On your Marx...

70 Production.
Excellent.
56 Essay.
Not so great.

I should probably not leave the essay until the last minute.
But, SEVENTY!
That's a first.
Yes mate.

T.

Media & Activism :: Online Assignment 1

Anonymous.
(Internet group.)

Examples of their activity:

1. (from Wikipedia)

A popular target for organized raids by Anonymous is Habbo, a popular social networking site designed as a virtual hotel. The first major raid, known as the "Great Habbo Raid of '06", occurred during 2006. In the raid (and most others that occur), users signed up to the Habbo site dressed in avatars of a black man wearing a grey suit and an Afro hairstyle (in style of Samuel L. Jackson in the movie Pulp Fiction) and blocked entry to the pool, declaring that it was "closed due to AIDS",, flooding the site with internet sayings, and forming swastika-like formations. When the raiders were banned, they complained of racism. In response, the Habbo admins often ban users with avatars matching the profile of the raiders even months after the latest raid.



2. (from Spotvilleradio.com)

The latest stunt from 4Chan was posting a bogus message on Oprah Winfrey’s website claiming to be a member of a secret pedophile group called “Pedobear”. The post claimed that there were “9000 penises” ready to commit acts against children. Oprah responded with a YouTube video calling awareness to the fictitious group. “Pedobear” is actually the name of a toy in a popular Japanese anime called, “Kodomo No Jikan”. A story about a school teacher who is constantly approached by an underaged girl.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2fiQcl7b0mQ



-----------------------------------



*
Influence(s/d) media content and practices;

The Habbo and Oprah examples feature the group directly influencing/creating content within the websites/forums, and in the latter example, Oprah's video response.

With regards to practices, their actions may influence tighter administrators. For example, any users logging onto Habbo Hotel and making a character like that used in the Anonymous raid, were deleted even months after the attack.

*
Advocate(s/d) for media policy/regulation reform;

Some of their activities serve as to hold a mirror up to media policy, others are just to cause trouble, or a stir. I think that the core members are out to make a point, and many have jumped on the bandwagon "for the lulz," and are responsible for the more offensive or dangerous attacks.

*
Help(s/d) the evolution of an independent and participatory media;

It helps itself. Each prank draws attention to it's own cause. For better or for worse. It has also started a participatory campaign against Scientology.

*
Change(s/d) the relationship of audience and media; and/or

Many of their "core" pranks open the audience's eyes to a media's faults, with the Oprah escapade bring a prime example.

*
Use(s/d) the media to affect ideological changes in everyday contexts.

Anti scientology. Perhaps pointing out flaws for a safer cleaner internet, although this is as the cost of freedom of expression.

Nearly done!

PHP Project is nearly complete.
Excellent.

As it happens, this project has gone really well. I enjoy working by myself and just knuckling down; I've really got in the zone and completed a site that functions well, as well as a simple CMS.

I think my slight contact with C during my first year of BACVA has helped me understand PHP greatly. Waaaaaay!

Let's see what the marks say.

T.

Here we go again.

It's year two!
It's been year two for a long time.
I forgot about this bad boy.

So I leant PHP from scratch after not attending last year.
That was fun. Well no, not fun, but fairly interesting.
And now we're doing the project.
Which, isn't going too badly.
I believe I have a functioning site, it just doesn't look very good, so I'll work on the design aspect.

As for the essay, as per usual, haven't even thought about it.

I've decided that Second Life is rubbish.


T.

The Only Account Of Glasto '08 You'll Ever Really Need To Read.

The Only Account Of Glasto '08 You'll Ever Really Need To Read.

Wednesday morning arrived and I made my way to the train station to meet my friends, we'd opted for an early train to beat the queues experienced last year, and boy, did it pay off. Only a brief wait at Castle Cary and the worst sniffer dogs in existence, that would have only sniffed out anything had it been strapped to my shin. But we were soon in Glastonbury and found the rest of our posse who had already arrived and set up camp near the Park Stage.

Something new from last year I instantly noticed, huge mounds of free fire-wood dotted about the camps. Excellent. We filled our free YeoValley bags with as much as we could, and by early afternoon, it was all gone. And by four o' clock, I was gone too. Out of my tree. Brilliant.

The weather was bloody lovely, and certainly had a positive effect on everybody's mood. Last year was just a soggy mess; but this year had potential.

I had plans to see a couple of bands on Thursday, but laziness got the better of me and it turned into a repeat performance of Wednesday, with an early retirement when the heavens opened and it shat it down. Sad times. Thankfully that was the only real burst of rain. There were very brief showers occasionally, but nothing major.

