Wk 10: Portrait Photography

Landscapes with a Corpse

 

In Week 6 we tried Social Photography with our Instagram project. Some of our photos were great, but the overall aim wasn’t about traditionally compelling photography, rather it was a collection of photos that might say something about our relationships to our lives and to each other.

Last week played with Identity Art by “wearing” a different Identity for a day.

This week we try a photo that is in many ways a more “traditional” use of photography, The Portrait. But the twist is that it’s a portrait of how you think you might exit this mortal existence. Identity Art mashes up with Portrait Photography. Our inspiration is the photographer Izima Kaoru and you’ll find full details on the Landscapes with a Corpse page!

In terms of our Artists OTW, the photographs of Francesca Woodaman & Nikki S. Lee are quite different, yet both are self-portraits that say so much about Identity.

Discussion Qustions

One
Landscapes with a Corpse
If you’ve already taken your photo, then talk about your experience. If you haven’t taken it yet, then share your ideas. Or help each other brainstorm on scenarios, locations, props, ways to photograph.

Two
Free Culture
We know the Internet allows, or almost wants ideas, culture, and creativity to flow freely. We also know that lots of people, from giant corporations to individual singer-songwriters or photographers feel that they own their creativity and no one should use it without paying them first. What do you think? What’s your vision of a culture where we can share and perhaps remix with the many immediate tools on our desktops and mobile devices, but also honor and pay artists for work that we value?

What about your own website? Right now it might be mostly Art110 posts, but imagine that Ricki puts her year-long Aerospace Engineering project on her site, or that Sami posts videos of her acting work, or that Jenn posts essays and advice on health, fitness & lifestyle. What should others be able to do with that work?

• Can I go to the website and view it?
• Can I repost / reblog / embed Ricki’s photo or Sami’s video or Jenn’s paragraph on my website?
• Can I remix their work into a new or derivative work?
• Can I put it in my textbook?
• Can I sell it to NBC?

Three
Aaron Swartz
If you weren’t already familiar with Aaron Swartz, you can learn a little from my intro video and the trailer for the film The Internet’s Own Boy. You can also take a look at Aaron Swartz’ wikipedia page, or his website, or the Remembering Aaron Swartz website.

Is he a hero? A victim? A martyr? A criminal?

Lawrence Lessig defined “hacking” as using technical ability to advance a social good. Richard Stallman defines it as playful cleverness. What does hacking mean to you? Is it a positive word? Or something destructive? What responsibility do people with technical abilities have?

Discussion Groups

The discussion groups with Jenn, Ricki, Heather & Shamir seem to be working pretty well. Remember, if these 4 times are bad for you, just send me an email and you can host another time slot that works better. Otherwise, be in touch with Jenn, Ricki, Heather or Shamir to stop in at one of their time slots.

• Wednesday 9p with Jenn / Jsolis91 at aol dot com
• Thursday 6p with Ricki / cline dot ricki at gmail dot com
• Thursday 9p with Heather / hmichellebencivengo at yahoo dot com
• Saturday 2p with Shamir / shamir dot mohideen at gmail dot com

Art Talk 10: Free Culture

Art Talk #10 – Free Culture from Glenn Zucman on Vimeo.

In the video I talk about Creative Commons as an alternative to the traditional ©2014 All Rights Reserved. You each started your website 10 weeks ago and 2 weeks later you made an “About” page and put your “Hi, it’s me” vlog on it. But you never picked a license for your website. You never told visitors to your website what they can and cannot do with your work. Now’s a good time to do that.

The most Open thing you can do with your work is to place it in the Public Domain. The most Closed thing you can do with your work is to make it © All Rights Reserved. In-between those 2 extremes are 6 flavors of Creative Commons licenses. This video explains:

Here’s a rundown of the “flavors” of Creative Commons licenses: creativecommons.org/about/license

And by clicking a few boxes on this page you can get a CC License to put on your About page: creativecommons.org/choose

You have a total of 8 choices then, Public Domain, © All Rights Reserved, or any of the 6 flavors of CC license. Pick one and put it on your About page. You could make a “Terms of Use” heading and put it there.

I personally prefer a very open license and so I use Creative Commons Attribution for my own work. Another license a lot of people like is Creative Commons Non-Commercial. This license allows reuse and remix, but it doesn’t allow any derivatives of your work to be sold. It’s sort of a new community creating license: when you use CC-NC on sites like Flickr, YouTube, etc, you’re letting others make new works from your work, as long as they want to create culture in that same umbrella. But if NBC or the New York Times wants to use your work, then they still have to ask you and negotiate terms.

Artist OTW 10: Aaron Swartz

Aaron Swartz from Glenn Zucman on Vimeo.

Just last month, a year-and-a-half after Aaron Swartz’ January 2013 death, Brian Knappenberger’s documentary The Internet’s Own Boy was released. Below is the trailer for it. The Take Part.com website has links to buy or rent it from Vimeo, iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and others.