san francisco murals

Hi All,

Below is my video about Precita Eyes and murals in San Francisco.

~Julia

Excerpt from The Last Graduation

This film is about the closing of many of the prison education programs.

Prison Focus Week

So I wanted to take advantage of this space to let you all know about the Prison Focus Week. We have some really interesting people coming to speak to us throughout the week and, next weekend, is our yearly Green Haven Reunion. If you are interested in the criminal justice system, have taken Mamiya’s class or just want to learn more, please come by!

Monday, March 31:
7pm in the AULA
Opening of the Prison Art Exhibit. Calvin Frett who works on the Peter Black Prison Art Collective is going to set up his work in the AULA. Come to our opening, or just stop by the AULA during the week. The exhibit will be open on Tuesday and Thursday from noon to 5pm, on Wed. from noon to 9pm and on Friday from 5 to 7 pm.

Tuesday, April 1:
5:30pm in Taylor 203
Mary-Beth Pfeiffer will speak about her book “Crazy in America: The hidden tragedy of our criminalized mentally ill”. A former editor of the Poughkeepsie Journal, Ms. Pfeiffer did a series of investigative articles exposing the treatment and problems of the mentally ill in N.Y. State Prisons. As a sign of her success, she is now permanently banned from N.Y. State prisons.

Thursday, April 3:
5:30pm in the ALANA Center
Karla Brundage, an English major at Vassar (class or 1989) will be doing a poetry reading from her first published poetry collection, “Swallowing Watermellons”. She tracks her life experiences as a biracial young woman, a single mother, and an artist activist. She has participated in Poetic Protests, and teaches poetry to youth in the penal system, as well as men and women in maximum-security prisons.

Saturday, April 5:
10:30 am to 5pm, AULA
Green Haven Reunion! This annual event brings together formerly incarcerated men from Green Haven and Otisville prisons, formerly incarcerated women, Vassar alums who worked with them, community activists on prison issues, and current students, faculty, and administrators in a day long focus on prison issues. We will have workshops in the afternoon, which people are more then welcome to participate in. The workshops will be: “College Prison Program at Vassar”, where we will discuss efforts to get Vassar to teach classes in prisons, “Women in Prison”, where we will discuss the experiences of women in the criminal justice system, and a workshop with people from Drop the Rock (the coordinator and other Vassar alums involved in the program are coming to Vassar!), who work on repealing the Rockefeller Drug Laws.

Please come!
Juliana

<3 technology, right?

after seemingly an eternity of trying to get this monster of a file to upload on veoh since you can't upload videos longer than 10 minutes on youtube, i finally have found success.

here is my project. it runs about 12 mins. but there's good stuff in it, i swear.

alana


Online Videos by Veoh.com

My Video

Here's my attempt at creating a video. It's very short and simple, as I've never made a video before. It's basically a juxtaposition of a promotional view and an experiential view of Vassar. I found the Vassar promotional slide show on youtube, which I thought was laughable, and then a couple experiential videos about Vassar made by students (which show the realistic things like co-ed bathrooms and stealing from the retreat). I wanted to put text in to explicate it more, but imovie was being difficult and wasn't letting me. Anyways, here's the video:

-Lindsay

Disney = Children's Media?

This is a video of clips from Disney's The Lion King, Return to Neverland, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. All of the clips were found on Youtube.




I picked these clips in particular because I thought it was interesting how children's stories can come across depending on whether the story is read in a book, or viewed on screen as a movie. In regards to films, it might also matter whether a film is live-action or animated. I think that depending on the form, the amount of violence, or things like death and murder in these stories is either amplified or toned down. I originally had five clips saved on a play list before deciding on the three I used, so if you're interested in viewing the whole play list, here it is:



-Laura

The Sad, Lonely Life of Jon Arbuckle

I was browsing through BoingBoing (a sweet site full of tasty internet miscellany) a while ago and I came across a posting about Garfield Minus Garfield. This is a daily comic created by removing any traces of the orange feline from classic Garfield strips. The result is a sad, hilarious, and usually creepy look into the mind of a guy who has chosen to spend most of his day talking to his cat. The creator himself considers it a meditation on "schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life." All interesting themes, to be sure, and the strip certainly does make you think. By removing the personable furball from the strip, the relationship between pet and owner is stripped away, and we are forced to consider Jon as a real individual. How would we react to him if he wasn't accompanied by a cartoon cat who talks and, what's more, makes witty quips? I like this little piece of alternative media, because it creates an entirely new perspective on a well-established cartoon personality by simply removing a key piece of context. I loved Garfield growing up, and I always loved Jon's outbursts and nerdy episodes; this is just icing on the cake.

"Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade..."

I have been doing research on “digital citizenship” for a class called “Democratic Engagement” and in my reading I came across this passage: “Mark Warschauer…identifies a number of literacies associated with computer and Internet use which he argues are necessary for social inclusion in the information age. Skills vary widely including information literacy (the ability to find, evaluate, and use information online) and technical competence” (Mossberger et al. 14). Mossberger et al. later argue that in order to develop these skills necessary for social inclusion and citizenship, people must have a considerable familiarity with the internet, and computers in general, which only comes from frequent and informed use. This is why nation-wide efforts for free or discounted municipal wi-fi—particularly in poor neighborhoods—are so critical as launching points for broader technological literacy that facilitates democratic engagement and inclusion among largely disenfranchised low-income populations. And why this recent article in the New York Times is so disheartening:

"Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out"

Polina

"...this Gaza!"

A video collage of news footage from Gaza, focusing on children and the recent attention on Hamas TV's programming. "...this Gaza" refers to Ghassan Kanafani's Letter from Gaza (1956), from Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories.

Video sources:

Al Jazeera English, "Gaza's political children's show," 26 Feb 08

Al Jazeera English, "Gaza's lost childhood," 23 Mar 08

CNN Headline News, Glenn Beck Show, 13 Feb 08

Occupation 101: Voices of the Silenced Majority (Documentary, 2006)



- freddy

Moonvertising

Yep - you can probably guess what that word means. Rolling Rock's new advertising campaign claims that they will advertise their beer on the moon, along with any messages others want to put up there. Now, this is almost definitely a hoax, although apparently Coke actually tried to do this back in '99 (the FAA wouldn't let them do it to airplane traffic laws). Still, what does this say about our culture's perspective on nature as terrain yet to be commercialized? And what about the willingness to expand the public sphere to the skies - which will undoubtedly invade private space? Just something to think about - here it is: www.moonvertising.com

Eric

Sucre en Comunidad

A friend of mine went to Venezuela this winter break to do research for his thesis. He came back with a couple of magazines from the “Prensa Alternativa para la Parroquia 23 de Enero” (Alternative Press for the Town of January 23rd) called “Sucre en Comunidad”. These publications are really great. People from the community can all publish in it and they cover a different topic on every publication. One of the publications he brought back talks about “going to the streets”. In it, there are articles on the importance of not throwing garbage on the streets and information on new internet centers open to the public. I thought this was such a great way of engaging a local community in order to talk about issues that are pertinent to the population of 23 de Enero. If you are interested (and can read Spanish), Sucre en Comunidad has a site (http://www.el23.net/principal.htm) and a blog (http://sucreencomunidad.blogspot.com/).

Juliana

Getting Around Po'Town!

SOOOOO, I've been doing some research about the Vassar Community shuttle and would like to include it somehow in our final project. If you guys didn't know, there is a shuttle that leaves from main building every half hour and runs from 2-7 on weekdays. It goes primarily these hours for people with field work, but anyone who goes to Vassar can use it. The shuttle is interesting to me because it is the first of its kind at Vassar. Finally Vassar students can get off campus and go to some pretty cool places farther down on Main Street without a car or taxi e.g. the Muddy Cup (a coffee shop), Twisted Soul (Asian Fusion), Soul Dog (lots of different kinds of toppings and lots of different kinds of hot dogs). Not to mention a couple of art galleries (Cunneen-Hackett Art Center and the Lower Main Street Art Galleries). The Shuttle might even start running to the train station and they are thinking about weekend and evening hours.

