Too Autonomous To Leave The House.

Throughout this course, the internet is repeatedly shown to facilitate the autonomy of the individual. The effects the net has in relation one’s social life can be seen as no exception to this rule as well. In “Wealth of Networks”, Benkler explains how the net can be used to strengthen pre-existing relationships (particularly the weaker ones), and break down hierarchies of interaction, allowing for a greater diversity within one’s social network. However, whether it ends up enabling our social lives, once again, is up to its user to decide. In my own experience, the internet has been both useful and problematic.

Although I had friends in highschool, blogging communities allowed me to diversify my social pool beyond the school grounds. I got to know people in different parts of the city, who I still have strong relationships with even now. Back then, despite socializing with these friends being limited to the weekends, this was not an issue. What we missed out on face to face, we made up for online. However, over the years, as we moved into neighborhoods closer to one another, the internet often did not work in favor of us socializing.

“In the daily humdrum of their lives, individuals do more of what is easier to do than what requires great exertion” (Benkler, 372.) This statement rings true for what came of our interactions. In the beginning, we met up at the house that was most central to everyone. However, as people began to all live within equal distance of one another, getting folks to leave their homes became difficult. It seemed everyone was always eager to have someone over, but unwilling to leave the house themselves. No one could agree on (nor was interested in) going to one place, which meant more often than not, everyone would opt to stay home.

The benefits of going out to socialize appeared lesser or equal to the benefits of staying home and “hanging out” online. The internet brought us together, but also allowed us to stay apart through easily facilitating our relationships to be maintained digitally. However, this story is not to be taken as emblematic of all online interaction. Rather, it exemplifies how the net can bring together people based on shared interests, which (in the case of my social circle) included an aversion to expending too much energy.

Comprehending Cinema & Benkler’s Culture Against Copyright.

When I was a kid, horror movies horrified me. As a teen, the genre came to thrill and entertain instead. Once again, things changed as I got older. My video instructor predicted this would happen too. He warned us that learning how to edit film would change the way we look at cinema, and claimed it would “ruin the magic of movies.” Although, I don’t agree with the second part, he was right one thing: learning film production does alter the way you perceive movies. If you agree with Benkler argument in his book “The Wealth of Networks” too, that producing culture makes us more sophisticated readers of it (275), then my experience of video editing shouldn’t come as a surprise either.

Learning how films are created changes the way one watches movies. Understanding production and all the “ignored” components renders the culture behind films transparent, and opens up space for critical, self-conscious re-visioning. This is s similar (if not same) logic provided in Benker’s chapter on cultural freedom. Presumably, understanding film is just like understanding “meaning” (or shared assumptions) and getting to know its conventions and practices will, not only, make one more media literate, but also more capable of critically examining the language used, which might alter how one re-articulates it as well.

As a life long movie-watcher, the way i viewed films changed along with my knowledge of cinema.   As my comprehension of shared cultural assumptions grew, so did my ability to critically address those assumptions.  It is then (through this type of examination) that conventions or “meaning” can be subject to re-articulation. After that, what becomes important is the freedom to make such revision to culture. As a film maker, copyright is something I always have to be thinking about it, and have to agree with Benkler on; it does limit my “understanding” of the world (298.) So much of the culture which surrounds me is not free to be taken and re-contextualized, or remixed in any way. Legally, I cannot change the bulk of cultural texts I encounter and then release it back into the public sphere, so that others may do the same. Not only does this limit the ways in which one can understand the world, but also inhibits those who are subject to it, making critical analysis and reform of copyrighted culture extremely difficult.

Standard Halloweeney Skull: The Process & Final Product.

Woo-woo & phew… what a relief!  I was half worried this wouldn’t be done by the end of the semester.  However, contrary to my anxieties, here is my finished contribution to our group project.  Mm, …which (If anyone is interested in) is a part of our Ning Community on “Masking Making” as well.   More people + their methods & maskies can be found there 

Boo, but in any case:  here is my “how to/done” for this mask…

Step 1 – Make Mask out of Plaster Caster Bandages: I had no concept sketches or exact idea of what i wanted to do, so i went with what i was already familiar with, and started by making a base-face out of plaster bandages. (I made a how-to instructional video for this component of the process… How to make a mask out of plaster bandages – a youtube video)

Step 2 – Add Cardboard to Level the Surface: The only thing I knew for certain was I didn’t want this to take FOREVER, so I decided to work with spray insulating foam. I’ve worked with the medium in the past, and its always been fast and fun, so…. I prepped the mask for its application by adding cardboard, so I’d have a more level surface to work upon.

Step 3 – Make teeth out of foam wall insulator: In a well ventilated space, on top of a drop-sheet i didn’t mind destroying (cause this stuff will ruin EVERYTHING it touches and is impossible to get out of clothes), I sprayed the foam into small teeth-like shapes.  As they expanded, i used a knife to make small alterations to them. (However -WARNING- before this step I also made the mistake of buying the slow curing type of foam, which takes an hour to dry. It was a gigantic, sloppy mess and barely expanded at all. I ended up having to return to the store, to buy a new can of the yellow, fast-drying type, because it doesn’t transform into a shapeless puddle…  geez! Unless thats the effect you’re going for:  save. your. money.)

Step 4 – Create cardboard “skeletal” structure: when the foam had set, I taped together cardboard strips, to create the “skeletal” structure of the mask.  This would determine the basic form of my project, and (as you can see) originally included eyes down by the teeth.

