Last week a friend sent me this link to a video of the late night breakdown by one of the pioneers of blogging Justin Hall. I had never heard of him, and still no little about his story. The clip has haunted me for a few days, as I have watched it several times, but it wasn’t until tonight that I heard my remix. Throughout this week, I have also been obsessed with the latest single form the new Iron and Wine album Kiss Each Other Clean. I had mentioned before that the song makes me feel like flying. I strummed it on the guitar today and felt very empowered, but back to tonight- I was listening to one and thinking about the other, cant remember which was which, when I realized that they mirror each other well. There is a sense of hope and desperation in both pieces of art, and I wanted to capture that juxtaposition. I felt a sudden sense of urgency to get this project done. I hope to re-do in a few days, with perhaps me singing the song instead of the recorded track, but will see how that turns out, or if I run out of energy.
It is this dialectical relationship and tension between hope and desperation I find so fascinating. This relationship is seen in everything we do: art, work, the web itself…
Whenever I speak with people about openness and sharing, I feel the need to preface my philosophy by saying, “Well not everyone will feel comfortable sharing as much as I do.” It is almost as if I am doing something wrong, and to be honest I am not sure if sharing my every thought on the Internet is the best idea. I too struggle with my own demons, and I am not so naive to think that I am impervious to a break down, much like this, at any time.
That’s the thing about all of this; we don’t really know where we are headed. Those who say they do, the experts, publish article after article presenting research to prove which ever side suits their argument best. Each of us needs to take inventory of our privacy and intimacy and weigh it against openness and community. Is what you consider to be private more or less valuable to you on the inside or on your sleeve? There is not right or wrong answer. All I know is that I have had some amazing experiences over the years by being open and having faith in the goodness of people and trusting in the power of creativity. I have written about the Heart of the Internet, Trust and Community,and Peaking Out From The Edges; I have spoken about Life as an Open Book; others have written about stalking me, or shared stories about my work at conferences. Even after all of this, the connections seem to be becoming more complex and sophisticated. After four years of living online, I am still surprised on an almost daily basis by the generosity of the human spirit and our need to be creative collectivity.
For every paranoid news story about the Internet that forces parents and teachers to cry privacy, I feel the need to populate the web with a story like this one- I recently discovered a great site called SoundCloud, which is a great portfolio for my music. I use the word portfolio, but my music is not anything that can be classified as professional, but it is mine and it makes me happy. Each song, like my photos, my films, my blog posts is an illustration of my journey. I am not concerned with value judgments like good or bad. Like I tell my students, learning is not about success or failure, it is about growth and change. Learning is at the heart of evolution. I suppose we could grow and learn and evolve in privacy and in isolation, but where is the fun in that. We could be scared or insecure to share any aspect of our creativity for fear of being judged, but I choose bravery instead.
Sorry. Back to the story, I have begun to upload my small catalog of recorded music. Why? Because experience has taught me that if you share yourself with honesty and passion and love, the universe will send back echoes and reflections that remind you that you are not a single lonely self, but a pixel in the larger picture of humanity. I don’t write too many original songs. I am not good at it, and I find it extremely difficult. I can take a decent photograph; I am getting better at turning a word or two, but when it comes to music- I am weighed down with doubt. I know what music does to my soul, and I know that my singing is awkward and insecure. I can hear the doubt and tension. I play with apprehension, which ironically is the opposite of what music should do.
Sorry. Back to the story, I upload music anyway. I guess in a way I want to set an example. If I ask my student to express themselves online, I cannot with a clear conscious not do the same. It takes a lot of guts to allow the world into your heart and by singing online, I am able to assuage my fear.
No words could express how amazing it feels when something that you put into the world so tenderly could sound like this:
and Leslie took it and made it her own. I am not sure what this means. I am not sure I know. I am not sure if I can articulate it. I am not sure you need it explained, but there is magic in what has happened here. There is beauty in these acts. There is love. There is community. This sharing and connection and creation brings me joy, and honestly that is all I have ever wanted. Please take these songs, the photos, the films, the text, the pieces of me and make them a part of you. We are echoes and refections posing as individuals.