Friday. I'd ummed and arred about seeing The Subways, but had heard poor reviews of recent performances, so got convinced to go and check out Patrick Watson, who was apparently a decent acoustic musician. Well as it turned out, he was a sack of shit. Noise. That was a short-lived experience, we soon left.

We then headed to the Pyramid Stage to catch Get Cape Wear Cape Fly. Surprisingly, he was quite good. And I discovered why. He didn't play a single song off of his latest (diabolical) album, despite the fact that Kate Gash, who features on one song, was waiting in the wings. ALSO, I've seen him on previous occasions and he has a habit of giving arrogant speeches about why the world's a mess. None of that at Glastonbury. He probably realised there were thousands of other people there saying exactly the same thing, but who actually had solid facts instead of a guitar and a big mouth.

I then went to the Other Stage for Vampire Weekend. Their song “A-Punk” is loved by just about everyone, and I'll confess that's about all I was going to see, despite having their album on my iPod. But I'm pleased to announce that the American group (with strangely Scandinavian twists on their accents) who were pretty much set in my mind as one-hit-wonders, put on a great show, and played some brilliant music. Then came Ben Folds who I was extremely excited about seeing. His album “Songs For Silverman” is one of my favourite. Unfortunately, his choice of set was disappointing. Although he did play my favourite song “Landed,” he played some other new stuff, and the odd-looking front of Dresden Dolls came out and did a couple of her new songs, which Folds produced. I, obviously, didn't give a toss, I'd gone to see Ben, who didn't seem too bothered to be there. Gutted.

The next band I caught were Foals who were just amazing. The sound was perfect and it sounded just like the CD. After a vague and aching intro of guitars and such, I wasn't sure which direction the performance was going to go in, but thankfully they got it spot on. After half an hour though, I took a gamble and went to see Infadels who were in a Dance tent for some reason. The gamble paid off. One of the best, if not THE best set of the weekend. Just fantastic. Man I love those guys.

Then I caught the end of Fun Lovin' Criminals, but if I'm honest I wasn't paying much attention and stood just about as far away as I could have been. But I remember them being pretty funny, and turning up just in time for “Scooby Snacks.” The night ended with Kings of Leon”, who were also very good. KOL don't really interact with the crowd at all, the singer said it himself. He gave a brief speech about Glastonbury and how much it meant to them, but besides that it was song song song. “Red Morning Light” was left out of the set list for some reason, but besides that, exactly what you'd expect.

Saturday started with my first visit to the Guardian Lounge, and sat at the front, inches away from Martina Topley-Bird, who was not only very good, but her drummer was awesome and it was quite fun watching them play and have a little bitch with the sound man, who hadn't plugged one of her microphones in. Then we went to see Seasick Steve. What a crazy cat he is. I mean he was quite good but it's not entirely my cup of tea, and at one point he got a girl up on stage and sang to her. I felt sorry for her. Some crazy hairy old ex-tramp singing into your eyes. Oh my.

The weekend's next disappointment was to follow, in the form of Holy Fuck who managed to play nearly an hour set of songs that sounded perfectly identical bar the last one, which happened to be my favourite. Either way, after seeing them live I've come to the conclusion that they're massively over-rated and it's possibly their outrageous name that subconsciously drew me to them.

Luckily, catching Stephen Fretwell at the Queen's Head, slightly made up for the previous disappointment. He was, as always, fantastic. And so genuine with his thanks and talks with the crowd. Brilliant. I didn't see anyone for a little while until The Raconteurs on the Pyramid Stage, and I'm pleased to announce they were actually very good. Nuff said. I went to see The Thirst at the Leftfield stage next. As I walked in, five minutes before they were set to start, there were only about twenty people there. Uh-oh. They weren't great in all honesty, so after they played their third song, and my favourite, “Sail Away,” I wandered out again.

Saturday night famously was headlined by Jay-Z. But fuck that. I wanted something with a bit of energy. Something I could easily sing my heart out to without having to be able to rap for over an hour. My thirst for this, was quenched by Biffy Clyro who I first saw at Glastonbury the year before. This was now the fourth time seeing them, and easily the best. It was all over so fast though. But brilliant. Sheer brilliance.

