"All things in moderation" makes the world go 'round

In looking at the materials presented discussing pros and cons about social media, one thing became clear: lumping people doesn't lead to solid conclusions about the impact of digital media in the modern era.

Some people become addicted, yes. How many of those people would have had an addiction to something besides the internet, anyway? There are addictive personalities so can we really blame digital media?

I have an addiction to my phone. I want to check it often. Is that because digital media has robbed me of my ability to live in the world? No, but... admittedly, it's close. Access to digital media has given me the option to "check out" when I am bored or uncomfortable.

Standing in line at the grocery store, I check my phone. Waiting at a doctor's office, I check my phone. Yes, even at a stoplight, I check my phone. Is this bad? Well, what *should* I be doing instead? Staring into space? Smoking a cigarette? Making eyes at the guys in the car next to me? Perhaps, but I hardly see that one is more valuable than checking my phone.

So where is this digital media and society thing heading? I don't really see it changing us much internally. It may be a new coat of paint on an old room. We already have plenty of ways to check out of the moment. Now we just have a shiner, more portable option.

They say families don't talk as much now that kids text at the table. Did teens talk that much before? No, they just have a way out of the discomfort of staring at the plate while parents ask annoying questions.

They say individuals are less social. Are the people they refer to simply introverts? If so, they probably would have stayed away from socializing anyway. Now they just have a safer, more comfortable way to connect online. Extroverts are going to get out there no matter how enticing You Tube might be.

They say education is being usurped by internet "sound bite" writing and learning. Going back to our first TED talk, it can also be a way to teach people things they would never have even heard of or had access to. The internet opens our world and we write about it as we find interesting things to share.

I think people who have these ideas about the downfall of society are mostly tech-phobes. They just don't understand. We have plenty of major things to worry about and this should not be on the short list. WikiLeaks gives us enough to be concerned about...

WikiLeaks Video: Point/Counterpoint

Well, with this project I went a bit less abstract. The reason for that was the volume of videos I found that had opposite ideas were overwhelming. It also struck me as ironic that such a heated and important philosophical debate was also the brunt of main stream comedy. I wanted this video to really reflect the contradictions, pettiness and seriousness that role themselves into this issue.

To find my videos, I began with google videos. I was surprised to discover that many of the ones I found (that looked very promising) had been removed. Mostly, they had "timed out" and were no longer legal under the copyright. (Yet another irony?) Google videos left me frustrated so I moved onto TED and then to YouTube.

I gathered all of my materials and placed them in an order to reflect the point/counterpoint concept.

Aesthetically, I was frustrated with the program because I could not find a way to adjust the timings of the transitions so they are way too long. I also was not able to add music in the way I had hoped. Self-assessment? I believe my concept was conveyed but could have done so with a bit more polish and "flare" had I found ways around my technical difficulties.

I hope you enjoy anyway!

What Story Do You Hear?

"The American Way" is now and audio file. Hear it here!

In creating this audio file, I gathered some literal sound bites and some more abstract.

I wanted to gather sound bites that represented the various perspectives on WikiLeaks and the "American Way" pint of view. Below is a listing of the sounds and the reasons for them being there and in that order:

Gunshot: We begin with the sound of violence/freedom, protection/oppression

God Bless America: This old fashioned version of the song represents the old-fashioned American ideal and, in this context, carries an irony as it plays through most of the audio

Typing: This obviously represents technology and the power of the internet/WikiLeaks

Person speaks followed by "shhh": This represents the opposite of the freedom of speech and the typing on the internet

Baby crying: Represents the pain, confusion on both sides and also calls attention to what is at stake: the future. Layered on top of "God Bless America" it is meant to be haunting/disturbing and provide an alternative view point to the sweetness of the song.

Introduce Assange: This is a strictly utilitarian clip, introducing our "main character"

Assange's Voice: Although it is hard to hear, Assange is speaking (with an echo effect) about the power of WikiLeaks

O'reilly calls Assange a traitor: More conservative banter adding to the opposing view points

J. Robert Oppenheimer: Father of the atomic bomb, states that secrecy works against the wisdom of the government. He states men should be able to speak what they think is true and false; free and uncorrupted communication

Rush Limbaugh speaks: The "King of the Conservatives" makes a harsh and dramatic call for Assange to be killed, "no questions asked." He is the perfect person, and the sentiment is the perfect sentiment, to launch this audio into a more frenzied pace

"Hands off WikiLeaks" : Proof that large groups of people don't agree with the conservative view and want WikiLeaks to continue

O'Reilly calls Assange names: More conservative drama that helps to build the frenzy I am intentionally building

Funny Sarah Palin quote: Frankly, this sound bite accomplishes two things, 1) it's hilarious 2) it is an example of high profile people commenting on WikiLeaks and being commented on themselves. The layers go deep!