Step 5 – Paper Mache: However, when i began the process of putting on the paper mache, I ended up ditching the eyes-at-the-side, and going for something more stereotypically sinister instead. I also didn’t bother to be “DYI” on the paper-mache paste either, and used wallpaper paste in combination with the newspaper strips. (sorry, no instructional on “how to paper mache.”  if you can’t find it on google & never did this stuff as a kid, well… YOU’RE DOOMED.)

Step 6 – Add elastic strap: When the paper-mache had dried (which can take up to 24hrs) I used a glue gun to add an elastic band to the back.  This makes the mask more functional, by keeping it snugly held in place while being worn.  Yay.

Step 7 – For fun and functionality, ADD FABRIC: Afterward, to the inside of the mask, I glue-gunned pieces of black semi-translucent fabric over the eye-holes. This way, I could still (partially) see out, but no one could see in. To the outside of the mask, I added white fun-fur, and used to a glue gun to stick ‘em in place as well.

Step 8 – Do details with paint: I rubbed paint around the edges of the eyes, and dabbed it in between the teeth, to add depth to the face. Increasing the tonal range was important, because I planned to “mask” it in the next step…

Step 9 – Get Criminal & stretch sheer stockings across face: Just like the bank robbers in  the movies, I put a pair of women’s panty-hose over the face. However, I did not use the entire stocking like they do.  Rather, i cut-out a large section from the tights and stretched it across the mask’s face.  By doing it this way, i gained more control over the material’s tension and could distribute it evenly across the piece.  Once again, my trusty glue gun secured all of this in its place, on the inside of the mask.

Step 10 – Customize with accessories, and you’re done: The final step was, well… being finished! (Click here for none-compressed image) I just plopped a wig on top, and the character was complete.

Boo, …but yeah! For sure, this isn’t my favorite mask, as it isn’t the most original of characters, but I suppose that’ll come to be appropriate in some scenario or context?  Or not.  Either way, I was half thinking it’d be fun to dress up in really standard, “sexy” women’s Halloween costumes while wearing this soft-skull face. I think It would negate the “attractive-factor” that so many “hot costumes” supposedly supply to those who wear it, which would make me happy-like.  Mm, either way… hope you enjoyed this blog! Any comments or criticism, feel free to leave ‘em.  As well, be sure to stop by the Mask Making community if you wanna see what everyone else is up to, or have mask-isms to contribute yourself 

-Allison

Patrolling for “Phedophilia Pushers” in Publish Spaces.

When I was informed my friend’s room mate had been arrested on charges related to child pornography in the past, all I could think was “Shit, what type of social-filter is my buddy using?” I figured anyone who was known to commit those types of acts wasn’t worthy of being anyone’s room mate- unless they were sharing a prison cell. However, as it turned out, my friend felt the same way. I eventually got the full story and even came to agree; his and his friends arrest for “distribution of indecent pictures of children” on the internet was pretty absurd. As well, their story just went to show; to an extent, the public sphere online will monitor itself and extreme acts of government regulation can be an enormous waste of the tax payers money.

The internet is a democratic tool which enables its users to be active participants and contributors within a network public sphere. These democratic properties help create a space which does need to be controlled in a way centralized way. This is because through peer production, the internet’s users can create a type of a “public watch dog” (Benkler, 264.) The costly task of trying to gain power over the internet (for reasons of regulation) seems unnecessary within democratic communities. However, not all the members of democratic communities agree. When the British government ran an investigation which lead to the arrest of my room mates’ friend (along with two others) its actions were an evasive maneuver against a public sphere they felt was not capable of regulating itself.

Their operation consisted of two swat teams (of 6-8 officers each), who simultaneously struck two separate locations, to make arrests and gather computer evidence- before it could be destroyed by the alleged child-porn pushers. Three teenage boys were taken into custody for “indecent distribution of indecent images of children.” These charges were based on the two images found on the site’s public server. The authorities suspected these images, which they classified as “pseudo photographs of children”, were just the tip of the ice-berg. However, someone probably should have informed them earlier: there’s no need to go under water to find the rest of these types of pictures – just remove your filters on Google image search and type in “Lolicon” instead. Unlike the confiscated computers found in the raid, Google’s search engine will produced loads of “incriminating evidence.” However, neither will result in finding child pornography that isn’t animated- especially in a realistic way.

The law defines “pseudo photographs of children” as “images of photographic realness of a child being molested.” The two images found in the “free porn” section of the boy’s comedy website were not only pinched from other sources (and mostly forgotten about amongst all the other appropriated material they had), but were also cartoon depictions of sexual acts involving under-aged Anime girls. This style of art is a far cry from photorealism, and ultimately rendered the government unable to convict the boys of the charges they were arrested for. In the end, the entire investigation and 2 years of prosecution was an enormous waste of money, which might not be surprising considering their site had over 80,000 hits a day.

With that many people viewing the site daily, had the peer produced “watch dog” of its patrons smelled child pornography involving real, live humans – the likelihood of it barking and notifying the authorities seems enormous. Perhaps someone did raise issue with the police, which might serve to explain how they came to be interested in the website to begin with. However, democratically, the morality of unrealistic cartoon images depicting sexual acts with minors had already been decided within this public sphere. Its existence online was socially permitted, legal, and didn’t need a few government officials to step in and start making arrests. The internet may be presented by mass media as something needing to be monitored and controlled, to prevent pedophiles from utilizing it as a tool to commit crimes, but at what cost to the taxpayer, who are capable of monitoring the public areas of the digital domain themselves?

ANYWAYS…

On a note completely unrelated to anything having to do with sex with children (animated or otherwise)…  Here is my vlog on the basics of making a mask out of plaster bandages.