few results if any at all; in any case none which proved plagiarism. then i figured i'd shorten the sentences to phrases and sometimes even just words. this improved my search results slightly, but now i was getting too much material. my final trick was to keep the longer phrases but take out the quotation marks, and was finally able to find a few sources.

i can now see the ethics behind plagiarism from the grading instructor's point of view. we looked at only a couple papers, whereas a TA porobably looks at 60+ papers. imagine taking my struggles in searching for plagiarism and multiplying that by 60+. i can see now why some instructors get mad at students for plagiarizing, on top of the fact that it is just plain wrong.