In my work i hope to express my true identity through whatever i do, whether it is music or animation. I have a an abstract thought process when it comes to creatively expressing myself and i believe that is shown in my work and will continue to be shown. I feel that it is important to take risks and challenge yourself when it comes to artistic creativity, to give people things that have never been seen or heard before. I hope in the future to accomplish this task of giving a new and fresh perspective within the art i create.

For my final project i propose to create a short animated video clip. I also plan to write music for the video clip. The video will be 2 or so minutes long.

https://soundcloud.com/alexroth96

The main point the creator of the “remix manifesto” is pushing is that artists that remix music that is already created should not be illegal. Originally i disagreed with this idea completely but throughout the course of the film i realized i was on the wrong side.I do believe that people should be able to recreate other artists work to express their own ideas on that particular work.  I feel that this situation is similar to artists that use photoshop. Someone may use another artists work and manipulate it to where it becomes something new. I dont believe that this act is stealing, rather complimenting the other artist. The movie references Radiohead’s  severance from their record label to release their newest album online. They let their fans decide how much they wanted to pay for it.  They also made it easily available for fans to manipulate and potentially “remix.” Radiohead then posted remixes people did online on sites like spotify and their own website.

The film mentions numerous times the consequences of copyright infringement. I did not know the ridiculous punishments that occurred for illegally downloading music or using songs to create mashups. The fines that occur seem to be way out of proportion to acts of illegal downloading.  Most of the time the artists whose music is being stolen is not even involved in the case. The record label or whoever is the owner of the copyright is normally the one suing. The director of the movie numerously accuses “Warner/Chapel” as the main corporation that is just greedy and power hungry.

I agree on numerous points the creator of the film makes. With all these laws on copyrights and patents how are people supposed to be innovative and create? No idea these days are completely original. As an artist myself  i draw from numerous influences, who also draw from various influences. In fact, during the days before copyright laws artists would take each others songs and write them in their own style as a compliment or acknowledgement to the other artist. This was common back then and  should be now, the only thing that has changed is that corporations in the music industry have grown powerful and greedy.

First off, the reason i chose Philip Glass is that i am familiar with some of his work. His work consists of some of the most obscure sounds i have listened to.  These particular pieces are no exception to his obscurity.  His works contain a lot of “noise” as opposed to warm harmonies that sit well with the listener. The “songs” that Philip Glass created such as, “a secret solo” and “Building(excerpt from einstein on the beach)” are very shrill and chaotic. In referencing Russolo’s article “The Art of Noise,” he states that music has undergone a revolution alongside rapid increase of machinery use in human labor.  I feel that this statement directly correlates with the pieces of Philip Glass. The songs have a sort of “machine”  personality to them. It isn’t like electronic dance music or any of that sort, but more like if you were to set off a bunch of alarms on different machines, Philip Glass’s songs would be the recording of those sounds.

A valid point i found in the reading was where Russolo says that we must expand our minds from the generic formula songs. He believes that if we are to experience the sounds that may be harsh and tonal at first, they might grow into something more pleasing. I completely agree with this statement, if we were to have just this “heroic” or retributive soundscape in music it would become old and boring. But this goes both ways, i feel that if there is just noise though, it will get tiresome. The main point i think Russolo is trying to make is that with out expanding our minds to new areas of sound we will not be able to innovate further into music.

http://www.ubu.com/sound/glass_p.html

At first “A Hacker Manifesto” is a bit tricky to understand. I was caught off guard by the philosophy of hacking. I never thought of hacking as an abstract thing, just something people did to demonstrate their computer know-how or to steal information. From reading this i gained a new perception of the hacking world. What i first thought was interesting was the Wark’s idea that a creation of a new class divide had occurred. The class divide between Hackers and a Vectoralist class. The cause of this class divide Wark believes is from the rise in intellectual property. I feel in agreement towards his view on this, within hacking there are people who divulge information for the sake of spreading the truth and there are people who want to come into possession of this information.

The next thing i found interesting was Wark’s view on education. He believes that “education is slavery,” which seems to be a pretty bold statement.  Wark deems education as a way for the “ruling class” to kind of control what knowledge people gain. He says that education only grants people partial knowledge. I agree with this idea, it is impossible for someone to gain complete knowledge even if they go to school for their whole life. The next point from his section on education goes further into specifics on this “ruling class.” Wark explains that this “ruling class” can control other classes with capitol. The ruling class provides the money and the other class, the pastoralist class, provides the bodies to manage the equipment necessary for the job. I feel that this is an interesting view on the progression of society. Over the course of a couple hundred years the advancement of society has deemed what education was necessary. Such as progression through the industrial age, where society needed people to work in factories. So the owners of these factories, in a way provided the education for the workers to work in such factories.

Within the excerpts from “Seeing the brick,” is a case study pertaining to realism. The case study focuses on how animation can never be “real” since every process within animation is being constructed. The author says that animation can only mimic something ‘real’ as opposed to live action film. I disagree with this idea; I believe that live action film is just as ‘unreal’ as animation in the sense the text makes. Isn’t live action film something we construct as well? For instance within making a live action film there are people who create the set, which can be a fictional or non-fictional setting. Then there are people who create a script for which other people will read from.  These people will then read from this created script and act out the scenes others have created. In this sense aren’t these actors are the same as the created characters of an animated film? I believe that animation and live action film are both real they just have a different visual aspect to portraying the reality.

The author gives Disney as a basis to measure the amount of ‘realism’ in an animated film. The author states that an animated film can be defined as unreal the further it deviates from this model he gives called “Hyper-realism.” There are several examples within the text to describe the model of “hyper-realism;” the sound an object makes when it is depicting the “real” object determines how real the animation is. The “context and action” of an animated film also determines how “real” it is and finally, how accurately the animation depicts the movement of a human body. I feel as though all these things the author describes for determining how “real” animation is can be said for a live action film.

In my work i hoped to share my true identity rather than just a simple photo of my face. I wanted to express how big of a part music is in my life. In fragmenting my face upon the body of the guitar i wanted to create the illusion that i was fused with it. With merging my face with the guitar i own, i believe that i gave the viewer an idea that guitar is a part of my identity, both physically and figuratively.   The idea behind the different colors in this piece comes from the various music types I listen to. While creating this piece i listened to a few of my favorite artists to help inspire me. With listening to these specific artists, my mind associated their songs with certain colors. This is how i came up with the strange color scheme in the picture. I created several layers to this picture hoping that i could add a depth to the image. The depth within the picture is to signify the varied styles of music i listen to. I wanted the viewer to experience a very personal side to me, which is why every image in the piece is my own.