12/11/2010

     So today was another adventure of sameness.  Its funny how being in a new situation literally makes you alter all of your habits.  Our sleep work cycles are fairly stable but unquestionable skewed towards my temperament, which is to be in bed by about 5 or six am and arise around noon as a compromise between 10am and 3pm.  We must however always consider the food run, which may or may not consist of going to several different shops to get whatever is needed.  The refrigerator isn’t very big and there are no staple of huge mega groceries here to buy huge bulk items that will last you for a season.

Most shops here are not open on the weekend.  Let me clarify, most actual non-essential to tourism shops are closed on the weekend.  Thus is the curse of living in a tourist town.  I can’t quite wrap my head around the idea of clothing shops, fashion or otherwise being an essential to tourism but they are.  There is snow on the ground but I walk by a shop everyday that has a sandwich board style advertisement with a very tan and healthy looking female dressed in lingerie on it.  Seems out of place given the season, however well it suits its function.

            A month and a half and we still flirt with the idea of tourism on a daily basis as we head through the streets of Cesky Krumlov, the castle town, recent recipient of UNESCO historical distinction, on our way to stabilize our quasi normal lives with the basic necessities of life.

            It is also important to point out that we don’t have tourist money much less the mind set to constantly indulge in the luxury of tourism.  Tourism in this sense is defined by the odd sort of social commerce that takes place by which artifice is normally sought and employed under the guise of culture.  Am I talking out my ass, maybe?  But one example is in the manifestation of higher prices for similar goods and services based on location and tourism.  The understood notion that if you have arrived here you have money to travel and disposable income to spend on comfort.  Similarly, it may be also be acceptable to acquiesce that proprietors and service individuals should seek higher compensation for providing such comforts not withstanding such invisibles as being able to understand a multinational clientele that knows very little if any of the local language and customs.  When we walk into any store the shopkeeper can expect a certain level of miscommunication as we fumble through our intercourse.  “Why can I not find the word for Gouda cheese in my dictionary?”  So instead I ask for “cheese,” which cheese?....”Cheese please.”  Which salami?  “That salami, the salami next to the other one…no the other one.”  But this happens in my head because what is happening here is a complex conversation, not the one that is in the language course where I ask for beef and they give me beef.  Why?  Because I am a tourist and tourist do not go to the grocery store and ask for specific kinds of products.  We just point and grab at the expense of seeming slightly childish and dim.  The alternative is to go to a restaurant where you order off the menu…um and there will be non of this odd petulant questioning of weather the eggs can be poached instead of fried, or if its possible to substitute asparagus for the potato.  Why?  Because you don’t know how to ask for it so sit back and let the nice gentleman take care of you in his own quintessential cultural mode, because you came here to experience another culture, not enforce your own.  And with that, I smile and act very humble when I walk into someone’s shop knowing full well that it’s going to take extra long to help me pick out the right food item and I appreciate your patience and grace as I , no matter how inappropriate it may be,“ do not speak the language.”

12/10/2010

Drone#2 by Judasprime

     I signed up for a soundcloud account today.  The basic idea is again cloud storage, but it is a valid way to embed audio clips into a variety of websites, blog, and other applications.  Cloud computing is a tricky thing, boon or pitfall?  The great thing about cloud computing and cloud storage is in the ease of access from any location away from home computer or terrestrial storage device, also adding the advantage of ease of share and multiple contributors and input across geographic boundaries.  The idea of digital convergence becoming more integrated and less a sales tool- its actually becoming a necessity.  The evolution of the Internet has definitely begun to move in avalanche towards the cloud, of course the experts predicted this along time ago.  Apple’s move toward cloud commerce was signaled with the advent of itunes but has been sealed with the app store.  It is simultaneously exciting to see Apple endeavor to kill the CD/DVD rom drive with quickness, but also unsettling to consider the rise of the gatekeepers of online independence.  I’m not really here to say that Apple is a dark overlord.  My thoughts simply center on the idea of goods and services that are bought and sold- bought out or sold by larger corporation as assimilated into the parent company.  Many times these companies are acquired with the aim of augmenting their own stable of offerings and others being simply a way of killing off competition.  This has always been the case, however the question nowadays has been a matter of cultural, personal and intellectual property.  If Walgreen’s comes in and buys out or forces out the local pharmacy then for the customer the choice is simply how to proceed with getting their hair dye, band aids and maybe transferring over their prescriptions.  This outside of the local vs. big box corporate retail battles, nothing tangible of the customer is at risk (I generalizing here).  In the digital realm there is a trickier landscape being tread.  Take for example the various online social networking sites that at their core trade in personal information.  Does it seem odd that you must pay to find out what kind of personal info can be accumulated about you on the Internet?  And those operations such as Facebook claim your personal information as their property?  Claim you photos?  Claim your contact list?  Claim your accounts?  There is a site called http://www.seppukoo.com/ Seppukoo.com where by signing up it can access you FB profile and kill it.  It effectively renders your profile useless, as it seems.  Useless to you, useless to your friends, and most importantly for this discussion; useless to FB.  Useless in the sense that it is in fact antithetical to FB’s status and business model which is to acquire more and more information.  Seppukoo invites everyone to jump ship and take their friends as well.  Facebook has since of course issued a cease and desist order along the legal lines that access to Facebook accounts are in fact Facebook property.  Never mind that the Facebook user initiates the act of seppuku.  In normal terms this would be thought of as a rival company or service coming into a market and scooping up the customer base.  In the world of Walmart- this is just how you do business. 

