As I set out to bling out my blog I decided I would work to get rid of the things that irritate me about me most about it. As an art teacher there are always little visual irritants that eat at me. The screen shot to the right is what my blog used to look like.
I love the look of the Magazino theme but I was always struggling to get the pictures to look the way I wanted them. As you can see the heading image would always be cropped awkwardly and the thumbnails pictures on the bottom would only show up occasionally. To me I felt these inconstancies made things look a bit unprofessional. That being said I decided to switch my theme to something similar but a little more user friendly and less time consuming. I wanted the most recent post in the header and tiles of posts below just like Magazino but I didn’t want to put so much time into making sure my picture settings just right. I managed to get a little simplicity and the look I was going for with the Photogram theme posted below.
Photogram WordPress theme
The second little irritant on my agenda was to organize my content better for my users. I did this by making a bunch of categories, applying them to each post, and adding widgets related to categories. This may not completely fall under the category of making my blog more visually appealing but it definitely hikes up my usability factor. The screen shot below is of a post with new widgets to help navigate through my blog. None of these changes are earth shattering, rather they are small changes that can go along way. Like most things it’s a matter of getting the framework set up first and from then on out life should hopefully be a little easier for me and my readers.
This semester I’m teaching a design class and I’m finding myself in new territory. I’m constantly focused on making our projects to be meaningful and relevant. One very relevant project we were recently working on in class was designing a new cover for next years school agendas. In a way the class was hired to a job with very specific criteria and functionality. Knowing this we took our task very seriously. Students broke off into small groups to work on their ideas, periodically regrouping to discuss design elements until we came up with something that we all agreed was aesthetically pleasing as good design. I feel the project was a huge success, used a collaborative design process, and helped students to become more familiar with Adobe InDesign.
One little bug popped up in the process that brought me back to our copyright discussions in CoeTail. We started out our design process with a set of images that we owned. At one point students wanted to use other images and began grabbing things off the internet without thinking twice. I quickly realized that in a class where we are constantly on the computer and we are working with layout and design that copyright needs to be addressed. As a matter of fact I should probably be addressing it in all of my art classes to some degree since appropriation is a common artistic practice. With this thought in mind I have decided that the introduction to our next design project, which is t-shirt design, will begin with concepts of appropriation, copyright and remix culture. We have just finished creating our own personalized logos and have published them to our blogs. Ownership of their own work and fair use of others are things that each of my students should be considering at this point.
This unit will be introduced to my students by addressing the issue we ran into a few weeks ago when images were taken from the internet for our cover project. The class will be broken up into groups of two, with each group researching one of the following topics and reporting back to the class.
What is appropriation? Give 3 examples of famous artists using appropriation in their work.
Tell us about Andy Warhol and one of the copyright lawsuits he was involved in.
What are considered the fair use and artistic standards for artists involving copyright?
Give two possible scenarios where copyright would affect us in Design class.
Once we have all been informed of each others topics we will take a closer look at our schools RUP. This will give the students time to not only review the RUP but also discuss what points in the RUP relate closely to our work in Design.
It is at this final point in the discussion that I will introduce students to Creative Commons, it’s purpose and how we should be using it from here on out. Creative Commons has two wonderful videos that I plan to share with the students to not only explain what Creative Commons is but also how they have contributed to the remix culture of modern artistic appropriation. The following is the first of those two videos. With help from the Creative Commons search engine we will be finding images to turn into remixed graphics on Adobe illustrator. Our final graphics should also be changed according to artistic standards of copyright so that they could be legally printed onto a t-shirt or submitted to a design company such as threadless.com.
I’m excited for students to do their own research into this topic and see how copyright enters the visual art world. I’m also excited to hear the discussions that might follow. This unit will being within the next two weeks in my class, stay tuned for updates.
It seems as though we hear about cyberbullying more these days then bullying, as though cyberbullying is the only kind of bullying. Was the avenue or venue for bullies ever talked about as much as it is today? To me it seemed as though the internet is just a newish place for people to act out in ways that they already have been for years. I completely agree with Danah Boyd when she wrote in “Bullying” Has Little Resonance with Teenagers that
“technology is not radically changing what’s happening; it’s simply making what’s happening far more visible.”
