Nicholas's blog

Reformatting the illusion

Digitial Panopticon

While considering the artificial nature of reality television, the first thing that came to mind was that in “real life” people are not constantly being documented by cameras. But, when thinking about this I realized that in times like ours, when seemingly everyone has a digital camera and a forum to display their pictures (facebook is one example), our lives do seem to be increasingly documented. When I spent time in cities known as “fashion capitals” I witnessed an exaggerated version of this.
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The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin’s 1935 essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, provides an interesting response to the technological advances in Art and distribution. In this essay Benjamin noted that, “For the first time in world history mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual."
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Pornography Safe for Work

In regards to the discussion of the potential danger of mash-ups like "Baracky", I thought I would mention a clip my friend showed me the other day on youtube. The clip can be found by searching SFW XXX. Essentially it is pornography with silly cartoon animation which conceals the explicit content, to a degree. The clever part of the cartoon "censors" is that they turn the sexual acts into mundane, daily actions. Another clever aspect is in the title. Apparently it is a play on the abbreviation NSFW.
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A Novel without the Baggage of A Novel

I just picked up a book by David Markson called “Reader’s Block.”
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The Dialect of Cartoon Art (According To Art Spiegleman)

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw080814art_spiegelman_local
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Jeffery Lewis' "Low Budget Films"

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

I have inserted a youtube link which features the musician/artist Jeffery Lewis. Part of his stage performance includes what he calls “low budget films.” These “films” are actually large comic strips, which he creates and sings along with. His use of comics provides another example of how the medium can be employed creatively.
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Gossip Magazines And Internet Communities

This past summer I developed a perverse interest in gossip magazines
while I was living with friends in Stockholm. Unable to read Swedish, I
was at least able to get a kick out of the blatant and silly pictorial
narratives. Marie- Laure Ryan’s discussion of the wide-ranging
influence of new media lead me to consider the parallels between gossip
magazines and internet communities such as Facebook or Myspace. It seems
that both medias serve as outlets for escapism. Furthermore, they both
deterritorilize networks of human relationships. For example, a gossip
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