Curation post 2

Search: i have been wrapping up my searching lately but am still bringing in some very good information that i might include. i have most of the hard information and at this point a lot of the cool stuff that i'm finding is either to help the design or is a video to accompany a description. i have gotten a better grasp on the artwork on the board and have been able to notice some common themes,but this the art section is still going to be the most difficult.

Evaluate: i have been going through a lot of the pictures and videos that i have saved and bookmarked and have been deleting or unsaved ones that were very similar to others, didn't fit the group, or didn't really have a place in the final site. i have also been breaking up the good stuff into their respective categories. not all of it is in the site yet but i have most of it separated at this point.

Organize: like i said before i have most of the information separated  i also made separate sections in the website for each of the different categories. categories are things like a beginners section, parts of the board, history of the sport, and external references. i may split up references into two categories as well, one for links that will provide information and one for things like really cool videos and pictures. it depends if there are enough references to warrant two separate categories.

Design: i have a few ideas for the design but it is not finalized at all. im thinking about making a custom logo and putting it in front of a banner of people riding in all the different style. the banner would have a distressed vintage look to it with some lense flair as well. the front is going to be pictures for each category that you can press to go to that category.

Narrate: the final curation is going to be a go to spot to answer any and all questions about longboarding easily. i want it to be all the little communities collective spot that will allow longboarders to come together and learn something new regardless of their current skill level.


the hardest thing is still going to be the artwork category. it is a very broad subject that has a lot to it. i know some of the different styles such as using different types of stained wood to make a graphic, printing the graphic, metal patterns, and people making their own custom design.


from here i need to

1. put all the information into its respective category in the curation site
2. make the logo and header
3. make the buttons for each of the categories.

Time management is definitely one of the hardest struggles for me just because i have a hard time starting to do the work. once i sit down and start doing it i'm fine but starting is still difficult for me.

curation report one

Search:  I have been finding several very good videos for the beginner section as well as a great video for the home page of the website to grab attention. I have also saved the links for a subreddit about longboarding which is a good external link with a lot of helpful information and a great community to ask questions. As far as history goes I have found the copy of the documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys" about the zephyr skate team and the birth of skateboarding and longboarding. I have also been looking at and reading the history about longboarding on sites like Wikipedia and have read about a Longboarding pioneer Tom Sims. As far as the art of longboarding goes I have been looking at different decks for sale as well as images of custom boards that people have built and have been seeing similarities I the art styles but still need further definition. 

Organize/Evaluate: this is the challenge of the week, I have to take all the stuff I have found and start figuring out what is good and where it goes. I have some rough ideas for different sub sections but I have not yet done the actual step of putting in the content to a curation. I am planning on having the majority of the organization done on Friday and have definite sections so that when I come across new information it is easier for me to place it in its proper section. for evaluating most if not all of the stuff I have found is pretty good and the only reason I would leave something out was if it was a double or didn't add anything new, there isn't anything that is bad information.

Design: I have registered the Google website but I have not yet done much with it. I want to put in the majority of the information I have before I start the major design work. I have some rough ideas for how I want the design to look but they are pretty up in the air and are pending on how the information gets organized. 

Narration: in the end a user will be able to come to the site and look at and use the different categories on the side so they can get to the information that they want and find out what they want. Currently the aspect that needs the most work is the art and design on the bottom of boards. There is not much out there yet about this so the majority of the information has to be created not cited and taken from different sources.

The most interesting link that I have found so far was a video made that shows a rider bombing a hill and sliding on the turns.  I have linked it below.

Feedback: since I was absent on the day that we were in the lab I am a bit further behind then I would like to be. This is not a fault of the project but having more lab time to work would be appreciated. Apart from time I do not have any real complaints or criticisms yet. For the most part it is my own time table that has slowed it down and in the next week it will be opening up so that is a problem that is fixing itself. 

From here the three steps are 1. Organize and place the information found into their respective categories and subcategories 2. Learn more about the different kinds of designs on the bottom of a longboard 3. Type up a detailed description of the different types of art and designs and add it to the curation. 

change of mind: banksy street art

i at this point have made a complete rotation on my oppoinos of banksy and his stencil pieces throughout the world. i have also seen his documentary 4 times now and have read his book at least three times. when i first watched the movie i really liked the idea of "art for the people" or taking it out of the gallery and onto the streets. i had always liked graffiti before and this was another form that i did not know anything about. so at this point i just took in as much of Banksy and Shepard Fairey as i . I looked through their websites bought their books and learned as much as i could. i loved all the street art and loved the style, so much that i started making my own stencils. after the second viewing and learning more about the artists more as people along with some not so great characteristics about i found myself straining to enjoy their work to the point that i once did. it was a case of meeting my hero and being let down without ever meeting my hero. it was things that they weren't even doing, things like people taking down their art by removing the entire wall it is on and selling it for ludicrous amounts of money. i did not like the art market taking over street art. Then i learned about different rivalries that were going on between different artists. for example there was a supposed rivalry between artist King Robbo, one of the pioneers of London's graffiti writers VS. Banksy the stencil artists.  the human side was off putting to the idealistic nature that i had put on their art. after straying away from the graffiti art for awhile. i didn't really concern myself with their art for awhile. then i watched the Banksy film for the third time. i started to look past the human side of the art. i starting looking at only the art. i was able to separate the art from the artist and didn't let one affect the other. this allowed me to look at the art without any filters. i didn't automatically say i liked it because i recognized the artist. i didn't say that i hated because it wasn't my favorite artist. i was able to comment and find an opinion that was only about the art. this is a skill that has gone past the graffiti and street art as well. to separate things and look at the layers of something and not at the flattened image. this has allowed me to come full circle and enjoy banksy and the multitude of street artist from around the world all over again.

