Week 10 Task

The task for this week is to upload to our blogs some form of art we have created. I don't consider myself much of an artist but I do enjoy photography, so check out these pics I took while in New Zealand (they have been altered using photoshop).

Essay Topic

The topic I have chosen for the essay is topic no.3, which is as follows:

3. Digital media put the tools of production into the hands of the everyday computer user making it incredibly easy to produce content. These creative skills used to be something that people worked to develop. Now it appears that amateurs can produce content of a fair standard within a relatively short period of time. Where does this leave 'professionals' and highly-skilled artists? Choose one area of creativity and discuss some of the challenges facing practitioners vs amateurs in producing digitalcontent.

In response to this, I will explore how the rise of video sharing websites such as youtube and the availability of new software programs has impacted filmmakers, and allowed the average computer user to have their video content seen around the world.

I intend to explain the history behind destributing video over the internet, it's benefits as a distribution method, how this new means of sharing film/video has affected traditional filmmakers (including the proliferation of 'fan films'), what benefits digital filmmaking has over traditional filmmaking, among many other such questions.

Some sources I will use include http://www.flamingangelfilms.com/handout.html, which provides some information about the internet as a distribution method for films, as well as several links to online videos and video sharing sites. Another website which may be useful is this one, which is an article describing the benefits of digital filmmaking. This site provides an interesting interview with online filmmakers.

iReport

Check out our iReport News Story, it's basically just a short news report about the dust storms which plagued the east coast of Australia recently, enjoy.

Week 8 Tutorial

The tutorial tasks for week 8 involve political interaction through the internet.

The first such task was to sign an e-petition, so I chose to sign this one about preserving rainforests and protecting the environment.





I then went on to the task of discovering who my local state, and federal representatives are. Alex Douglas is the MP for Gaven and my local representative, Peter Lawlor is my state representative, and Steven Ciobo is the minister for Moncrieff and my federal representative.




The last time Alex Douglas spoke in parliament was on the 23 April 2009 about vegetation management, you can view the speech here.

Today Barack Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly about his "ambitious sweep of his foreign policy" (source). The video of his speech is below.



Apparently the Australian government has proposed that "Clean Feed" be used by Australian internet service providers. The system has been used for some time in the UK, and filters out content on the web deemed to be 'obscene', effectively censoring the internet. Implementing such a system in Australia, however, seems to contradict the rights inherent in a democratic society, most notably the right to free speech. Although the censorship won't go to the extreme extent that has been seen in countries like China and North Korea, it still limits the freedoms expected by the public and should therefore be discouraged. Furthermore, according to http://nocleanfeed.com/ this will slow down internet access and would prove very costly to establish.

Week 7 Lecture

The very enthusiastic Jason Nelson was the lecturer for week 7, and he discussed the benefits and problems of open source software. I was familiar with some of the torrent websites he mentioned, however I wasn't aware of http://www.portableapps.com/ which offers a variety of open source (and therefore completely free) software for portable devices. He also visited http://www.secrettechnology.com/ to show off some of the games and programs that he has made, most of which are quite unusual to say the least.

One of the freeware applications which I have used for some time is Audacity, an audio editing and recording program which offers a wide variety of features, while remaining very user friendly.

Week 6 Lecture

The Lecture for week 6 was all about mobile content, and how consumers are able to enjoy and produce entertainment on the go. The methods of delivering such entertainment were divided into two categories: "Big Screen" (being cinema, television, and personal computer), and "Small Screen" (compromised of more portable technologies such as the personal media player, iPod Touch, and mobile phones). Also discussed were the ways in which consumers can interact and create new content for the web, in some cases using their mobile phones. Check out www.fanfilms.net and http://www.thetrailermash.com/ for examples of user-made video.

Week 6 Tutorial

View Roadtrip in a larger map

Here is a map of a road trip I designed in Google Maps, it's quite the journey.

The website http://personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb.html provides an interesting and somewhat artistic way of displaying search information, unfortunately though, it's not very accurate. This is what was it generated when I typed my name in:



www.sketchcast.com is a google-esque video sharing website, with all the videos featured being drawn by the contributors. Check http://www.sketchcast.com/view/MB7vBYR for my video (I didn't embed the video as for some reason it refuses to work in my blog).

Along with Sketch Cast, more and more creative spaces are emerging on the web, providing users with information presented through unique methods and new ways to interact with cyberspace. The following are just a few such websites.

http://generatorblog.blogspot.com/ highlights software which allows users to generate various personalised pictures, sayings, and even Phat Rap Names online.

"Mashable" is a "social media guide" which features websites that find niche uses for popular software/websites such as mapping filming locations of Doctor Who on Google Maps.

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/index2.phpis an online map which displays current biological, natural, and other disasters occurring around the world. This provides an effective visual representation of information, making it easy to be comprehended by the user.

http://www.speedtest.net/index.php?nojs=1 is a useful tool in checking the speed of a computer's internet connection.

www.polyvore.com is an example of a site which combines elements of online shopping, social networking, and art to create something unique.