DMS Blog #7

Hello,

Well, first off I know this is way to short, but this is all I have. The last image is exactly what we see, the last image. Which in a video or movie is a black screen. Yet, Viola ties the last image in with death (black is the color of mourning). So, when you are 'on your last image' or you see your last image (that is, the last thing you see before you die) you die. Also, black refers to the pupil or the blackest part of the eye, the image viewer. The pupil converts the image to the correct position. Did you ever think that the world is really upside down and we view it well convert it to right side up? This comes to my mind when I think about cameras and how our eyes flip images so we see them correctly (well what we think is correct anyway). Well, I believe they are metaphors; the lasting image is life, the last image is death, and the temporary image are the obstacles we over come or the 'pauses' we take along the way, spur of the moment so to speak. Like Viola says, images are icons they are never forgotten, hence lasting image. The images stay hidden and stashed in ones mind. Therefore, when you die so do your images. However, this is why we need, we want, to look in to the eye (black) of someone else or our self. They say a picture says a thousand words, and looking in to a person's eyes is looking in to his or her soul and in this case I guess that is true. Sometimes we let others in on the secrets so they may live on again. A temporary image does not last but the last image has lasted and may live on or it may die with the holder of the image.

Signed,
Tired with a capitol Z

DMS Blog #6

Hello again,

This is just more pictures for my class...enjoy.

Signed,
Going to bed

DMS Blog #5

Hey All Remember Me,

Here is my posts for project #1.

 ORIGINAL

 EDITED

 ORIGINAL (THIS ONE WAS NOT EDITED TILL THE END)

 ORIGINAL

 EDITED

 ORIGINAL (THUMBS UP FOR THIS GUY LOL)

 EDITED

 ORIGINAL

FINAL POSTCARD
(darn my animation wouldn't load, but it is awesome :D)
Hope you enjoyed this, thanks for viewing.

Signed,

AMT

DMS Blog #4

Hello Again, Agh I'm getting tired of talking to you,

Anyway, in "The Paradoxes Digital Photography," Lev Manovich claims that "Digital Photography simply does not exist". What he means by this is, that everything is "going digital now", so anyone can create photos, make movies, etc. So, movies are taking the place of photos. Also, photography is an art. If anyone can do it, there are really no photographers, no editors, etc. hence no digital  photography. There is just digital art, for everyone. Manovich writes about the digital revolution, as he calls it. In this he states,  when T.V.s, X-rays, security cameras, computers, and digital cameras were becoming popular everything was dependent on digital computers. We humans percieve this as better, but are digital images really better than real photos? Are digital images worth questioning the concepts of realism and representation? Digital photography both strengthens and weakens the photographic image. With these questions he then argues that digital photography does not exist. He states that digital editing is not as traditional as before which confuses the concepts. With everything constantly changing photography may soon end. Everyone can make a movie now! Is there really a difference between digital technologies and their uses? No, therefore "Digital Photography simply does not exist".

Going off on a tangent, I felt it hard to write about his topic. I don't really understand his conccept, what is he arguing, and what he's trying to say. Honestly I completely disagree with him, digital photography does so exist so how can he say it doesn't? What am I supposed to say about that now? I think that I've said all I can say really but I'll right a little more to make the point clear.

Now, back to the essay. Another point in the essay, which by the way I don't understand why he put this in here but it works, is the socialist realism of Jurasic Park. He states that there are differences between traditional and digital  photography. Some of these differences are, one is a film based reproduction  of an image versus  its reproduction in a computer as a grid of pixels having a fixed resolution and taking up a certain amount of space on a computer. Original image versus an enhanced/edited image. You can recreate an event all on the computer (3-D/animations). Realism is studying 3-D computer graphics. Yet, the goal of computer graphics is not realism but photorealism which Jurasic Park does very well. So, this digital photographic work is real all to real (not digital photography, cause remember it does not exist).

Signed,
What's My Name

DMS Blog #3

Hey,

This is my photoshop assignment, horrible by the way. I can do much better, but I was kind of in a time crunch because my boyfriend doesn't know how to mail things. Hence, I still do not have my laptop charger, sad face. So, here is my project...enjoy. :)

ORIGINAL

 BACKGROUND CHANGE

 TRUE BLUE ON B&W

BLUE EYES B&W BACKGROUND

 ORIGINAL

 ORIGINAL

MY FACE ON JENNIFER ANISTON

Signed,

Yours Truly

DMS Blog #2

Hola It's Me Again,

Well, to start with I thought that in this essay he skips around a lot. At the beginning I was not too sure what he was really talking about. Towards the end I understood more of what he was trying to say. I think it was mostly the way he transitioned from one topic to the next that threw me off. At first he talks mostly about art, so the reader gets the idea that the essay is about how art is dead, but then he switches to technologies and how they are constantly changing. Then again, he returns to art, and the reader realizes that the essay is probable more about art.

