exclusive: the utopian myth of a communication revolution, by gene youngblood

Gene Youngblood is an internationally known theorist of media arts and politics, and a respected scholar in the history and theory of alternative cinemas. His Expanded Cinema (1970) was seminal in establishing the field of media arts as a recognized artistic and scholarly discipline. He is known as a pioneering voice in the media democracy movement, and has been teaching, writing, curating and lecturing on media democracy and alternative cinemas since 1970.

Mr. Youngblood has lectured at more than four hundred colleges and universities, and his writing is published extensively around the world.  He has received research grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Andy Warhol Foundation, the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts, The New Mexico Arts Division, and the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities.

In the 1960s Youngblood was a journalist for newspapers, television and radio in Los Angeles — reporter and film critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner; reporter for KHJ-TV, and arts commentator for KPFK Pacifica Radio. From 1967 to 1970, he was associate editor and columnist for the Los Angeles Free Press, the first and largest of the underground newspapers of that era.

In 1970 he became a founding member of the Faculty of Film and Video at the California Institute of the Arts, where he taught for nineteen years. He has also taught at the California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and in the film departments at UCLA and USC. In 1988 he joined the founding faculty of the Department of Moving Image Arts at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico, where he taught until retiring in 2007…

And so it goes without saying that bL4ck_g4d3t is extremely honored to bring you an exclusive, original  essay by Mr. Youngblood, which serves as a primer of sorts to his forthcoming book, Secession From the Broadcast.

The topic of radical change is relevant in light of recent events, but what follows is a prescription for positive radical change rather than the kind of destructive, negative thinking that insists that “violence is the only answer” to the crises facing all societies today. Crashing strong ideas together can be a much more powerful act than crashing a plane into a building.

Pages: 1 2 3 4
2010
02/19
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Editorial
Emotional
Intellectual
Spiritual
Write comment

integration anxiety

I use Google for damn near everything: email, search, RSS, calendar, docs and chat, but I draw the line at Buzz. It’s great that Google wants to streamline my online experience by adding a social media element to tie together all of the other G-related applications I use on a daily basis, but relying on one experience seems so boring, if not counterintuitive to the very nature of what Google claims to represent – the possibilities of the Internet.

One of the reasons why MySpace can’t compete with Facebook is because it’s a single possibility contained within itself, while the creators of Facebook realize that there are other tools people use to communicate on the Web, so they integrate those tools into their application. Whether you’re blogging on WordPress, tweeting from Twitter, watching movies on Vimeo, listening to music on Pandora, or playing games on your PS3, all of those independent channels can be funneled through one channel, allowing the user to collect a variety of different viewpoints and experiences in one place.

I believe that our behavior on the Web closely mirrors the way we behave in real life. I don’t own clothes by just one label, I don’t eat food at just one restaurant, and I don’t get all of my information from just one source. I’m sure there are people out there who want the complete Google experience. All issues of privacy aside, I’d still rather continue to explore the possibilities of the Internet. I’d rather create my own experience.

How do you create yours?

[ Image taken from a 2008 SiteBoat article on Google services.]

2010
02/13
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Editorial
Intellectual
TAGS










Write comment

interview: sree sreenivasan

Sree Sreenivasan (right) and Vadim Lavrusik (left) at 92YTribeca in NYC.

Who is Sree Sreenivasan?

He’s the Dean of Student Affairs and Professor at Columbia Journalism School, Contributing editor at DNAinfo.com (local Manhattan news), and co-founder of the South Asian Journalists Association. A self-styled tech evangelist and skeptic, he uses his free time to blog, tweet, take meetings, record webcasts, give workshops, and appear on TV. He’s arguably one of the preeminent scholars on digital media, and has been for more than ten years.

What’s he up to now? You don’t have to look very hard to find out. He’s made his personal Google Calendar available for everyone to see. bL4ck_g4dg3t managed to wedge an interview into Sree’s busy schedule, somewhere between his talk at the United Nations and his latest Today Show appearance.

b_g: Sree, why do you share your schedule so openly?