            So why am I even blathering on about this other than it fascinates me and I draw my own conclusions about the state of the world as it evolves?  It also speaks to me in my thoughts about the idea of home.  We as a digital culture are constantly trying to make digital nests, homes if you will.  Seeking to stake some stake and claim to a sense of stability weather it be a personal homepage (sorry tripod) or a social network website that everyone isn’t going to abandon (sorry friendster) or maybe just wanting to make sure that your files are always easily accessible and on hand- just in case and when needed. Sorry Delicious, I was just finding a need for you.)  Our digital river runs fast and the eddies change drastically on any given day.  How does the idea of a digital sense of home function on the Internet when the foundations of some of the very platforms we support and stake claim to are as static as the boundaries regions on tectonic plates.

12/09/2010

     I think my separation from the US has made me more sensitive to things going on in the news.  Partly because I now have time to pay attention to the news again, but also probably because there is this last minute blowout going on in American:  How ridiculous can things get before the end of the year!?

            I just don’t know though, the more and more I watch the headlines and read the articles I am beginning to see things that really are disturbing me greatly.  There seems to be a great confusion going in American culture and more importantly politics.  It is clear to me that the pervasive mode of operation is to turn everyone against each other so that the people who can- can do whatever they want.  Look over there, red herring!  Oops it’s a blue herring coming right back at you!  I think that’s called flip-flopping! 

Everyone is in such a sad state that people speak from their asses even when it’s the most counter intuitive thing ever.  Someone said that politicians are playing a pimp game, which is true, but the person who said it has no political or social credibility so they were written off as crazy.  But it is true, and the example is the result of this type of tactic.  I tell you the truth but then someone mentions something else (true or not) to discredit me and therefore “my truth” is also nullified.  We have a gangster’s moxie political system in which we defeat what we do not like not by leveraging fact vs. desire, but rather falsehood vs. fear.  There are people who have convinced a very large segment of the population that not only do they have the populace’s best intention at heat, but also that regardless of what you think is best for you- it isn’t.  They tell is how to think!  And we do so. 

            The things that make me the most uncomfortable is that my viewpoints are unwittingly becoming aligned with the paranoid.  The problem really isn’t if I’m paranoid or not- it’s what if the paranoid really aren’t paranoid!?  No I jest.  The real problem is that the paranoid people are actually the people identified as being so far out politically that they have been effectively silenced in popular discussion because their views aren’t even valid to the general confusion that exists within the mainstream argument.  The political landscape is in reality very very vast and nuanced across the American populace.  What our current crop of politicians have done is distilled everything into a binary existence.  “DANGER WILL ROBINSON!”

12/08/2010

     I almost whish we had TV here.  I know it’s the demon and I probably get lost on the internet too much as it is but in lieu of constantly roving the Czech landscape taking in the sights, it is always interesting to absorb the cathode rays of a foreign land.  For foreigners it may be a bit put offish to stare at the screen and not understand context, however I find the flux of information new and fresh.  If you think about the screen as a frame one can interrogate the information as a series of puzzles consisting of color combinations, balance and visual rhythms in motion.  It is a challenge worthy of any soduku fanatic’s time to figure out how “SALE!!” is represented and if a particular product is being targeted towards males or using males to sell the item to women…or even if that is the strategy at all.  Deciphering tone and inference is more telling overall when it comes to advertising because when you don’t know what is said, you can only rely on visual and audio cues.  Also watching TV is an interesting way to pick up phrases- especially from game shows where repetition is key and the audience is generalized.  But I do not need TV.  I have enough to work on.  Movies and Youtube are the only distractions needed…except to escape these walls.