Simpson's song: This is a call back to "The American Way," the American Everyman is layered beneath the controversy and may or may not be paying attention. From an audio perspective, it also adds to the "frenzy."

Baby cries: In acting we call this a "callback." We are revisiting an element from early on in the experience but now that we have traveled further on the journey we will hear this symbol of "the future crying" with a different, deeper perspective

Vietnames song, "Help Me, Momma": This haunting tune brings in elements of the Vietnamese character in the text of "The American Way" but, more importantly, it asks the audience to think about the individual lives that are effected by the actions of our American Military, the primary focus of WikiLeaks.

Gunshot: This is an element like "baby crying": in acting we call this a "callback." We are revisiting an element from early on in the experience but now that we have traveled further on the journey we will hear this symbol of the violence/freedom, protection/oppression with a different, deeper perspective

Beginning to talk followed by "shhh": We are reminded of the issue at hand: to speak up or keep government secrets secret

Fade to Vietnames song and out: Leaving us with the last sound the sound of other nations and past pain from wrongs our government has allowed

So, what story do you hear?

Who's story is it anyway?

When I was writing my first book, I struggled with the stories I planned to include because almost all of them included real people who I knew and loved. It became my motto to tell a "gentle truth." The night before the book was going to be real, in my hands and available for sale, I was terrified. I couldn't sleep due to the pit in my stomach and the worry about "what if I make someone mad?"

After the book was released, months went by and there were only a few minor hurt feelings. "Why didn't you talk more about when we did this?" or "That's not quite how I remember it" were the worst of my feedback. Ah, relief.

That is until almost a year after the book's publication, I opened my email to find a nasty, spitting note from a mother-in-law of one of the characters in my book. She called me terrible names and viewed me as some sort of devil. I had failed to talk about the whole person, how goos she was, how smart she was, how charitable...etc. Included with the email was a speech written by this girl that she had presented to a church group. That was to prove how much better she was than me, I think.

I was sick about it for days. I couldn't decide how to respond. I talked about it with everyone I knew. The story I had told did not paint the girl in a particularly nasty way but I alluded to the fact that her stories terrified me and I wasn't quite sure they were true. According to this email, I had called a complete saint (and a deceased one at that) a liar.

Years have gone by now and that email doesn't haunt me anymore. My choice to include that description of my friend doesn't haunt me either. I was not telling her story, I was telling my story of which she was a main player in an important lesson learned. I wasn't writing her autobiography I was writing mine and, in that effort, I had edited this person's depiction to a few pages in which she was not perfect, or smart, or particularly considerate. I had told my truth and it didn't match with the truth of her family. So, who's story was it?

For me, the bottom line here is that no one but that family cared who the person in the story was. The story was in the book for a reason. It had a purpose, a lesson to learn, and the family (who threatened to sue) could not see past their grief and anger to consider that writing is art and art is about the HUMAN experience not the INDIVIDUAL experience. Her editing may not have been a complete view of who she was but it fit the objective the art needed to express.

Frankly, I do this kind of thing all of the time. I see a talk from a doctor about healthcare and I write about what she said. Am I plagiarizing or am I sharing the experience I had as a listener? I read a blog and I share the story of the mother and child on the child's last day in my own words, without her knowing. Should I be ashamed of my lack of creativity? Should I be sued for slander? Should I be accused of stealing?

I imagine you know my answer. But before I put the answer out there, let me flip the scenario. Often, after I am done speaking in front of a group about healthcare and end of life, people will want to speak to me afterwards. These topics bring up many emotions and memories and it is common for audience members to want to share their stories with me. I consider this and honor.

It is also a fascinating psychological/philosophical study! Very often people will begin a sentence with "When you said, it made me realize..." and I will try hard to listen because I know I never said that. People hear things that never came out of my mouth. What they did hear was their own, deep internal processing as I was presenting my own deep internal processing in front of them. They heard me but their life experiences, personality, relationships (etc) caused what I was saying to enter their consciousness like light entering a prism: the concepts refracted and they became new beams of light, unique to that listener.

It's my belief that once we share something; an experience, listening to your talk, reading your blog, it becomes mine. The light goes in, I filter it in my own unique way, and what I heard becomes art based on your art. This is not plagiarizing, it is reacting to life and that's what artists do. This relates completely to Jeremy Rifkin's The Empathetic Civilization talk.