SS: Well, the drawbacks are people thinking your crazy, but the benefits far outweigh the negatives. I take so many meetings and phone calls, because part of my philosophy is that you take every meeting. As a freelance writer, I’d be wrestling with the secretaries of CEOs to schedule meetings. I hate trying to set up appointments, so I tried turning that entire process on its head. It’s completely changed my life. Now when people as me if I’m free Wednesday, I just say ‘You tell me.’

b_g: You call yourself a tech evangelist and skeptic. What are you evangelizing? What are you skeptical about?

SS: I’m evangelizing technology so that people will learn to make it their friend and exploit it. Media people who are surrounded by technology 24 hours a day are the smartest people about it, and they’re also the most reluctant to adapt technology to help them. I travel the country talking to journalists and PR people about the value of social media and they’re the last to understand it. It’s about understanding how to blog and use Google and email better.

What I’m skeptical about is the hype and overselling. Technology can only go so far. It can’t do your work for you. You still need to have all the things that make you smart in journalism, PR, and publishing: good ideas, content, and execution. People don’t realize that we need to really be conscious of getting more and more out of technology without thinking that it’s going to replace what we do.

b_g: A few weeks ago, you asked for tips for media pros to survive in 2010. What’s a media pro?

SS: A media pro is anyone whose job it is to communicate to the world.

b_g: Doesn’t that kind of make all of us media pros these days?

SS: The more people creating media the better, because it just makes more people interested in media, and at the same time it makes the professionals stand out in a way that they haven’t before. In many fields you find people building brands, ideas, and businesses at a much earlier age than ever before.

b_g: You’re a huge proponent of social media. How did that begin?

SS: It was an evolution. The skeptical part of me kept me from jumping on it. Then I began watching how people use Facebook and Twitter in a variety of areas and I realized that we can continue to do everything the way we’ve always done it, but just add social media to the output.

b_g: How is social media changing the way people interact in the real world?

SS: It’s doing it in amazing ways. It’s getting people to be connected with folks they may not have been connected with otherwise. People you weren’t friends with in high school suddenly want to be friends on Facebook. It might not always be a good thing, but it gives people the ability to connect and participate and share ideas, like the Twitter Effect in film that allows movies that would have died to thrive, and vice versa. District 9 and Paranormal Activity are two examples, and I knew that Slumdog Millionaire was going to be a huge hit because of the way people were talking about it on Twitter. Bruno just died when it normally wouldn’t have without the bad word of mouth.

b_g: You have a course on utilizing social media at Columbia.

SS: (laughs) If your parents knew that they were paying Columbia tuition to take a class on how to use Facebook and Twitter, they’d call up the school and have me fired. But it’s a journalism course: How to find new sources and story ideas and trends, to how to connect better with your audience, how to bring eyeballs to your work, and how to build a brand. The students have been very good so far. There’s an energy level that’s incredible.

b_g: Are your students young or old, and do you see a gap between the two, learning-wise?

SS: You know, it’s not a matter of age but of mindset. I once did a workshop in Florida for Columbia for people in their 70s and they were so interested. A lot of them already had Facebook pages.

Crashing a Social Media Skills for Journalists class might be tough if you don’t live in New York City (or maybe you do, but don’t want to take a train up to the west 100′s), but you can still get a good idea of the coursework by checking out the always-updated syllabus.

And keeping up with Sree is easy:

Website: http://sree.net/ and http://sreetips.com/

Tumblr: http://sreetips.tumblr.com/ (check it out for his ridiculously long and amazing Twitter Guide for Newbies & Skeptics)

Twitter: @sreenet

Facebook: http://facebook.com/sreenet

[Image by 92YTribeca. Used under Creative Commons.]