But after a little more research I’m feeling I’m a little bit wrong. Maybe cyberbullying is more prevalent today than bullying was 20 or 30 years ago. I still agree with many thing s Danah had to say but I also feel as though the internet has created a platform that only makes it easier for the bully within to come out. Recent cyber bullying statistics certainly make it seem as though it is a growing thing. The ability to comment on what people say and be anonymous adds a whole new level to bullying that the public has never dealt with before. So how do we deal with it and how should bullies be punished? Laws aren’t getting to the root of the problem. They are mostly using scare tactics to keep people from bullying. Why do people desire to, isn’t that the question? Institutions, public and private seem to be chomping at the bit to stop cyberbullying as though that’s where the problem starts. My classmate Dave Hoover shared and interesting case with me a couple of weeks ago that involves a school district in California. The district of Glendale apparently hired a firm to monitor their students social media accounts. I find this very interesting because social media accounts are mostly utilized outside of school hours which really brings into question the authority the school has to hire this surveillance firm in the first place. This case in Glendale also rolls right back into questions of surveillance, what is being done with information being collected, and who has the right to collect it. I would rather not dive into the surveillance topic right now but it is important to consider how many of these cases deal with particular freedoms, whether they are a right to privacy or freedom of speech. With the case of cyberbullies we are dealing with freedom of speech. The difference is that your speech is now in text for everyone to read and even join in on. You can be held accountable in very different ways now that it is in print. Still, I’m more skeptical of how surveillance and scare tactics will help this situation. The internet and the venue isn’t the problem. I have a hard time believing cyberbullying is going to go anywhere unless empathy becomes a bigger part of our cultural practices.
I’m strongly in favor of linking here. I can understand Mr.Carr’s point in his article against hyperlinking in the text. He claims it’s distracting. Hyperlinking in the text causes people to click from link to link until they end up five pages away from the original page. Still, despite being the victim to an occasional clicking jaunt, I still prefer my links in the text. I actually treat them as I would a highlighter on the web. I think it’s great that it’s already done for me and I’m sure anyone with a little curiosity in there bones feels the same way. Without the hyperlink right there in the text I would waste time finding my text again and then matching it up with the proper footnote. It does take a little self discipline of being able to finish one thing before moving onto another. But leave that up to the reader and their own learning styles and ability to focus. As far as I can tell hyperlinks are really just doing what footnotes wish they could. We should be singing praises to the hyperlink for helping us along and saving us time when we want to look a little deeper into an author and their sources.
Professionally I believe linking is an especially useful tool when working with students. Hyperlinks help to show students the importance of citing references in a more accessible and convenient. It also gives them a quick and easy way to look deeper into a subject if they are so inclined. I use hyperlinks for handouts and references to artist on my classroom blog all of the time. Without hyperlinks helping to keep all of that information at my students fingertips I would expect to be flooded with a lot more questions and papers to shuffle thank I have time for.
I would have to say that when it comes the argument of linking or not I very much fall in favor of Mathew Ingram, who uses many interesting links to back up his argument but most of all I agree with him when he wrote:
“not including links (which a surprising number of web writers still don’t) is in many cases a sign of intellectual cowardice. What it says is that the writer is unprepared to have his or her ideas tested by comparing them to anyone else’s, and is hoping that no one will notice. In other cases, it’s a sign of intellectual arrogance — a sign that the writer believes these ideas sprang fully formed from his or her brain.”
It seems to me that if we want any sort of respect for the things that we are writing then we should be providing links to the things that we are referring to and the articles that helped us to form our decisions. I would want that from the authors what I am reading so why should my readers expect any less from me.
I seem to be posting one post after another these days about technology and privacy in the real world. I’m not sure if I’m completely weirded out by it all yet but I am learning a lot about how different corporations are tracking us. I’m still unsure about how I feel about it all but I’m at least happier to be a little more knowledgeable on the subject. The most recent creepy tracking device I have discovered are the Disney magicbands. At first it appears to be very harmless and maybe it is to most. If you are going to Disney World you now have the choice to wear a wrist band. The magicband is your ticket into the park, key to your room and can be swiped to purchase things because it is linked to your credit card. I suppose on one hand it’s really nice for you as the customer because you don’t need to carry a wallet and it makes things a little more convenient (except for the fact that your kids might be buying things left and right with your credit card). On the other hand it is a genius marketing strategy that is constantly collecting data on your every move while in the park.
When you sign up for the magicband Disney asks for your name, age, sex, favorite disney character and so on so that they can track your every move and categorize it properly. This way if you are standing in line for a long time they can send your child’s favorite character over to say Hi or even Happy Birthday to distract them while you’re waiting. Disney will be especially likely to help you out in this way if they can see that you are a big spender in the park. The amount of data that Disney can track on you and your families every move is endless and they can use it to tailor experiences for you and others in the future.