Also, I do agree a little with what he is saying. Yes, everything is changing and there is always going to be something newer and better, but just because something else has "taken over" for the "lesser" product does not mean it has to be forgotten. There is always going to be "the next big thing" and everyone who "goes with the flow" is going to drop the old model and pick up the new one. Yet, there are some people who like the older products because that is "old reliable". Things from the past are not meant to be forever, but they are meant to be remembered, marveled, glorified. "The glory days" so to speak, which most of the time they are.

If Benjamin was able to travel in time and come to the present, I think he would have a heart attack and die. Ha ha, no just kidding. However, I do believe he would be shocked. He probably would feel that no art was truly original any more. Since, now we have the ability to create, recreate, edit, and enhance. There are so many recreations of original works of art that it is hard to tell what the original is any more. I think that Benjamin would given these new technologies every one can make art, every one can be an artist. So, therefore if every one is an artist then who really is a true artist? Honestly, I feel with this question there are so many possible answers, that I feel I am putting too much of my own opinion in to it. Well, I guess it is really how you interpret the essay. I feel that art is put more on the back burner now a days because before computers and cameras people counted on paintings to be remembered (events and people, etc.). So, painters were highly valued people. Yet, now we have cameras to capture moments. We have video cameras to capture events. We have programs, computers, printers, and scanners, etc. so we can create, recreate, and share. So, where is there a place for art? It's in time, minds, people, and places. It's every where really. We are just finding better ways to make it.

Ta ta for Now,
AMT

DMS Blog #1

Hello It is Me Again,

Turns out I will be blogging again. I am writing a blog now for my DMS 121 course, and for those of you who are like OMG (again for those of you...Oh My God) I do not know what DMS stands for!? Well, DMS stands for Digital Media Studies. Which by the way is what I am majoring now (Media Studies). Yes, GASP I changed majors, but that is a longer story. Anyway, on to the real reason I started this blog today...

My reaction to reading Nato Thompson’s essay In Two Directions: Geography as Art, Art as Geography, and Trevor Paglen’s essay Experimental Geography.

Well, for one I agree with what both are trying to say. I think that Thompson is trying to say that maps are art and everything shown on a map (buildings, towns, roads, parks, factories, etc.) is what we are what we have created. Paglen also talks about maps, but he does not call them art. He simply says that maps are updated all the time by different people, proving what he is aiming at the entire time people grow with what they create/learn. Architecture is art, therefore cities are art. Also, maps are drawings, and drawings are art. Thus, I think that essentially our knowledge of the world and what it looked like was blank. When people went out and discovered the land we had maps of "blank" land. Soon after these maps begin to change as towns were made as more things began to grow. So, essentially the maps started out as a blank canvas of which the artist (map maker, architect, explorer, etc.) laid his art. Thompson says, "We are the water-treatment plant," meaning we (people, every one, every where) are the land. Since we have created the look of the land (man made land forms, etc.), and we have created the things on it such as the water-treatment plant. So, when he says this he simply means, we are what we make and what we create.

Thompson tells the reader about Paris and how it was designed to use the space that it is in. This further explains the concept that towns on maps are art, since the architect of the city designed/created it meaning it is their art. Yet, what if someone else had been chosen to design Paris? What if Paris looked different than the way it does now? It would change the way we see it. It would change the way we perceive Paris, but it would still be Paris, it would still be art, and it would still be a part of our lives today.

Space is defined in the English dictionary as the unlimited or incalculably great three dimensional realm expense in which all material objects are located and all events occur. Thomas defines space as everything that has been created up until today. Paglen defines "the production of space" as humans creating the world around them and in turn being created by the world around them. Therefore, space is not a place, but is actively produced. Paglen says that the world is simply made of stuff and only stuff mostly created and evolved over time by humans.

Going back to what Thompson said about water-treatment plants, we are what we create. Similarly, humans create the world around them and in turn are created by the world around them. Therefore, both have the same point, in my opinion, without humans' creations we do not evolve.