2010
02/09
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Intellectual
TAGS










Write comment

the post-geographical non-specific resume

I’ve been updating my resume. After editing and re-editing turned to frustration and apathy, I made the decision to ditch the old MS Word-based template I’ve been using all these years and go with a new style. My own.

The purpose of a resume is to give the reader an idea of your background and your personality, but some people end up trying to cram their whole life onto one piece of paper thinking that if it looks like they have more experience, they’re more likely to get the job. The truth of the matter is that people rarely get jobs based solely on their resumes. It’s a piece of paper (or more likely, a digital file), so unless you’re being interviewed by Patrick Bateman you shouldn’t have to worry. If you are being interviewed by Patrick Bateman, you’ve got other issues to deal with.

I say less is more, so here’s the austere bL4ck_g4dg3t resume template: Helvetica font, only proper nouns are capitalized, with the exception being the applicant’s name, which is in the biggest font on the page (14 pt bold). 12 pt headers, 11pt text, short descriptions with as few details as possible. Note the Twitter, Facebook and WordPress links replacing physical locative data (10pt).

2010
02/02
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Intellectual
Write comment

the experimental films of jim henson

Jim Henson was a genius, an artist who was unafraid to take risks with the pliable mediums of film and television. The following films were made at different points in his career, before and after he’d found success with Sesame Street and the Muppets.

For those who’ve never seen them before, they’ll provide new insight into his approach to the creative process. If you’ve seen them already, you’ll most likely want to watch them again.

Ripples

A short film created by Jim Henson for Expo67 in Montreal, Canada in 1967. The architect is played by Sesame Street writer/director Jon Stone. Soundtrack by Raymond Scott.

The Organized Mind

Henson performs the “mouth” and “eyes” live on The Tonight Show in 1974, but the film, including Henson’s voice-over & Raymond Scott’s soundtrack, was completed many years earlier, in 1967. The film’s title is The Organized Mind, and the character’s name is Limbo.

[thanks to WFMU's Beware of the Blog.]

The Cube

Originally aired on February 23, 1969 as part of NBC’s weekly anthology television show NBC Experiment in Television. The production was produced and directed by Henson and co-written by Muppet writer Jerry Juhl (who also appears in a cameo).

Watch it in its entirety:

2010
01/31
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Emotional
Intellectual
Visual
TAGS











Write comment

iPad cleans up after print mess

Here’s the deal: if you like anything that begins with a lower-case ‘i,’ chances are you’ll fall for the iPad.  And if you work in any industry that begins with the word ‘print,’ it’s very likely you’ll have no choice.

Let me explain.

About 90,000 jobs in print media were lost in 2009 alone and over 400 magazines were forced to fold.  Print media’s in worse than dire straits. For whatever reason, print media organizations turned a blind eye to the old industry adage: The Medium is the Message.  Had McCluhan been in charge of the New York Times, we might have been paying for online content a long time ago (as much as you money-grubbers cringe to think about it), because it’s not the paper that matters, dummy, it’s the information held within it.  The Internet trumps print, as far as the average reader is concerned, and yet online content has remained absolutely free.

“The types of media systems societies end up with are strongly influenced by the economy of the nation,” writes Professor Robert W. McChesney in his highly informative 2007 book Communication Revolution.  In other words, in this troubling age marked by a deep Recession and heightened environmental concerns, the switch from print to digital is a no-brainer.  (Plus, if you’re anything like me, this transition will even save you from pre-mature trips to the chiropractor.)  McChesney adds, “Media systems are not natural in any society.”  They evolve based on a society’s needs.

Which brings us back to Apple.

We’re now faced with the prospect that the iPad will do for print media what iTunes did for music.  With the brand’s pre-established prominence in the media market and its proven formula for creating a one-stop shop for media purchases, Apple’s got a pretty good shot at becoming a major media monopoly.