Sunday started like the day before with Martina Topley-Bird, but this time on the Pyramid Stage. Just as good as before, minus the squabble with the sound-team. And once again, included my favourite song, “Carnies.” I then went to see Newton Faulkner, who I was surprised to hear slated by all my friends. I'd seen him at V the year before and he was bloody fantastic. This year he was still pretty good, although there were some slight issues. His music relies a lot on acoustic finger tapping and hitting the body of the guitar itself, and for some reason, this was all quite quiet. But he was very good, entertaining as ever, and even covered “Bohemian Rhapsody” from start to finish. And then for the final, and possibly biggest let-down of the weekend. John Mayer had a big place in my heart until Glastonbury. I mean yes he played very well and all that but it was just another sad case of poor set-list. People who go to see such artists at festivals, want to dance about a bit and chant out memorable choruses and such. They don't want to stand through songs they don't know the words to, and endure songs that have been extended into epic guitar numbers. “Why Georgia,” “Your Body Is A Wonderland,” and “Daughters,” all missing from the set list. For God's sake. So I went back to camp and sulked. My fourth act of the day was another solo artist, Laura Marling. And she was fantastic. Hard to believe she's only eighteen. I also didn't realise she used to be in Noah & The Whale, who I saw later, after the end of Mark Ronson, which was pretty dull, and Pigeon Detectives who were exactly what you'd expect from upbeat indie with tuneless vocals. Noah & The Whale, were just fantastic. Starting with my favourite “Shape Of My Heart,” they preceded to play forty-five minutes of brilliance. I was loving life. I popped outside to see The Zutons for some reason, who were surprisingly average, and finished the day, and festival, with The Verve. Very good indeed. Richard Ashcroft is pretty up himself and a bit of a dick (perhaps why they split up in the first place?) but they were very good indeed. The fact he sang the title of a line from every single song before it started was a little annoying after an hour, but it was a good choice of set with all the obvious hits covered, incredible sound, and just general excellence.

Apart from all the music, what else is there to comment on? Surprising amount of couples taking very young children in buggies (WHY?) and often having domestics. And the food winds me up. Not the food itself, but the amount you pay for such average nosh. And the 'gourmet' burger vans that you only realise are regular burgers once you've bought it. Anyway, I've had enough of typing.

SP08 Presentations.

So, today, we presented and handed in the practical part of the Summer Project.
After losing a crucial game of rock paper scissor, I had to be one of the people presenting.

Butterflies.
Hard.

We were quite late in the day as well, after some amazing pieces.

As it turned out, it didn't go too badly, the three minute wonder is AMAZING and the site isn't bad. The second intro video let the whole piece down a great deal though, I think.

Channel 4's critique made no real contribution to our work, it was either here nor there with a very non-specific "something more" asked for. What more? As if the best video of the day and a website to potentially get thousands of people all challenging each other, wasn't enough. Not a single comment about the 3mw.

And the (now four!) groups who did get through... A couple were fantastic, I couldn't agree more. But there was one which relied heavily on over theatrical and ridiculous live performance during presentation, and, oh, who cares, what's done is done.

2 essays to do.

I Won't Sit Down, And I Won't Shut Up

It's been a while.
As I always say.

So, two weeks through group project.
It's going... meh.

Our idea isn't fabulous and with a week until filming, we haven't found actors.
Old people are seemingly hard to find/approach?

I'm kinda running the website.
Going pretty well tbh.
Keep hitting problems though, I never paid much attention!

Got our marks back for Audiences, 68 on the essay (how?!) and 70 on production.
First, wow!
Will be my only one I'm sure.
Guess it reflects how I genuinely tried hard this time.
Awesome.

x

Diamond Hoo Ha

Supergrass have a new album. I didn't know they were still alive.

Anyway it's been a while since I've written on this bad boy. Over a month in fact. Golly gosh.

Last post was just after filming in the Narratives project. After a stressful edit and conversion session, we made hand in. And considering (to the best of my knowledge) there were numerous issues with the website, we got a 65. Maybe it was just paranoia. Not complaining though. Although I'm not too confident about my essay which kind of didn't really go anywhere. Hmmmm.

Now we're into a new unit. Audiences. Flash animation. Mmhmm. Never really done it before but picking it up nicely. Got an idea for the project but now I've started I've realised I'm just making things hard for myself. Ho hum, no turning back now!
I basically have to hand-draw loads, scan it in to colour in photoshop, then animate in Flash. Crazy days. Not to worry, back to the grindstone I suppose...

x

Bring on Hollywood.

So yeah today we filmed for the group project.
I think the fact it was mainly winged will show tomorrow when we dump the footage for edit. Sadly.
There are huge lacks of continuity, but I didn't want to take charge and boss people about and so kind of let it go. Just hoping that isn't going to haunt me henceforth.

ALSO.
updated my website quite a bit.
www.thomcurtis.co.uk

hooray.

x

Insomnia

I wouldn't mind sleeping, but I can't.
Cleared my back-log of interviews for the website, watched 6 episodes of ER, it was 9am.
Went to the bank, now cooking a fry up, hoping to pass out after quick vodka consumption to get some much needed sleep.

Fuck insomnia.
Fuck it in the eye.

ALSO.
Loving "Moving to New York" by Wombats.
The fact it's about sleeping problems is a genuine coincidence.