Signing Off For Now BBL,
AMT (is back in black)

English Blog #10

Welcome to The Final English Blog,

I might have told you already but if not, I will tell you now, I started this blog for English and will end my English blogs with ten. So, this will be my last post. As you all know my first year of college is coming to an end, and it's turned out to be a pain in my ass. Luckily, I have no more Tuesday and Thursday morning classes, thank you world civ. teacher. If only I was so  luck in English class. I am just hoping the Monday (May 2nd) class will be canceled or maybe the teacher will do the surprise route, "OK class, thank you for all showing up and handing in your papers...now you can all leave. Have a great summer." Then I think to myself great couldn't have had us hand the papers in on Friday now I got up at 9:00am to hand in a paper.
Honestly, I quite enjoyed English. I just write seemingly bad things about the class because I know that my teacher reads them and I like to see her comments ha ha; I'm such a horrible person. Anyways, I do have to put something in here about the last essay. One, why, why did you have to make it the longest essay of the semester, why? As if you thought the first essay were hard to write, here write an essay that's a page longer, ha ha got ya there. Two, I really enjoyed watching the movie and even discussing the movie, but I am really not enjoying the assignments and essay that go along with it.
As much as I love English, and that's pushing it, I really hate writing essays. Well, I guess no one really does like to write them even the teachers. So, I guess I'll just take my medicine and finish the final essay. It's really not worth getting upset over. (330)

Signed For The Last Time,

AMT

English Blog #9

Hello All,

Well, it looks like my English blogging is coming to an end, this being my second to last blog. I promise I will come back with other blogs once I have finished my English work, that way you can actually learn about my life other than English class. I guess that's one positive thing that came out of this blog is that I actually like blogging ha ha. I have actually always wanted to make a blog I just didn't know how to do it lol. Anyways, this week has been a fail, big time. I've been having issues with my credits and scheduling for next year; none with English though that's like the only class I don't have to worry about. I just think that the last few projects are kicking my ass. I have two essays underway in english...God Bless Me, two projects in progress for American Diversity, and a huge ass project in studio. Thank God I'm getting a break form my World Civ. class otherwise I might explode. I guess I'll explode later when I have all these projects plus my World Civ. final to study for. Most people would say, oh, it's college it's supposed to be hard. But, it shouldn't be thins hard, it must just be me. I'm off my game and I'm panicing. Where's an easy button when you need one. I'm hoping it will get easier from here but maybe not. Honestly I'm looking forward to my next English class, I just hope to have an awesome professor like I had this semester. I knew I told you that she scared me in my first blog, but she's really a great teacher and a fun person. She just scared me because she's so enerjetic at 9 o'clock in the morning when she's sick as a dog lol. I guess it did make the class a little less boring. I'm just hoping not to get an old boring guy that believes English is so important that an English book is his Bible. I've heard from people that they have had English or Math teachers that were that boring. So, I really hope things get better because I'd rather not have anymore problems I've already had enough. (375)

Signed,
The one and only AMT

English Blog #8

Hello World,

News from yours truly, as you all know there are about four weeks left at University at Buffalo, or if you did not know that you do now because I just told you, anyways I am so excited for summer. One thing I am not looking forward to is having to take calculus over the summer. On a positive note we are almost done with the last essay in English. I am not saying I did not enjoy writing some of the essays but ironically I hate essays and I am so glad this is my last one. Now I just have two more to do for American Diversity and Design and I will be done with essays for the semester.
So, in all honesty the rest of my post today is doing to consist of what I am hoping is going to happen in English for the rest of the semester. One, I really hope there is no final I mean I wont be angry if there is one but I heard that we do not have one. Two, I am hoping that my professor has something fun planned for us. Since we are done with essays there is really nothing more we can do. So, (hint, hint) movie for a week lol. Well, it is worth the try maybe my professor will read this and be inspired ha ha, a girl can only hope.
Okay, I lied, I have one more thing to talk about. And yes, I know it is not about English but I just wanted to say it. I can not wait for summer, one I really miss my family and friends, two, I am sick of college, three, I really miss work (sadly), and four, I really hate college it is stressful and I am scared I am a failure I do not want to fail out of college. I just hope that all this college will not be for nothing. I hope I get what I came for and what I paid for because college is a lot of time and money that I will never get back.

Signed,
AMT ;)