I know we all love our “iGear,” but, let’s be open-minded: perhaps this is cause for some concern.  That print media needs an industry-wide digital platform is glaringly obvious; but for Apple to control the whole shebang is putting a fairly large amount of power in the hands of one company.  Let’s not forget what happened when the U.S. Financial Interest and Syndication Rules were abolished in 1993 (i.e. the rise of self-serving powerhouse networks like FOX); or fail to recognize what happened in the aftermath of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (which made it possible for a measly six media conglomerates to own and control more than 90 percent of the media).

Not to pounce too hard on Apple…  For utter transparency, I do have an iPod, which is synched up to my iTunes account; I’m currently typing on an iMac; and I’m dying to get my hands on an iPhone.  Obviously, I’m a fan of the Apple product.  But when it comes to well-crafted gear and media success, there’s a very fine line between manipulation and free-will.

Yes, the iPad will probably be absolutely wonderful.

But, it faces the prospect of redefining the current media system for decades to come: let’s proceed with caution.

2010
01/29
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Editorial
Intellectual
Tangible
TAGS






Write comment

five things you don’t want to go without in 2010

It’s 2010 people. We might not have jetpacks and Jupiter hasn’t yet collapsed into a star but holy shit IT’S THE FUCKING FUTURE. Electric cars, touchscreens, smartphones, personal GPS, augmented reality, people literally hooking themselves up to machines, space tourism and in case you have a hard time remembering, there’s always Boing Boing.

In any case, it’s time to get with the program. What follows is a short list of some essential technologies you’re going to want to familiarize yourself with in 2010, not including any Apple products that resemble a tablet. Maybe next year we’ll finally get those jetpacks.

1. Your own wireless Internet connection

I’m surprised at how many people still don’t have one. It’s kind of like stealing cable, but no. Just pay for it. Trying to steal a weak wifi signal using the crane kick position from on top of the kitchen sink isn’t worth the trouble and sooner or later your neighbor’s going to wise up and slap some encryption on it anyway.

2. Smartphones

I used to be careless with my phones, because well… They were just phones. These days my iPhone3G might as well be wired directly into my palm. It might sound hokey, but when I first held it, I knew things would never be the same. My expectations would change. Information would come at me fast, whenever I wanted it, and it would be difficult to go back to not having music, video, the Web, a digital camera, GPS, and a virtual Zippo lighter all at the swipe of a fingertip.

Owning a smartphone forced me to focus how I interact with the Web; I filter my information through RSS readers and social networking apps that work much better in a mobile environment (Twitter, Facebook, Yelp). I almost never aimlessly surf anymore, and tend to find the best stuff in links on sites I regularly visit.

For the record, I’m not tied to the Apple brand. In fact I’m very attracted to the open-sourciness of the Android platform, but aside from the DROID, there hasn’t been a lot of hardware slyly functional enough (form isn’t so much of an issue) to tease me away.

3. Pocket video

In the late 1960s and early 70s a kind of cultural underground movement began to form around the use of videotape, VCRs and affordable video cameras. The early adopters of this new medium – like the Raindance and Videofreex collectives – saw the ability to create their own video imagery for broadcast via alternative channels (such as art galleries and public access) as a subversive form of creative expression. Suddenly what used to be the new opiate was turning people on in a whole new way.

Having a video camera is a powerful thing. You can use it to capture the most innocuous, most personal moments of your private life, or you can use it to reveal the most basic hidden truths about the world we all share.

Now I take my Flip Mino HD camera with me wherever I go. I haven’t yet gotten completely comfortable with recording everything I see (and I don’t always remember that it’s there), but I’m growing more accustomed to the idea of just knowing I have the ability to capture all the innocuous moments and hidden truths like this:

4. Streaming media

I live in New York. I share a 500-square foot apartment with my girlfriend and a 50-pound dog. I don’t have the room for CDs, DVDs, or a huge bookshelf for all the books that I don’t even read any more. This is why in 2010 I’m going almost completely digital. I listen only to MP3s, I try to only stream movies and television over Netflix, iTunes, or Hulu (I haven’t tried Boxee yet, but plan to), and I only buy physical books if they’re not available to read on my e-reader.