All humans have the mirror nerons he spoke about. That is, the part of our brains that show (in an mri) that when I observe your emotions, the same neurons will light up in my brain as in yours. I lived when he said "Empathy is the opposite of heaven, empathy is grounded in the knowledge of death, it’s based on the understanding of the struggle" because it is the struggle of another or the struggle another evokes in us that drive us to create the art at all.

Writing a book meant I was writing for many people who were likely on a similar journey to mine. It wasn't about judging my friend, it was all about SOLIDARITY with others who have had a like experience and needed it to have a voice. What had been interrupted as an individual attacking an individual was, in fact, an effort to broaden my sense of identity and rethink my narrative and the narrative of those in similar shoes.

It was good to see that my way of encorporating other's efforts into my own to create my art was not new or unusual. In "The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism" by Jonathan Lethem, we saw the this approach went back to some of the people we consider the greatest geniuses of their time. Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters and William S.Burroughs were some of the examples given in Lethem's piece. Of Muddy Waters, he states:

In 1941, on his front porch, Muddy Waters recorded a song for the folklorist Alan Lomax. After singing the song, which he told Lomax was entitled “Country Blues,” Waters described how he came to write it. In nearly one breath, Waters offers five accounts: his own active authorship: he “made it” on a specific date. Then the “passive” explanation: “it come to me just like that.” After Lomax raises the question of influence, Waters, without shame, misgivings, or trepidation, says that he heard a version by Johnson, but that his mentor, Son House, taught it to him. In the middle of that complex genealogy, Waters declares that “this song comes from the cotton field.”

Whew! It's not just me!

So what about all this copyright crap? Am in good company or would Th0mas Jefferson want me held accountable for violating copyright or, what now have, The Fair Use law. (I am a c-corp so not protected like a non-profit or educational institution.) Times they are a-changin' and I'm afraid all those white haired Caucasians with a personal or professional stake in copyright law may have some challenging times ahead.

Even in a conservative approach (leave the art and solidarity stuff out of it) we can see that technology is making copyright it's own enemy. In "Remix: making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy" the author warns us that this "war on privacy" might represent good values and be best for our culture but we must make sure this war doesn’t cost more than its worth. Keeping up with "The Free Appropriation Writer"(s) like German teenage author phenom, Helene Hegemann, is looking like it costs more than it's worth. Artists like Issa who share their work and only ask for voluntary donations in return make this "game of art and commerce" more complicated.

So, small artists and big corporations have a choice: continue to try and beat 'em or go ahead and join 'em. Old Spice got on the "open source" bandwagon with their popular YouTube campaign. A new website called Creative Commons has been launched to help make scientific, educational, and artistic work available to internet users while also offering alternative licensing agreements that keep up with the times.

All the while, we must strive to find new ways, such as UC San Diego's Software Studies Initiative by Lev Manovich, to house and organize the mass amounts of images and data we have at our fingertips. If that's our problem, don't we have enough content to go around? Can't we share?

Who's story is it anyway?

This isn't a new question. The Jamaican immigrants that took their music and shared it now are the fathers and mothers of a huge genre of music: rap music. Did they decide to run around and spend their lives chasing people to claim their musical property? No, they gave because of the love of music. Does the younger generation shut down and get discouraged that their blog entries are up for grabs with no real recourse if someone steals their greatest turn of phrase? No. In fact, Andrea Lunsford's study at Stanford shows this generation is the most prolific since the time of Greek civilization. We are free to share, give and take. This breeds creativity and our consciousness evolves as one, not as separate greedy silos.

I will continue to filter stories and share them in ways that seem meaningful to me. It's my conclusion that we can all take a lesson from Thich Nhat Hahn and Buddhists like him and practice non-attachment. Love, be inspired, create and let go. Be, live, act and let go. I will strive to hold myself to the same philosophy I wished the girl's family could find: let her story be hers and let my experience of her story be my story.

I can't be attached to my work because once I put it out there, it is a gift. You don't get to dictate what people do with gifts.

I can't be attached to my life because once I live it, it's up to interpretation and edits.

Once I release it, your fracturing of my light is not subject to copyright.

Gathering Like a Girl

It's a stereotype and I fit it. When I throw a ball it lands with a thud a foot or two in front of my feet. I get giddy when I go shopping and spend way more than my budget. I love gossip and giggling with friends. I am a girl and I act like one.

It will come as no surprise, then, that I gather my information like a girl.