So how can we tie this into our final project? I am thinking that we can work this into a zine about Vassar and Poughkeepsie relations. This shuttle could be thought of as a possible solution to the Vassar/Poughkeepsie divide. We could work the opinions of non-Vassar people into this zine as well.
This of course would be only a part of the overarching big final project. What do you guys think?
I would also like to interview people who ride the shuttle and the people in charge of it as well to get a better idea of the whole situation. I've already talked to a number of people though and it seems like a really great thing. You can learn more about it here on the vassar website.

BACK TO NORMAL

After the spike, things have calmed down. So if I say "Ring Rock Star" will it spike again?

Vassar's Tap is Back! (my youtube video)

Hi everyone!
Welcome back from break!

This is the YouTube video I made for our class.
Take Back the Tap is a national campaign to decrease dependence on bottled water and, well, take back the tap!

This is the first video I've ever made of any type. I couldn't stop being amazed by the amount of things I could do from my own personal computer- mixing a song, editing video, inserting subtitles! It made me understand how powerful of a medium YouTube/video production equipment for regular computers really is.

Vassar's Tap is Back!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeCRP-1L-JU

I hope you enjoy it!
Marisa

In case you're interested...

Quarterlife was cancelled after one airing. Couldn't compete with American Idol. (Shocker, I know.) Remaining episodes may one day appear on Bravo.

alana

Eddo Stern: Beyond video games

Light Industry Contact Thomas Beard for further information ::
thomas@lightindustry.org (646) 420-0359 http://www.lightindustry.org
QQ More Curated by Eddo Stern
April 8, 2008 at 8pm 55 33rd Street, 3rd Floor Brooklyn, NY Ticket Price - $6
Artist Eddo Stern presents a screening of fan-made machinima from the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft, focusing on videos that operate outside of the traditional reverence of fan art and the game world's own parameters, such as those dealing with real-life death, pornography, and drugs. While only dubiously subversive, they nevertheless reflect a compelling phenomenon, one in which a more hermetic idea of "fantasy" as cordoned-off reality (seen in hardcore role playing) is being replaced by pseudo-fantasy genre games like WoW that spill over into the real world, and vice versa, through the homebrew manipulations of its multitudinous fan base.
Featured titles, among others, will include:
Rest in Peace Ignoramus
Amongst Fables and Men
Serenity Now
Drakedog's Suicide
Where Evil Grows
Welcome to Exploration (DOPEFISH)
Sex Junkie (French)
Broadcast Yourself (Gunter Soundtrack)
Wowsexual
Tribal Gnome
Stern will also be showing his recent video Best... Flame War... Ever... (King of Bards vs. Squire Rex, June 2004), which recreates an argument about degrees of expertise within the computer fantasy game Everquest, as followed by the artist in June 2004 on the Alkhazam online gaming message boards. Rendered in 3D animation at once elaborate and oblique, it serves as a spot-on ethnography for a particular slice of 21st century nerd culture and the thorny political terrain that surrounds it.

About Eddo Stern
Eddo Stern is an artist and game designer. He was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and lives in Los Angeles. He works on the disputed borderlands between fantasy and reality, exploring the uneasy and otherwise unconscious connections between physical existence and electronic simulation. His work explores new modes for narrative and documentary, experimental and multidisciplinary computer game design, and cross-cultural representation in new media. He is the founder of the now-retired art and technology cooperative C-level, where he designed and co-produced the experimental computer gaming projects Waco Resurrection, Tekken Torture Tournament, Cockfight Arena and LA MOOd. He is currently developing Darkgame, a sensory deprivation computer game. His work has been widely exhibited at international venues including the Tate Gallery Liverpool, the Walker Art Center, Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia, E3, GDC, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the ICA London, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, ICC Tokyo, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

http://www.eddostern.com

Lotsa Hits

The blog got a lot of hits based on Eric's posting of the Ring Rock Star spam.

