Pixel Sorted Cory, For The Remix!

WHAT

A series of photographs taken by Jonathan Worth of author Cory Doctorow are now available for you to remix, regenerate, and to make new art, especially in light of the themes and topics of his books.

Your challenge is to make something new out of the photos, or better yet, remix of someone else’s remix.

But we not only want you to make art, we want you to share the story behind it. Be sure to write up your work somewhere on the public web, license it under creative commons, tell the story of what it means or why you did it, cite the sources (e.g. links) to the image, and share how you made it.  Here’s HOW to write up and share your remix.

This is a new experiment in public art, and a new way of thinking about digital media. Who could be a better figure than an author who releases all of his published works under creative commons license with an open invitation to remix? Jonathan explains more about this project

https://vimeo.com/64019665

Phonar Students Go FTR

This week Jonathan Worth’s phonar class at Coventry University are tasked with going For The Remix:
Alan Levine and I have been rearing this one for over a year but the time has finally come around to set it free.  You’re going to have to bring all of your Remix skilz to the table as well as your big brain contextual understanding – you’re going to need to read Cory’s booksand find out what the hell is grinding his gears.

This week we’ve  heard all about how Photojournalist Marcus Bleasdale’s collaborates in order to re-imagine his work and reach new audiences via new and unexplored channels, well that’s where we’re headed with this task. After you’ve read Cory and read about Cory you’ll use someone else’s images (mine) to hack,remix and transform into something awesome and for this Alan has rustled up a little space all of its own with some house rules and further instruction.

my remix!

I downloaded cory001.jpg /cory005.jpg film strips, chopped them to individual frames and stacked them in photoshop, colour graded using lookup tables, messed up the channels, exported the frames as animated gifs and pass them through Processing language, using Kim Asendorf’s ASDF Pixel Sort brilliant code (open-source), modified for gif file input version (open-source) from Sam Walker. The animated gifs below and the ones on my website are licensed under CC BY 3.0 which means you are free to use, share and remix! If you decided to remix drop me a tweet @joseph_kes or use hashtags #coryFTR #fortheremix. We ‘d love to see your remixes so submit here!

I am presenting these gifs in html+css as I feel they show better than just this blog post. Also, animated gifs usually are displayed by internet browsers.
You can view all 7 gifs at josephkesisoglou.co.uk/fortheremix

aGIFs

also check this on copyright/licensing copied from the unphotographable post

credit where credit is due…
I have been a supporter of Creative Commons for some time and use the licensing scheme for all of my published work. I am aware of the capacity for creation of the remix culture and appropriation, and always happy to see one using my photographs to enhance their story. What I have never done so far was to tap into the massive archives of online content. There are archives of music, sound, video, photographs and anything you can imagine licensed under more flexible terms than “All Rights Reserved” allows. Creative Commons is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s been around since 2001 (founded by Lawrence Lessig) and belongs to a network of license agreements, most software oriented (GNU GPL, BSD, MIT, ODbL, MPL), but all free. Richard Stallman, software freedom activist and computer programmer, argues the definition of “free as in freedom, not as free beer” (Gratis vs. Libre). In the same spirit Creative Commons has created variety of agreements than instead of reserving all the rights of the author on the work, are permissive. Think Creative Commons as pizza recipe. Attribution (abr. BY) is the base. The available toppings are as follows: Noncommercial (abr. NC) that blocks commercial use,  No Derivatives (abr. ND) which doesn’t allow any derivative works, Share Alike (abr. SA) asks for sharing under the same conditions.

Many creatives and artists have embraced the power of this way of licensing and internet companies too! Many user generated content websites have given multiple licensing options to the users, or better say producers of content, the most popular being Creative Commons. (YouTube and Vimeo, Soundcloud, Flickr / Freesound.org, CCmixter.org, Archive.org)

Transformative Storytelling {concept}

original post
Using only found images (ie images from family albums and local library archives, not published in magazines) research and construct a photo-artefact/story that weaves a narrative linking the people depicted within.

Development : Build and include a soundscape relevant to your story. Include personal stories from the subjects depicted.

family archive
During summer I discovered a folder in my HDD where I had dumped all photographs and video (digitized tapes) my mother brought back from her trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I didn’t get to see these for five years. The same goes for my mother. She had visited her brother, my uncle, after a very long period. My uncle has been living there for about 15 years. It was never very easy to pop in the States for a visit, due to the distance and price. I see everything from a much different perspective since I started this course. I have considered to make a book because since we made the switch to digital we haven’t seen any printed family pictures, considering that both my parents were taking photographs on the travels with a 35mm camera.