Like most people who are comfortable with the internet, I am quite reliant on Google. In my world, there is no reason to have arguments about facts anymore. "Let's just Google it" is my response to most questions that arise in conversation. I pull out my android or take out my laptop and--tada!--argument resolved.

On a deeper level, when I am gathering information from the internet to expand my understanding of a topic, person or event, I do have my own style. In addition to researching WikiLeaks for this class, I am currently in "gather" mode for a book I am co-writing. The book is about African Americans and end of life. Perfect. Two topics of which I have almost no personal knowledge and it's my job to now understand them enough to create content about them. My gathering in these circumstances takes on a specific flavor.

I usually start with Wikipedia and other links that have primarily factual content. Once I feel like I have a basic grasp of the definition of the topic and primary "issues," my gathering then becomes much more individual focused. This is where my girly gathering kicks into overdrive and I turn to YouTube.

Perhaps my method of gathering has something to do with my background as an actor and definitely has to do with my desire to understand human beings. In order to try and wrap my brain around a new perspective, I seek to slip into the skin of those who embody it. I begin listening to videos of people who hold extreme views on the topic. I jump from video to video, from one side of the issue to the other. Sometimes, I even fall asleep listening, letting the intonations of speech and passionate pleas seep into my unconscious.

Once I feel confident that I can jump from one "skin" to the other, I feel ready to write and explore my own perspective. Afer trying on the various "skins" I can feel which one feels comfortable and which ones feel too tight, too loose and too out of style. My thoughts and writing can be influenced by their perspective, like a period piece costume, but I am wearing my jeans underneath.

This process continues over and over. Reading "factual" content and listening to human speech is the best gathering method I have found for me. As a woman, as an actress and as a human; I am most inspired to learn when I am hearing it "straight from the horse's mouth."

WikiLeaks Point of View in Image Form

When the sirens of change are screaming will you be an activist or apathetic? When your world is threatened will you take up arms? When there is injustice, no matter how big the machine, will you fight "The Man"? When it's all too big to understand, will you retreat?

The images chosen here tell the story as I wrote about in "The American Way." In the top left corner we have the siren light overlapped by the universal signal for "shhh." We begin the story with the images expressing both the alarm of exposing national secrecy and the alarm of the secrets revealed.

We now have to ask ourselves how we respond to this alarm: run? fight? care? We see my estimation of what most Americans choose in this case as the next image in the story. Homer Simpson, who I would argue is America's Everyman, is asleep with drool coming out of his mouth. He doesn't care. Above him floats the both ironic and literal sign; "Danger: Internet."

On the next line of our story, we see some of the characters represented in "The American Way." These characters also represent perspectives on the WikiLeaks scandal. First we see the traditional American family, scared for their safety. They will "rage against the machine" and take up arms, as we see the young woman doing in the bottom left. Overlapping her are the images of our Vietnamese child who grew into an adult hoping the US would be held accountable for secret behaviors.

In the center of our characters lay the two most important elements of this conversation: technology and the scales of justice. In the context of WikiLeaks, we look around at our characters with their different and valid perspectives and ask: where does technology become our scales of justice and when do the scales of justice need to limit the scope of our technology?

We end our visual story with the final (and only) repeated image that is meant to be both a question and a statement: "Danger: Internet!"

Details about the creation of the image:

I used 4 programs to make this graphic.

I began with google image search and found the major points of my concept in images.

I saved these images and narrowed them down to the ones that resonated the most.

I opened GIMP and began stacking the images in layers. I kept arranging them in a way that moved around in the same shape as my thoughts on the topic.

I anchored the images and saved it as a jpg.

I then opened the jpg in GIMP and used the smudging, clone and burning tool to make the images blend. I also used the paint brush for some effects.

I then saved the image and opened it in word. I added text in word.

I then saved the image and used FastCapture to copy the whole image as you see above.

The American Way

As we watch the secrets of the United States Government dance across our computer screens through WikiLeaks, we witness the reactions of our peers, neighbors and community. Within these reactions is a wide spectrum; one like you might find if you tried to pin down religious beliefs. The opinions are passionate and usually unyielding. Inside all of the arguments and positioning, there is no way to know if what we read is fully real and what is “fact-based” (as quoted from the current WikiLeaks site). This leaves an impartial observer with a choice: to care or not to care? That is the question.

For those who choose not to care they walk away and don’t look back. This is not a part of their world anymore. Is this apathy or integrity? When faced with piles of documents and confusing testimonies, should we even have an opinion? Assuming we can not know anything is true, what gives us the right to claim a side? And yet, with such potential harm or, at the very least, possibility of a political cultural shift, when should we be required to care? When, as citizens of these United States, should we demand of ourselves to participate despite blurry lines? When do we declare apathy and when do we claim integrity?