These are the last 100 hits And here is the distribution.

swede your own

http://www.deitch.com/projects/sub.php?projld=231&orient=v

Info on 700MHz Auction

I fount this site on Engadget very informative (and relatively non-techy) for those of you who'd like to know more about the auction and what it means.

alana

Alternative Media UN Style

i spent last week in nyc at the UN's 52nd session of the commission on the status of women. there was disappointingly little talk on media (and disappointing results when there was talk.) for instance, i attended a panel on financing the sex industry and sex workers which turned out to be, in large part, an attack of pornography with no concession to the possibilities of alternative feminist pornography or consensual, non-misogynistic representations of sexuality on screen. 

but one of my favorite events was a screening of a documentary by two women producer/directors, Kathy and Becky Sangha called "Leading the Way to Peace," which follows the lives of 4 women peacemakers from various countries (including Sri Lanka and Guatemala) and their efforts in post-conflict/conflict environments. i had the chance to talk to the directors who have also produced a documentary through their production company, sun and moon vision, about LGBT middle school and high school students and have other projects in the works following 4 other women peacemakers as well as an updated doc. on LGBT students. pretty great stuff.

abra

DeeDee's Right: See Be Kind Rewind

This is less of an informative post and more of a reactionary one, because I saw "Be Kind Rewind" yesterday. I would have loved the movie whether I was in Alternative Media or not, but in the context of this class it was even better. I felt like I was watching DeeDee's utopian vision for community media manifest, if Jack Black, Mos Def, Mia Farrow, and Danny Glover all lived in a small community together. I found it really surprising, but refreshing, to see a big-name film portraying a community having both more fun making their own versions of movies and finding a power and strength in that. I'm interested to see if this film produces a much more participatory and creative fan appreciation. So far I don't see a lot of people "sweding" movies themselves, but there is a "How to Swede" video on youtube done by Jack Black and Michel Gondry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5Rd8x4OJoY

-Lindsay

Archive Fever

"Archive Fever," a current show at the International Center of Photography, includes "Front Page 9/12," a collection of 100 front page world newspapers from September 12, 2001. There is, in the caption on the wall identifying the artist as Hans-Peter Feldmann, from Dusseldorf, a phrase. Something to the effect of "revisiting not the event but its aftermath through its mediatized manifestations."

Better than all the 9/12 newspaper covers, whose purpose and critiques are hardly clear, is Harun Farocki’s and Andrei Ujica's Videograms of a Revolution -- "a montage drawn from 125 hours of amateur and professional archival video footage shot by journalists and ordinary people during the chaotic ten days of the Romanian Revolution in December 1990. The film not only refutes conventional models of media critique and theories of spectacle, it exploits the techniques of spectacle as a tool with which to construct a view of history."

- freddy

Spam/Solicitation in the future

So, I remember a while back I had to text a number on my cell phone to ensure that I was put on a "no solicitation" list. I remember being completely in awe that corporations would even be allowed to do such a thing - cell phones are hyper-personal, more so than land line phones. I mean, my cell phone number essentially acts as my second Social Security number - a number assigned specifically to me. What right does anyone have to retrieve that information without my knowledge?

Well, lo and behold, a couple days ago I got a spam message - not on my cellphone, not via e-mail, but - through Facebook. I don't know if this new or not, but it's certainly the first I've heard of it. I got a message on my wall from one of my "friends" (someone who I have not talked to in years, which, in itself says quite a bit about Facebook) saying "Sure! I get my ringtones from www. RingRockstar .com". The correct capitalizations and punctuation are a dead give away that this person did not in fact write this message.

What's most detestable is the phantom approach - I got an e-mail saying THIS girl WROTE this on MY wall - not RingRockstar.com writing on my wall, but a "friend". How long before Facebook and other websites fall victim to these schemes?

Eric

Ribbons

So we have started planning for Sexual Assault Awareness week in April and one of the programs we brought up was the white ribbon campaign. This made me think of how we use alternative media during this week to raise awareness about issues of sexual assault and violence. The white ribbon campaign (http://www.whiteribbon.ca/) is part of a national movement for men to end violence against women. The idea is to get guys wearing white ribbons in order to raise awareness about the issue of sexual violence. Though the campaign relies on the idea of heterosexual relationships and defines sexual assault as something that only happens to women, it is still interesting to think of white ribbons as a way of raising awareness about the issue. Something we also do during the week is have one in four people at Vassar wear yellow “1 in 4” shirts to symbolize the 1 in 4 women who get sexually assaulted by the time they graduate college. Again, shirts are being used as a powerful tool to raise awareness about sexual assault.

