Social Networking and me

I hold accounts on both Facebook and linkedin for mainly professional reasons. Facebook and linkedin allow me to maintain my contacts with artists I've known and worked with over the years despite that so many are living in foreign countries. I relocated to upstate NY and while "not that far" is still a journey requiring preparation that kills any kind of spontaneity. Now instead of getting a hold of LN at HERE (spring/broome) and going over to the eastside to one of many special spots to catch up, I can poke her on Facebook and find out what's up. I really like that I do feel connected and I think many other folks I know do too. The otherside is all these people from your hometown that find you out. And that is sweet too -- I like to see everyone I remember doing well. Even many of my cousins are on Facebook and I have MANY cousins.

Linkedin I need to do more work with I've been passive so far and hadn't had much time to fiddle. It feels more serious. MySpace, I spy on youth culture on MySpace for research purposes and am not into the music scene in a serious way so for me it's a great place to advertise (when I wear my day job hat) and that's about it. I also advertise on Facebook and have enjoyed this experimental marketing.

Twitter I haven't touched -- too immediate for my liking (I hate the telephone myself). But, perhaps it's just the demo I saw that introduced me to it. The lady was pretty snotty and was talking about how to keep lame people out of Twitter. I'm pretty careful about who I'm friends with online but at least want to believe in its inclusivity factor. It is still an experimental medium and the point is that people should feel safe to try things out (appropriateness ? is still hard to judge, enforce, define here).

Bookmarks

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These are my delicious bookmarks, I've had an account for over a year now but have not gotten totally into it yet. But, I am very excited about it for research purposes. I need to find time to spend on these, but here's what it is so far...

Cover Band

The video "Cover Band" is my educational video. I think doing an instructional video would be fun but I went this way today and consider it a sketch. The reason it's called "Cover Band" is because I sampled all the source off Utube, save my V.O. of the Port Huron statement (Tom Hayden). I am of techno DJ culture era and refuse to not work with popular material already out there. As a scholar, I am entitled to cite other people's written works and understand very well the process of gaining permission to use images. I think quoting is flattery that builds knowledge and that we create nothing new without doing so. I was fortunate enough to catch Creative Commons' Lawrence Lessig speaking this summer and have to say I'm really looking for creative freedom not an affordable lawyer. I still agree with DJ Spooky that it is the edit that is the art. But, while all this controversy over images continues, I'll post just a sketch of some thoughts I've been putting together.

The Listener

The Listener on Blip.tv

"The Listener" takes a look at listening during a narrative. I was looking for a common narrative, one that most people in New York could relate to, the "where were you when JFK was shot?" type of question for today's generation. I thought of 9/11 and the power outage of August 2002 as being collective experiences in New York memories. A lot of the listener's job is to pay attention to the other but often they zone out or begin remembering their own experiences while the other person is speaking. The narrative then becomes a layered text and a visual experience.