logan_B2210 Working Critique I

The final form of Project 1 is a web-based work, with a simple homepage linking to the four different experiments conducted. I created the page using Wix, and placed each of the various media elements onto their respective page. Experiment one is created in photoshop, each image exported as a .jpeg, and then uploaded into a slideshow image viewer than allows for the user's control. Experiment two, below is documentation of the running list of saved links, and then a screenshot of how it is embedded via html code into the webpage from Adobe Spark. Experiment three is an embedded Vimeo link, created from the .mov file in Adobe After Effects. Experiment four is created using different audio player widgets, the individual .mp3 output files connected to each one.

I'm documenting the news links I've chosen to click on as visualize the webpage headline via screenshot in a scrolling format. This will be in contrast to the "Grid" of 4 previously selected websites whose homepage I am documenting each day. The visual documentation/prototype is here: https://spark.adobe.com/page/UigdBcVyQTPrN/ Then, I used the Apple voice reader to "read" out loud the headlines. The following two versions were created: first, in order of the visualized images, and then, as a cut-up, using words from each of the headlines. https://youtu.be/UOeKFsWwSXw  

Below are initial mock-ups/examples of Phase 2 of the project, which consists of taking the screenshot of four particular websites onto a grid. I have examples from 5 days: 9/26, 9/27, 9/28, 10/2 and 10/3. There are a few caveats that I will refine before proceeding in my continued documentation.  The first is to have a more standardized size of screenshot. Next, I will be more precise in placing the four images into the grid in exactly equal proportions. Third, I will seek a continuity across time of day that I make my documentations. Another altered step is to close or minimize all possible advertisements. The "Political Grid" quadrant map I used as a template for visualizing placing the screenshots 4 different sites on the same plane. However, I do not use this same vertical axis. Instead, I Place "corporate" on the upper half, represented by CNN & Fox News, and "Independent" on the lower half of the vertical axis. Again, CNN is not defined...

Title: Experiments in Visualizing the News Abstract:  A mixed-media work that seeks to provide insights and clues on the functioning of the news media in our contemporary moment, over the course of a two week period. Questions the work seeks to raise include: In our consumption of the news, how do we determine what story is most important? What outlets are directing our attention to a particular story and how are those related to the biases of the organizations and audiences? What politics is at work in determining the editorial decisions? What deserves our attention and for how long before another story takes over the top headline?  Proposal:   This project is a series of experiments related to my investigation into the news media and will take the form of mixed-media elements in three phases. In phase one, I will start by observing and recording my own news consumption habits for a two-week period. I will save and take a screenshot of every news article t...

Revised Proposal for Project 1 Reflection: After proposing an initial idea to create a documentary to explore the infrastructure of the broadcast media system, I immediately realized that this idea had to be changed into something more manageable for the time period allowed. To accomplish a piece that would fit the original vision will require different circumstances and resources. Instead of scaling the project back, I have decided to shift my focus onto something more manageable within the context of the due date for Project 1. I will instead propose a piece that allows me to do most of the work from the computer and in the studio, rather than heading out into the field on video shoots, and give myself a contained and immediate time period in which to focus my efforts.  Title: News Media Ecosystem Check-Up Abstract:   An observational documentary-style moving image work that seeks to keep an eye on the news media headlines, and how various outlets frame top n...

When art loses its materiality (painting, sculpture, photography) and becomes electronic data (digital media), how are we to assess it? Each of the readings provided a lot of questions but no certain answers in thinking through this phenomenon. N. Katherine Hayles approaches the question of media specificity through literary theory--and makes a case for  "positioning text against work" with the influence of Roland Barthes. When text is no longer just words on a printed page, but takes on a new effect through electronic "hypertext," Hayles makes a point that we must make a "careful consideration of what difference the medium makes." Here, navigation becomes a "signifying strategy," and the subject becomes transformed as not just a passive reader but as a participant in how the text unfolds. She declares: "Whether in print or on screen, the specificity of the medium comes into play as its characteristic are flaunted, suppressed, subverted, rei...

Title: Further Investigations into the Media Monopoly Abstract: A first-person, observational documentary-style moving image work 'lifting the hood' of the mainstream media, including but not limited to: its social/political history, its physical architecture, and its hidden infrastructure Intro your project idea: What allows our mass media systems to function? In New York City, the media capital of the world, there are the broadcasting studios and headquarters of all of the major media conglomerates. What physical spaces do these companies and productions operate in? What information and images are they creating and conveying on a daily basis? What technical components allow for the functioning of their operations? This project will explore these questions and more. Background : how does this project relate to your ongoing work?  This project is an extension of my previous interests and studies in media, as well my practice in shooting video, and editing together a...