On a completely different note, this weekend I went to PS1 to see the WACK! exhibition and I really liked it. I think one of my favorite “pieces” was this installation of mattresses. I think the idea of the work was to “re-claim” mattresses, a place were women are violated and where sex workers work. It was very interesting…

Juliana

Adapting to New Technology/New Technology Adapting to Us

I know that we have discussed the affects of the internet and new media on our society, but I have been thinking a lot lately about how we are adapting our habits and needs to new technology and how new technology is adapting itself to our needs and habits. A friend of mine from high school just recently had a baby and throughout the experience she was constantly updating her facebook profile and myspace page with very private information. A few days before she delivered her status on facebook was how dilated she was and the very next day after she had delivered she posted a photo album online. Among other things, some of the pictures included my friend in labor and the baby before it was cleaned off. I understand that with the ease and speed of the internet posting a photo album online is a much more efficient way to share the news and photos of the baby but I was still a little taken aback at how this very private and personal experience was being presented in such a public manner. Those are the types of pictures and the sort of information shared with close friends and relatives. Even with having a private profile on any of these sites there are always more people than intended who are able to access this private information. I found it very interesting how such an exciting but very intimate and private moment in a persons life was able to take on such a mediated and public feeling. This brought up some questions for me such as can the internet truly take the place of such an experience as sharing pictures with loved ones in person? Is the internet an aspect of new technology adapting to our ways? Or are we changing our habits and ways to adapt to new technology?

~Liz

YouTube/Video grabbing sites/programs

Different Video Sites:

* YouTube
* Archive.org
* Google Videos
* Islamic Tube
* God Tube
* Jew Tube
* Hindu Tube
* East African Tube
* Native American Tube

etc...you get the point. The list goes on and on.

So you found your cool and interesting videos to curate. Now what? Well, there's:

• YouTube Playlist
• If you don't feel like dealing with downloading and editing YouTube videos, you can create a playlist in your YouTube account to organize a bunch of videos and play them all in order
• You'll find this under Accounts (you must create one) --> Manage My Videos --> Videos, Favorites, and Playlists --> Create Playlist (on left side)
  
• Once you've created a playlist, when you see a video you like, under the video click "add to playlists" and find the one you added
• You can customize your playlist and play every video in sequence
• You can also get an embed code if you want to upload the video sequence to the class blog

or (if you want to use videos not in YouTube and want to edit the videos)...

• SnapzPro (takes a video screen shot of whatever you put the box around)
• Download trial version (lasts 30 days) for Macs (sorry PC people!)
  
• Open snapzpro in Applications OR hold down command (apple key) + shift + 3
  
• click on 'movie'
• make sure only thing checked is "Mac Audio Track"
  
• If you want betterish quality, change the frames per second (fps) to 30 rather than 10
  
• size the box around movie box (such as youtube video box)
  
• double click in the box to start screen shot, invisible man says "Action!"
  
• start playing your YouTube video (or other)
• when finished, stop recording by holding down command + shift + 3 again (invisible man will say "CUT!")
• find quicktime movie on desktop

SnapzPro is cool because it captures video clips from any video playing on your screen, from any site. It is also cool because it makes the movie into a quicktime file (.mov) rather than a flash video (.flv) which you would otherwise have to convert to .mov, so you can just open your file right away in a video editing program! There are instructions on the linked SnapzPro site too.

or

• YouTube Video Grabber
  
• This is also for Macs. You just download the program, open it, and paste the YouTube url into the place that says "youtube url" at the top
• Click "get url"
  
• At the bottom of the box look for where it says "convert to" and change to .MP4 (mpeg4 is slightly better than .mov but both work)
• Change to 30 fps for better quality
• Change video size to 640x480 (for better quality)
  
• Click "convert FLV"
  

YouTube Video Grabber is nice because it both downloads YouTube videos AND converts them to a usable format all in one.

or

• video download tool
  
• Paste video url from YouTube
  
• click "get video"
• You will now have a .flv file, which you need to convert to .mov or .mp4 using the next program:
  
• Convert .flv to .mov or .mp4
• you don't need to download anything for this; just find your .flv file on your computer and choose 'flash video' from the 'input format' drop down menu
• under 'output format' choose .mov or .mp4

These two tools are backups if youtube video grabber doesn't work, but it's two steps, which is sort of annoying. The plus side is that you don't have to download programs. There are hundreds of tools and programs such as these online and I just suggested these few.