Save the files!
At this point I should mention that only half of the photographs was in my hard drive. The other half was left in my uncle’s drive due to lack of space in the camera. My uncle send several emails with 460 files in total. In the only issue is that sending them through Picasa as emails, they were down-sized about 10 times their original size. I went through my father’s old laptop were the emails were saved and individually extracted the files from Outlook.

draw inspiration
Before I make this photo-book, I have the chance with the transformative storytelling task to create a first draft of the final piece. I have used video instead of ebook format or plain normal paper. I started by editing down the photographs. I have been through the 6 hours of tape in order to get a greater understanding of the environment my mother was for a month. She has recorded mostly the journeys from place to place. One thing I can certainly observe is the amount of time spent in cars.

make the video!
After editing, I started sequencing the photographs. I wanted to keep the initial form I had designed, but I realized that video was a broader canvas. I had much more space to cover, or leave blank. In the end I decided to put images side-by-side which either made some stand out better, or create individual small narratives within the main narrative. Since I am still experimenting with sequencing, and editing the second set of images, what you see below is not a final cut. Concerning sound, I will be pulling audio clips from the videos and perhaps add some creative commons material or record my own foley sounds to create a coherent soundscape.

photo credits: Stella Charolidou

https://vimeo.com/80925416
password: tulsa

Dream portfolio edit

Choose 6 photographs you would put in a dream portfolio that inspire you or influence your work.
Click on images to view source.

Simon Norfolk – Supercomputers, IBM BlueGene L
I chose this photograph because of the subject. Since my very first interaction with computers I have been fascinated with their application one way or the other.
I stronly believe the invention of Computers and the Internet are only equivalent to the wheel, electricity and plastic. Computers though are not necessarily used in all useful and moral applications. That is the subject of Norfolk’s “The Supercomputers”. The servers depicted below are part of IBM’s BlueGene L, which spends a lot of it’s time to design America’s Nuclear weapons. The second important reason I pick this photograph is the aesthetics. I like the relation of the converging lines, with the ones that make up the frame. This photograph hopefully sums up my fascination with perfect framing of the subject and minimalism. I usually spend a lot of time compositing my frame in order to produce an absolute result. Relative some times appears better, but absolute can have a somewhat more unreal feeling.

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Bart van Damme – Maasvlakte (flickr)

Bart van Damme is a  Dutch artist who photographs man-made landscapes. His latest project (book) in Maasvlakte area documents the extension of the Port of Rotterdam which is built on reclaimed land. Many parts of the Netherlands are below sea level and massive engineering works have been undertaken over the years to reclaim major parts. I have particularly chosen the photograph because of my fascination with industrial buildings and nature. Bart’s framing and composition of a subject is very similar to how I would do and this is a reason for appreciating his landscapes. Most of his photographs give off a peaceful and ethereal feeling. Some times they even look like paintings, which reminds me of Pictorialism.

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Matthias Heiderich “Heartbeatbox” (flickr)
I discovered Matthias on flickr and ever since I have favourited many of his photographs. I chose this lamp posts composite so I can show you in context why I like them. Again, if you take a look at the way he photographs buildings, they are distinguished by a minimalistic and almost unreal, “retro-futuristic” feel. The colour hues and saturation are quite consistent throughout his work, like if he is using a specific lookup table, or color profile. Or maybe he is?

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Hugh Manon “eaubscene” – cachemash (flickr)
eaubscene creates mostly glitch aesthetics like the one below. Glitch is when a machine, computer does not operate as it should. In this this image the glitch artefacts are created with help from an old version of Photoshop where a bug is exploited to cashemash. This image is probably a mash of a still from a film and a glitched image. I chose the image because of the glitch aestetics which is a subject I have been researching for about 2 years, practicing as well. Another reason I choose this image is the pairing of the old film look signifying the mechanical age, with the new look signifying the electronic means of production. These blocky, chunky aestetics reveal the nature of digital.

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Jose Irion Neto – Thoreau Glitch Portrait (Glitch Moment/ums, 2013)
This image has also glitch atefacts, although much different than above. The reason I chose is the specific aesthetics of this portrait which happens to be the Henry David Thoreau. The original is a daguerreotype from Benjamin D. Maxham taken in 1856 and appropriated in 2011. Also the fact that it’s situated in a frame hanged in gallery, shows the development and promotion of the glitch/computer aesthetics in the art world.
“The glitch makes the computer itself suddenly appear unconventionally deep, in contrast to the more banal, predictable surface-level behaviours of ‘normal’ machines and systems. In this way, glitches announce a crazy and dangerous kind of moment(um) instantiated and dictated by the machine itself.” Rosa Menkman, curator. The Glitch Moment/ums of Furtherfield Gallery happened in London, June 2013. A very interesting moment as glitch art has been mostly exhibited online which is its natural environment.

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Mishka Henner – Pumped, animated gif

Pumpjacks across the United States photographed from space. Mishka Henner has spent time photographing -capturing screenshots- off Google Maps and Street View. His subjects usually depict systemic infrastructure, networks, and concentration of power using visually compelling imagery often reminiscent of the abstract expressionism movement. I consider Miska’s work profound, because of the aesthetics but also the information deriving from the data it’s based on. Unlike many art critics, I appreciate his work because it signifies the transcendence of photography into the digital domain, which has happened a long time ago, but some refuse to accept. From a different perspective, Mishka works with computer generated photographic archives. These large archives were created void of any judgement, emotional trigger and awareness of aesthetics, when “looking” at their subject through the lens(es). The lack of human interaction left space for the artist to experiment. These images have been freed up, while subversively, their meaning and purpose has been altered irreversibly. I chose the animated gif instead of a single image because it shows a common point between all the pumps. Most of them seem to be situated in beautiful fertile land, which contradicts their destructive, ugly product -oil.