Update: (This was written a few days after original post)
Of course this story didn’t end there. Once Keri Lee got wind of the project she added her own brand of loveliness.
The day has finally come. Jim Groom’sds#106 class has officially begun. You can read this for details of this first week, but if you are reading this you are most likely a member of the class. Curious how you introduce yourself to hundreds? of people, but we will see how many and who responds. It still feels like Jim is responding to every post and Tweet which is lunacy, but that is part of the reason why I am here. The guy is nuts and I look forward to seeing how he manages this beast.
Seriously though, the thing that attracted me to this course was more that his Bava persona, like Hunter S. Thompson, Jim is more than his online character. Both Jim and Hunter tend to push envelopes and grate at people sensibilities, but underneath that bravado is complex depth and seriousness to what all this means. And by this I mean art, human beings, technology, film, you name it. And if next week’s readings are any indication it is going to be one helluva a ride. Not too be out done by Alan “Show off” Levine, here is my intro:
If you are new to my blog and want to know more. Please feel free to follow the crubs around this maze I call my Personal Cyberinfrastructure. Home page probably best place to start.
I am a bit obsessive. Can you tell? I haven’t been able to stop thinking about animated .gifs since my initial foray last night. Armed with a new tool, I ventured back to try and fine tune my newly acquired skills. Thanks to this great new tool, Squared 5 from new contact @peteschneider I was able to abandon GifNinja. I was looking for something that would give me more freedom to play with still frames, and Squared 5 is just the tool. You simply click and drag the few seconds of video onto the editor and export using image sequence. You can adjust the frames per seconds to determine how many images you work with when creating the animation. I still prefer to use Photoshop instead of a gif creator. This is where the fun starts. This is when the art starts. I am slowly beginning to feel comfortable with the basic routine of this task, which is great because now I can begin to think about and work on the subtle craft of animation.
Working with these frames is a bit like choreographing a dance. I am still not to the level of the Lebowski image, but I am getting closer. Bigger, slower, and clearer images.
I am starting to brainstorm ideas of making a .gif with images I take myself, or thinking about how cool would it be to have an animated comic book, although Comic Life on my Mac does not accept .gifs. Any other ideas? Having lots of fun learning new skills over at #ds106.
Another great side effect of this course is the excitement I am feeling about my learning. I don’t remember being this excited about any single assignment during my entire master’s degree at Columbia. I am thinking a lot about how student must feel, when they are given a task or asked to learn something they truly enjoy. This learning does not feel like a chore, it is an obsession. Now how do I create this kind of excitement in my classroom?
I know this blog has traditionally been used to document my teaching, but starting tonight I want to also use it to document my learning. Tonight, for the better part of the night I learned how to create an animated .gif. After seeing several great examples on DS106 blog, I was intrigued by the haunting quality of this medium to see if I could do create one myself. So I did, what I do when I want to learn something new- I played and pushed the buttons and didn’t stop till I had at least a first step.
I am not sure if I did it right, and my final product is still rough and needs nuances and lots of work, but I think I now understand the basics. Here is what I did. Please let me know where I went down a wrong path or if there is an easier way to do this any of this:
I opened the new animated .gif in Preview and moved half the clips to Photoshop
I used about nine of them to create my first ever animated Gif! (Tutorial on youtube)
There are a lot of things wrong with it like the pixelated tiny size. It is moving too fast with too many frames, and not so haunting, but it is a first step. Now that I know what it takes to actually create one, I can focus on finding nuance and the right scene to play more careful attention to. Next time, I will work bigger and slower. Really looking at the piece as a photograoh that barely moves, not just a slowed down film clip. I am also interested in create a animated .gif of images I take myself. Lot’s to think about.
It feels good to start the night never having done a certain thing, and end the night having created something you never thought you could. This is the nature of learning online. Everything is possible if you dedicated the time and attention it needs to learn.