PC users! Sorry! I'm sure there are lots of programs like these for PCs, so just google and look for them. I couldn't test any out because I don't have a PC. Anyone feel free to come to the Cloisters and use our computers with huge hard drives and download away!

After you have all your .mov or .mp4 files, you can import them into iMovie or Final Cut Pro. I'll post on basics of Final Cut Pro soon.

Hope this helps!

Let me know if you have questions/comments/additions. I work in the Media Cloisters:
Monday 3-5
Tuesday 2-5
Thursday 2-5
Friday 2-4

or email brkaplan@vassar.edu

-Brittany

Why Net Neutrality Matters

This is from Mute Magazine:
by Saskia Sassen
Today the Internet is no longer what it was in the 1970s or 1980s; it has become a contested space with considerable possibilities for segmentation and privatisation. We cannot take its democratic potential as a given simply because of its interconnectivity. And we cannot take its 'seamlessness' as a given simply because of its technical properties. This is a particular moment in the history of digital networks, one when powerful corporate actors and high performance networks are strengthening the role of private digital space and altering the structure of public digital space. Digital space has emerged not simply as a means for communicating, but as a major new theatre for capital accumulation and transference. But civil society is also an increasingly energetic presence in cyberspace. The greater the diversity of cultures and groups, the better for this larger political and civic inhabitation of the Internet, and the more effective the resistance to the risk that the corporate world might set the standards. The Internet has emerged as a powerful medium for non-elites to communicate, support each other's struggles and create the equivalent of insider groups on levels ranging from the local to the global. We are seeing the formation of a whole new world of transnational political and civic projects.
Saskia Sassen is a professor at The University of Chicago. Her latest book is Globalisation and Its Discontents, New York: New Press, 1998

More on Seat-Warming: Analog Service Denial?

February 28th, 2008 Comcast’s “seat-warming” execs can’t be trusted Posted by Robin Harris @ 7:19 am

Comcast hired dozens of “seat-warmers” that kept others from attending a Monday FCC hearing held at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society meeting room for an FCC hearing. God forbid that the public be seen at a hearing intended to solicit public comment. Then they lied about it.

According to an article in the Washington Post, Comcast acknowledged that it hired an unspecified number of people to fill seats, but said those people gave up their spots when Comcast employees arrived to take their places. Catherine Bracy, administrative manager of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, disputed that assertion, saying most of the three dozen seat-warmers . . . remained during the event’s opening hours, as many other people were turned away. “No employees came in to take those seats when the event started,” Bracy said. “Put the crack pipe down and take 2 steps back!” Nothing says confidence like hiring people to stack the audience.

Comcast justified its actions, saying "Comcast said it hired seat-holders only after the advocacy group Free Press urged its backers to attend. ...For the past week, the Free Press has engaged in a much more extensive campaign to lobby people to attend the hearing on its behalf,” the company said in a written statement. You haven’t heard of the powerful lobbying group Free Press? Me neither. But they have Comcast shaking in fear. And taking stupid pills by the fistful. Trust Comcast to regulate the Internet? They can’t manage the PR for a public hearing let alone the Internet.
Morons.

The Storage Bits take
Net neutrality means the telcos are common carriers who are not allowed to discriminate against some users. The principle goes back over 150 years to the early days of telegraphy. That this principle is even being debated is a tribute to the power of the telcos and their “seat-warmers” in Congress and the FCC. Comcast can’t be trusted and neither should any other telco.

Robin Harris has been selling and marketing data storage for over 20 years in companies large and small. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.