King Robbo VS. Banksy

Metacognition: The Mashup Process

the greatest moment in the mashup process was not finding the parts but putting them into an order. the process of sorting out the different quotes and photos to form a coherent story that flowed was the most fun. it was like a brain teaser or a puzzle to take these parts all from different sources and put them together in a way that fit. finding the parts of the mashup were more of a challenge, not in the form of a puzzle but in the form of just getting it done. because i required to use quotes from certain sources it was more of an assignment to find quotes then it was a scavenger hunt. the quotes that came from sources that i chose were more fun and didn't have this feel because i had more freedom in choosing them. however i understand why there were required sources to find quotes from.

if i were to do this using only quotes from sources i chose i think that i would have had a greater experience and would have felt more of a natural flow when putting it all together. with the mashup i did for class i never felt that i got past the assignment part to have a greater connection with the material. a way that this project could be improved would be to find a way to take some restrictions away. that does not necessarily mean take away the required source, just find a more natural way to fit in it. This could be in the form of changing how they are integrated or change the amount that they have to integrated, but those are just a few ideas.

in conclusion i can see the potential in a project like this however the limitations take away from the experience that the creator when building a mashup.

blogging around

Anne’s post

An Inconvenient Truth: Art has become a trade

I have to disagree with your statement that all art is now made only for fiscal purposes. While it is true that there may be more of a monetary motivation then in the past there are still several artist and creators that are making art solely for art’s sake.  The first example that comes to my mind is the army of street artists and graffiti taggers on the streets of every city and town in the world. These are people who are creating great works of art and don’t want to be known. For most of them being anonymous is key to their ability to do what they do. I think that creation is still done for creating sake and that for a lot of artists and creators the money is an afterthought to the creative process.

Raina’s post

Change of Mind: Postmodernism

I agree with your ideas on postmodernism and rules. I really did not know much about postmodernism and couldn’t give any form of definition if I had to.  It was the idea of the system of systems that caused me to get some form of grip on the ideas of postmodernism. The scene from the movie on corruption was extremely true in a multitude of ways. The whole idea of rules being there only so that we can break them applies to several different situations from small communities like in the school to full on international relations between countries. In a way it almost defends corruption in that corruption is really the only way to get anything done. 

iMedia: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard

On February 8th a free to download documentary about the file sharing site "The Pirate Bay" was released. the main focus of he film is about the lives of the three founders of the site Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm as they face Hollywood, record labels, and copyright holders in court over claims of copyright breech. the film goes on to enplane the different viewpoints of copyright and thinking behind the creators of the site. while the film can be a bit dry especially during some of the lengthier scenes in court it provides insight to the conflicting views around piracy and copyright.

the entirety of the ideas behind The Pirate Bay are all in some way postmodern. the entire idea behind torrenting, which is how the sight operates, is postmodern. people will host a file to share and put it up on the website. Other people will then download the file from the hoster, while they are downloading they are whats known as a lecher. however when they finish the download they become what is known as a seeder, which is similar to a hoster in that new leachers are downloading part of the file from the copy they downloaded. the end result is a complex web of seeders and lechers all sharing some part of information. for a more thorough explanation of torrenting view the video below.

another big postmodern idea is fighting the system. the entire lawsuit is a postmodern idea of sharing and a mass network against the modern idea of a single person owning a piece of data and having complete control over the data. while this worked before file sharing was available as we can see its days are numbered. the sharing methods and system created through file sharing has become so big that even if the modern record company's and movie studios are able to take down a central node of the system like they did with megaupload.com the system will bounce back and replace it with something bigger and better just faster then they are able to be taken down. the industry will have to adapt and change their forms of business if they want to survive. 

It Matters: Martin Luther King's peaceful protest methodology

While MLK and the American civil rights movement were not the first to use peaceful protest and civil disobedience it is one of the best examples of the methods behind peaceful protest. Peaceful protest adds power to a movement and limits the options of the people or ideology being protested. If the protesters are met with a violent reaction then public opinion will shift to their side. however if the protesters were using violence to try to achieve their goals then public opinion will cry out for to stop the movement at whatever cost. When MLK used children and teenagers in the Birmingham Alabama protests he limited the options of the police and administration. The town of Birmingham was limited to only two viable options on how to deal with the protest. They could allow the protesters to protest thus appearing weak to the towns white population which could hurt the local politicians in the next election. Or they could go with fighting the protest's, which is what they did. By fighting the rest of the country saw images of kids being knocked down by powerful fire hoses and attacked by dogs. Seeing these images turned the country against the racist south and caused a change in the nation. By challenging the status quo using peaceful methods they were able to achieve their goals and provide an example of the power of peaceful protest for the coming generations. 

This would not be the last time the world saw change through peaceful protest. During the Arab spring of 2010 and 2011 the protesters in Egypt were able to band together and oust an authoritarian leader and regime. They did this without the use of fighting or violence. It’s fair to say that without the examples set in the past the protesters in Egypt would have resorted to guerrilla warfare to accomplish their goals. The countries in the Arab Spring that did and are using violent methods to achieve their goals have had to fight longer and harder before the corrupt leaders were ousted from power. While some countries could not use peaceful protest the ones that did experienced success faster. As seen in the time line of the Arab spring Egypt had its first organized protest on January 25^th 2010, Mubarak resigned on February 11^th 2010.  Syria on the other hand started to protest on around the beginning of April 2010 they are still fighting the government today with over 5000 people dead.  

Time line of the Arab spring

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/16/arab-spring-timeline-_n_1153909.html