The only way to live like this is to not be a snob about music or video quality. High or low rez (and it will always continue to get better), I still achieve the same emotional effect as I would if I were using physical media. Yes, vinyl records and paper books do offer a tangible experience, but it’s an experience I’m willing to do without.

And on the topic of books…

5. E-Readers

Let’s give the haters some credit, because they do have a point. There’s nothing like holding a book. There’s nothing like the smell of a book (I’m a fan of the ancient, crinkly plastic-wrapped library variety). Dog-earing a book, writing in the margins, and admiring them upon a shelf… You can’t do any of these things with an e-reader. All of these things are true.

Out of all the essential technologies, the e-reader is the one I find myself the least philosophical about, probably because the progression from print feels so practical. When you’re walking around all day, or in class, or flying on a long trip, or commuting to work, having a convenient way to consolidate your favorite reads isn’t such a bad idea. Maybe the book you want is out of print but there’s a PDF of it online. Maybe you want to keep getting The New Yorker every week and even though you want to keep them around you hate they way they pile up so quickly. There are so many reasons an e-reader is a good idea, it becomes less of an argument and more of a matter of preference. It’s not like those smelly, dog-eared, scribbled-in books we all love so much are going to go away any time soon. I for one, am glad to have the choice.

(I chose the nook.)

What are your essential technologies for 2010? Let us know in the comments.

[All images used under Creative Commons.]

2010
01/27
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Editorial
Intellectual
Tangible
Visual
TAGS


















Write comment

video: david byrne “creation in reverse”

A few weeks ago, former Talking Head, prolific mediamaker and bicycle advocate David Byrne made an appearance at The Bell House in Brooklyn to present a short audio/video lecture called “Creation in Reverse”. According to the Nonesuch website, “The program looks at the ways that venue and context shape artistic creation.”

bL4ck_g5dg3t was there to record the event for all of those who couldn’t make it out. Shortly after taking the stage, David hints at a future TED appearance, so I hope we’re not preempting what turned out to be an interesting talk, although I’m pretty sure the official TED presentation will be a more formal affair with better video coverage.

Part 1: “The technical sound of the songs is determined in a large part by the places they’re performed. It also applies to art, with galleries and museums, and  things like software too…”

Part 2: “At some point symphony halls and opera houses evolved. The modern rooms that were built for audiences to hear Mozart and Wagner ended up being larger than [the ones] those musicians wrote for, so musicians in the early 20th century ended up writing music that was more textural.”

Part 3: “We all know that there are plenty of bands that sound great live and don’t sound great on record and vice-versa… Recorded music allowed venues to be created without stages: jukeboxes, discos…”

Part 4: “We as humans and musicians and composers are not alone. Birds do it too… Despite my analytical view of this, the emotional content still finds its way into whatever form or shape the music might take.”

2010
01/24
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Intellectual
Visual
TAGS











Write comment

tablet or tube?

As print journalism abandons newsstands for permanent residence in museums across the country, we’ve seen the rise of several new media formats, introducing such titillating terms to our media lexicon as: Kindle, Nook, tablet and slate.  And as the 2010 gets underway, many are already gearing up for this digital takeover—some (I won’t name names) are even quite excited.

However, based on an article published this morning by Reuters, it might take another year for this digital wave to fully wash-over the world.  In the next year, according the Doloitte 2010 TMT predictions, as print continues to die and digital hand-held formats are still in their infancy, news seekers will, on average, continue to turn to their televisions for their daily dose of news and information.  This may be the case—global transitions are rarely what one might call rapid—but when 2011 gets here… Look out!