So, let’s assume we decide to stick around and put our toe in the WikiLeaks water. The facts swirl around our heads and we see visions in the distance. One figure on the horizon stands in a town square and holds the American flag proudly in one hand while clutching his children and wife closely with the other. He fears for his life and the lives of those he loves. He opposes WikiLeaks because it makes him fear for his national safety. Next to him stands a young woman (it might just be Ms. Nebraska) holding a riffle in her hands. She shouts that we should stay off her land and she will fight, by any means necessary, to keep the United States as the leading world power. These are activists and they want what is best for their country.

As we continue to scan the horizon, we witness two more compelling figures standing in front of a courthouse. The first figure is a young, idealist who has a computer in one hand and the Bill of Rights in the other. He wears a blindfold to symbolize his opposition to being blind to the truth and regularly makes donations to fund the efforts of WikiLeaks. Beside him stands a young woman who was taken from her home and brought to the US after American soldiers terrorized and killed her family in Vietnam. She holds a tattered picture of her parents and beside her, on the ground, are the scales of justice. She tells her story over and over in the hope that what happened to her in her childhood does not happen to another family. She is hopeful that WikiLeaks and the resulting shift in government secrecy will turn a spotlight on the US, thus preventing them from inflicting suffering on innocent families. These are activists and they want what is best for their country.

As a person with little knowledge of WikiLeaks and the governmental secrets exposed, I walked into this scene ready to stand with any of the characters described. Walking in as not an especially patriotic person, but one who understands that the US offers freedoms and luxuries not found in most other places on earth, I could imagine clutching my loved ones closely or even drawing my gun (metaphorically speaking) in opposition to WikiLeaks. I could imagine wanting to disassemble that which might jeopardize our lives and our lifestyles.

Similarly, I am not one who thinks any thought should be said, but find peace in the knowledge that no matter how radical, stupid or brilliant my thoughts might be, they have a right to be heard. In addition, I am not one to think the government always acts on behalf of its people and knows that there is a level of shadiness in Washington that is difficult to even wrap my brain around. For this, I could imagine standing beside those who seek to expose the corruption and use their stories to paint a different picture of “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” I could imagine seeing WikiLeaks as a powerful ally in my efforts to bring dark truth into the light.

So is WikiLeaks treason or is it the American Way? When I first began hearing the opinions of those in the town square, I was naturally alarmed at the potential for harm and danger. Was WikiLeaks giving out the position of our troops? The location of the president when he had no protection? Was it sharing the combination to the vault? (What vault? I don’t know. It just seems like there would be one somewhere.) After the initial research and hearing the accusations that WikLeaks was the cause behind the assisination of a national leader and other vague reports of soldiers being exposed and killed due to WikiLeaks, I was ready to join Ms. Nebraska and hold my weapons up against the creators of WikiLeaks. But, upon further investigation, there was no way to substantiate these claims and, for every claim WikiLeaks was the root cause of these deaths, there was another proving WikiLeaks held no inkling of responsibility.

Reading more, I began to discover the leaks were not only about confidential military tactics, they were accounts of human rights violations. Child prostitution and drug use among US Military Private Contractors? Big Pharma using blackmail to ensure their ability to keep testing pharmaceuticals on children in Nigeria? Trading money and a meeting with Obama with other countries willing to move around prisoners from Guantanamo Bay so the president can make it look like he fulfilled a promise? Is this Hollywood or real life? Is this the real reason behind the outrage and call for Assange’s assignation? Are we learning that our government is dirtier than it is vulnerable to violated military secrecy? I was ready to stand beside the computer geek and the Vietnamese woman in front of the courthouse and use my voice in favor of WikiLeaks and all it stands for.

But instead, I stand in the middle. Confused and tired, I throw my hands up in despair. Like a child with no power over how my parents ran the household, I am a small citizen with no access to the information and insights needed to truly understand all of the dynamics at play. Even if I were, what in the world could I do about it? Fund WikiLeaks? Even WikiLeaks doesn’t claim to always know the truth. Take up arms against WikiLeaks? There are things they have brought to the surface that need to be known. So, I become apathetic. I say I am not enough and I stare into the horizon. I wonder, am I an activist? Do I care enough? Sadly, I think that this is one the thing I know to be true: some fight in the Town Square, some fight on the steps of the courthouse, and most decide to go back home and get on facebook. This is the American Way.