Go Seahawks!!

I can't wait for the big game today!! One thing that will be different for me this year... as I'm watching the game, I'll also be looking at graphic design used on the screen and in advertising. This is the big debut for many companies best advertisements for 2014. A lot of money is spent in advertising for this event. It's always been fun to see who's got the best ads, but this year I'll be paying even closer attention to them.

I keep thinking about Dianna's recreation of The Scream...I love that!! Very awesome job, Dianna! I really hope you've submitted that to someone who will pick it up while it's still big in the news.
Looking forward to see the rest of the projects on Tuesday! ~Lori

I keep thinking about Peters question on the first day of class..."Are you an artist, or a designer?" And Andrea's assessment of our design skills...and the questions I get from people who ask me what my major is and what I'm going to do with it after graduation. Even though I have several ideas of what I'd like to do, I have a hard time answering the questions. I sure hope by the end of the semester, I've figured out how to answer!

Can you imagine a world without advertising? We'd probably all feel much more confident and more satisfied. Cultural capital is a term that I had never heard of. It had never crossed my mind that some advertisements could leave me feeling culturally deprived, or that I might develop an obsession for certain commodities and they call it commodity fetishism. Interesting stuff...I'm much more aware of the effects of advertising on society now than I was before this semester.

The "Digital Divide" is a term that I had never heard of before this year and I think it's a fascinating one, too. There have been times when I think that it'd be awesome to escape completely from digital technology. Isn't that ironic coming from someone whose major Digital Technology & Culture. I've imagined moving somewhere, like a small beach community, or to a cabin in the mountains and living (at least for a while) without a computer, cell phone, and even television. I've read about families who have intentionally tried to live without electronic communication for a certain period of time, and found that it was really difficult. But there are millions of people in the world who have no concept of what it's like to live in a technological world. Is the digital divide getting wider, or is it narrowing? When I see really young children (like 1 year olds) taking their parents phones and playing games, I think it may be narrowing, but I've never been to places like Haiti. I thought it was pretty cool that MIT computer and Nicholas Negroponte developed the program One Laptop Per Child whose goal is to make computers available to underprivileged children in poor area. The thought is that these children would then become computer literate and teach their families. The idea behind this initiative is that "if participation in a global network beomes recognized the "haves" as a requisite for democratic participation in everyday life, it becomes the responsibility of those with access to transfer or dissiminate the technology to those who do not have the means to buy into it for themselves" (Sturken 236) I think that's an awesome program...maybe not truly altruistic, but still pretty cool.

I hadn't really thought too much about copies, ownership and copyright before taking this class. Copyright is an interesting subject. When I think of it in terms of work that I've produced, or people I'm close to, it would really piss me off to have someone reproduce it, especially if they were making a profit on it. My daughter is an artist. She posts her creations on her business Facebook page. Recently she found out that one of her Facebook friends was copying her work and selling at lower prices. Needless to say, she was furious! She immediately "de-friended" the person. I can't think of anything I've produced that someone would want to copy, but I know the feeling of working hard on a project, and I'm pretty sure that I'd feel the same way if in the same situation. On the flip side, I've tried to imagine a world without reproductions or copies. I cant, it's impossible. And honestly, I think it'd be pretty boring.

Geocache

Well, that was embarrassing to present my triptych today with converted GPS coordinates. So here's the nice straight latitude/longitude method.

46.282212/-119.309451

Hope that makes it easier to find!
Lori

My last post reminded me that I wanted to say something about Sena Clara's exhibit in our campus gallery. I really appreciated that she took time to talk to us about her work. Although, I enjoyed looking at the whole exhibit, I felt most interpellated by Sena Clara's work, especially after she explained how and why she created her work. I found myself even more curious about the process of how she edited each photo to achieve the end result. But what I loved the most was her honesty about the embarrassment she felt using a cell phone camera to capture images. I can really relate to that! In my job, I take pictures of the houses I list and although I don't consider myself an artist, I do take pride in getting showings on a house quickly when my photos show the house in a positive way, especially if I'm able to make the house look better than it actually does, and even more so when I used my cell phone to take the photos! I used to routinely use it and I would always try to arrange a time when the seller wouldn't be there...so they wouldn't catch me using it. Occasionally sellers ask me if I'll be using a "professional" photographer to take the photos. Wouldn't it be fun if I said "yes, I will" and then brought Sena Clara over with her cell phone?