Some are comparing Disney to the NSA with their new fancy tracking devices. I don’t know enough about it but I can certainly see some the the parallels. If you have read any of my other posts recently you would see that I have been reading up on privacy in the real world a bit more than cyberspace privacy. The common thread I see is that nothing is for free. I’m happy to be reading about tactics such as the magicbands because I’m more aware and cautious about what is happening to the information that I am giving out. Often times, at least to me, the trade off of what is being offered is not worth the sharing of personal information. I really don’t know enough about what companies are doing with some of my information to feel comfortable. I hope that in the future some of this will be made more clear to the consumers and that the the choice of what to share and when to share it, at least in the real world, will continue to be a choice.
Facial Weaponization Suite: Fag Face Mask courtesy of Zach Blas
In an attempt to see what some of the art world is saying about privacy and technology these days I ran across artist Zach Blas who is creating masks that I found to be very intriguing. Zach is taking pictures of people who share some sort of demographic such as race or sexuality. He then aggregates their physical features using 3-Dimensional software to create a mask that is then unrecognizable to facial recognition software. He began doing this because he was concerned that facial recognition technologies have programed certain physical characteristics as a base or norm for identifying very diverse groups of people.
The following video explains further how facial recognition technology heavily relies on norms of race, age, class, and sex. This inherently will cause the technology to discriminate against minorities which is what inspired Zach to create his “Facial Weaponization Suite” series.
What I find interesting about Zachs work is the way that it comments on how masks are viewed in our current society. Many countries around the world have laws making it illegal to wear masks during a protest. In New York it’s illegal for 2 or more people to be wearing a mask in a public place together. In Canada new laws can give people a sentence of up to ten years for wearing mask where a riot is taking place. Some of the fear around masks is legitimate and understandable but the government might be contributing to it for there own agenda of creating facial recognition databases. What is interesting about Zach’s masks is that they are simply worn by people who would rather not be racially profiled. Unlike the scary undertones that some local government laws might project, this time the good guys wear masks .
I for one think this is a nice change of pace for the modern mask. After all masks have been found in different cultures and societies for centuries. Ancient greece used masks to depict theatrical tragedies. Countries in Asia and South America placed gold masks on royalty for burial. In other parts of Africa and asia masks have been used in rituals related to hunting, fertility or religion. Masks are continually utilized today for purposes of festivities as well as protection from wind of cold . All of these examples are positive examples of masks being used throughout history, I find it refreshing to see an artist creating masks that draw attention to the fear that surrounds masks all the while questioning the validity of technologies that governments use to “keep us safe”.
This past week in class our instructor Daina Watts shared a story with us about an experience she had buying some shoes. She was originally searching for shoes on-line and shortly thereafter ads started popping up on her computer screen for those same shoes. This is not anything that is unfamiliar to any of us. Many of us are aware of he fact that our on-line habits are tracked and that different companies use that tracking data to personalize the ads that appear on our screens. The extra creepy part occurred a bit later when Dana bought the shoes in a store and suddenly the ads stopped appearing on her screen. In class several people chalked it up to a coincidence but maybe it isn’t a coincidence at all.
It turns out that if you own a smart phone then you might just be tracked during your real world shopping experiences. More and more retailers are investing in technology and surveillance cameras that will follow the wifi signal on your phone. This technology allows for stores to study your habits while you are shopping around in the same way that amazon does when you are shopping online. According to an article in the New York Times in some situations if you have provided any personal information to the store by giving them your email or downloading their app then they can even get access to what you were looking at on the web the night before. Stores use this data to study shopping habits that will help them to make decisions about products people are interested in and areas of the store that seem to be under or over utilized. Retailers can also use it to personalize your shopping experience and send you coupons for things you have been looking at.
A Washington post article from October of last year states that the Future of Privacy Forum is is developing an opt out list for people who wish to register their device on a sort of “do not track” list. Although the article stated that this registry would be launched in a few weeks it unfortunately has not yet been made available.
The question is would you sign up? Is the idea of your shopping habits being tracked in the real world more troublesome to you than your shopping habits being tracked online? I for one wouldn’t mind getting a coupon for the very item I’m thinking about buying. After all, the ads on Daina’s screen did go away after she bought the shoes. Now she can discover new deals not just based on her online shopping habits but her real world habits too.
Cassandra Pupovac 