If this month’s Consumer Electronic’s Show in Las Vegas, is any indication of what the future might hold (and it usually is), 2011 will not only be inundated with new media formats, it will see drastic changes in the media we’re currently accustomed to.  The big hitter at this year’s CES was, of course, the tablets/slates developed by such big-wigs as Microsoft and Apple (though Apple’s highly anticipated tablet will be revealed later this month), which combine the best of portable technology with an easy-to-use format.  They’re just like the über-popular iPhone… only bigger.  (Which means you no longer have to fret about your fat fingers!)

As for “media we’re currently accustomed to,” CES also put TV on prominent display.  But, don’t be fooled by this familiar terminology, this is not your average boob tube: this is TV in 3D.  This novel idea has already been implemented—mostly for televised sporting events—however now companies like Sony, Discovery and IMAX have announced plans to create channels dedicated to broadcasting nothing but 3D images.  (For a timeline of 3D’s evolution over the past year, click here.)  It’ll be TV, in your face, all the time.  (I predict 2012 to be the year of 3D contact lenses.)

With such exciting new technologies looming, print might more easily become a thing of the past.  And you might soon find yourself asking: tablet or tube?

2010
01/21
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Editorial
Intellectual
Tangible
TAGS







1 comment

the kids will probably be all right

The New York Times reported on a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that found “The average young American now spends practically every waking minute — except for the time in school — using a smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device…”

The 79-page report, dubbed Generation M2, samples over 2,000 students in grades 3 to 12 from October 2008 to May 2009, and covers a comprehensive array of questions on all the effects of media consumption in the home, socially, and from an educational standpoint.

Its findings? Here are a few lifts from the NYT article:

•[Kids] are multitasking — say, surfing the Internet while listening to music — they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours.

•The heaviest media users, the study found, are black and Hispanic youths and “tweens,” or those ages 11 to 14.

•The study could not say whether the media use causes problems, or, rather, whether troubled youths turn to heavy media use.

The article also quotes Dr. Michael Rich, a pediatrician at Boston’s Children’s Hospital Center on Media and Child Health, “[He] said that with media use so ubiquitous, it was time to stop arguing over whether it was good or bad and accept it as part of children’s environment, ‘like the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat.’”

[View the full report as a PDF.]

In the end, the report itself offers a lot of data and few, if any concrete implications. It reminds me of a lecture Dr. Timothy Leary gave on “The Evolution of Intelligence”. He suggested that outside the context of Creationist/Darwinian notions of evolution, nature comes preprogrammed with survival tendencies that kick in when an organism’s environment drastically changes. “We haven’t committed ourselves to a final form, and therein, perhaps, lies our great usefulness to the DNA code and the biological wisdom,” he notes. “DNA uses juvenilization, mutation and change in the young when there’s a challenge that the old way can’t face.” He uses examples where, in the face of extinction, nature deviates from the status quo: a population of coyotes breeds more females, or multiple salmon begin to fertilize a single cluster of eggs.

[Download the lecture, as heard on Douglas Rushkoff's "The Media Squat" program on WFMU, November 16, 2009.]

This is less practically applicable than Moore’s Law (circa 1965), which holds that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit will double approximately every two years. Singularity theorists (specifically, Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge) tend to apply Moore’s Law to the relationship between human activity and the speed of information flowing through their environments, which partly correlates with Moore’s original inference .

The authors of Generation M2 seem to have discovered how the kids they were studying are just another iteration of the early adopters of the web in the 90′s, who were teenagers and young adults just like the MTV generation in the 80′s. The globally-conscious 70′s came after the psychedelic 60′s, which came after the first TV generation got turned on in the 50′s. Each generation is able to process more information and process it faster and more efficiently than the previous generation.

The conclusion is that while Generation M2 suggests that the amount of time children spend within their media environtments will continue to go up in the coming years, a mashup of Moore’s Law and Leary’s Evolution of Intelligence argues that as data flows faster and faster through their environments (the challenge), children will get better at multitasking and the gross consumption of information will rise as the net time allotted remains relatively stable (the change).

[Image used under Creative Commons.]

2010
01/21
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Editorial
Intellectual
Tangible
TAGS











Write comment
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.