12/07/2010

Enjoy these photos from the second day of the Advent Celebration at the town square in Cesky Krumlov!

12/06/2010

I have been reading a lot about locative media as I comb through my twitter feed predominantly cluttered with tweets from UXfeeder, a feed dedicated to the development, marketing, design, study and theory of the internet and mobile technologies. Mostly the post have nothing to do with locative arts per say rather the underpinnings of some of the technologies being developed and the future implementation of global mobile tech. With that being said, I am realizing that I am on one hand woefully behind the curve, but on the other hand so is everyone else. One writer cited the fact that most locative media aps are designed from a business-to-customer model. Meaning that these apps are really big advertisements that do one thing- attract and maintain customers. And that inattention to design, interface and use for the “end user” is a major flaw for how locative media is evolving. The writer, who's name I forget asserts that companies with a social/communal/functional based practice will be the ones to help this segment of new media evolve by taking a look at who really benefits from locative media.

And here I stand, a stranger in a strange land thinking, "how in the hell do I find the bus stop?"

Travel is one of the biggest markets to study the needs of people and how they will (or would like to) use this technology. Information assistance is probably the number one thing travelers will whip out their mobile devices for, not simply to locate a Starbucks- but to read and translate signs. Augmented reality browsers that help decipher and guide a person either by audio (i.e. if someone might me sight impaired) or visually. (I will of course refrain from screaming that we need #cloud Internet.)

Other things of interest are open source engines for video content streaming; investigating non-corporate owned cloud hosting, sound apps and (again) audio friendly cloud hosting options like Soundcloud.com and divshare.com. Mostly as I am continuing this blog thing, I am becoming more comfortable with the ideas that swarm around content dissemination and the problems therein. Plus combining all this information (open source, cloud storage, communal sharing/remixing, mobility and marketing) is making me more and more excited, like my idea for a sound/locative art project could be done quite easily very soon- if I knew how to do it! I need some smart people to partner up with. Maybe if I do this: #locative art, then someone might read this on twitter and retweet it and someone will help me (and give me money). Does the Internet work like this? No? Well tell me how it does work because I understand everything else... I think.

12/05/2010

The second day of advent was held today. It was a night of angels and devils as both roamed the streets for young children to encounter. The fun part was watching all of these people dressed up as horrible creatures whose sole purpose that night was to frighten the wits out of children. The Angels were interesting too. They gave out candy to the children so they were “the good guys” I guess. All in all it was a very kid friendly and oriented event so the market looked like a pediatric drive-in with baby carriages lined up in rows, mothers and fathers beside them shivering in the winter cold.

So two little videos have evolved into two merely short videos with lots of edit time. I edited the video portion and Jennida did the sound.

Snow Globe-

The impetus for making this little video was to have a motion based descriptive image of the view outside my window of Cesky Krumlov during a light snow. After compulsively playing with all of the various footage I had collected over several days I began to craft a small piece entitled Snow Globe. It comes from thinking about the image as it is and how it almost looks like a miniature child's toy, a snow globe and how simplistic that function is. A snow globe contains a small scenic or landscape where when activated mimics the idea of a snow fall. I also was thinking about the role reversal in my situation, being behind glass looking out at a real snow fall over a real landscape. The simple allure of the snow globe is in the preciousness of the idea, a meditation on things far a way and foreign, or commemorates a trip or keepsake. Jennida composed the sound for the piece that I think combines very nicely, a sentimental mixture childhood innocence and adulthood complexitiey. She also put the finishing touches on the piece and produced two versions, LaLumier and Sombre. The two are fundamentally the same, but exude two slightly different feelings.

The Difference Between Reality-

I was walking outside one night during a light snow and I kept noticing the way the snow flakes entered the light field of the streetlights as I passed. I became so interested in the moment, or "drama of the scene" I felt compelled to capture the scene with my flip. These are the moments when we become attuned to phenomena and the simple beauty of motion and movement, but only if we are open to these occurrences. I ended up capturing the play between light, snow and the accumulation of water on my lens. The water drops produced and unexpected flaring within the image. To my imagination these aberrations of light must surely exist in nature much like a spirit or ghost. Knowing full well the phenomena in action, it still caused me to wonder about the idea of the real vs. the perceived. Does something truly exist if seen and experienced, and therefore by recording non-existing phenomena what about the experience was real? And then what if I manipulate the document of said "un-reality?" Jennida Chase again crafted the audio score to accompany the visual.