5/4 Takeaways from reading
1. In New literacies and social practices of digital remixing by Lankshear and Knobel, the authors describe cultural remixing, where people take cultural artifacts and combine and manipulate them into new creative products. In "Read/Write" culture, people consume the culture around them and then add to it by "creating and re-creating the culture around them". I love this analyzation of how people interact with and make culture because I feel that this is the job of the art student and artist. We, as artists, learn about the great masters from the the ancient greeks, to the renaissance, to the baroque period, impressionism, modernism, and beyond. We study all of the imagery, styles, themes, and interactions with society and politics, internalize it, and let it help us create our own visual voices. Not only does art history influence us, but we intake pop culture in the form of novels, magazines, newspapers, websites, music, television, and fashion. Artists take in all of the color, emotion, and aesthetics of society and we make commentary and statements about the world. We contribute through beautification and giving people new ways to think about life. We exhibit social movements, politics, crises, friendships, emotions, families, landscapes, and pure stream of consciousness. We make new worlds for the mind to live in and breath new possibilities.
2. Lankshear and Knobel talk about digitally remixing music by taking components of existing recorded music and splicing it together to create a new version of the original. Often remixes I've come across are a faster pace than the original for the purpose of club dance music. I find that this distortion of sometimes wonderful songs is tragic and fear inducing. The song has been chopped up and mixed in strange ways that gets one's heart racing. The remixes are too flashy- they try to introduce as many weird effects as possible without the thought of how the music needs to resemble the original melodies. I will admit that some remixers do their job well, but it is few and far between. I think a better application of the term remix when applied to music are reinterpretations or "covers" of original songs. These tend to be more heartfelt and respectful of the original art piece. People often contribute extra riffs on guitars, changing of keys, tempo alterations, more voices, different instruments, and extensions of melody. Covers can sometimes even be more like-able than original songs. For example, I prefer pentatonix's interpretation of Omi's Cheerleader to the original version. It's much more dynamic with its use of rhythm and layering of voices.
3. After reading Kylie Peppler's animation section in her article New Opportunities for Interest Driven Arts Learning in a Digital Age, and thinking about the students I've had over the summer for the past five years, I am beginning to think that animation should be integrated into the elementary and high school curriculums. Students have extreme interest in animation techniques, as they all grow up watching 3D animated features like Disney Pixar's the Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Frozen, and 2D animated tv shows like Phineas and Ferb, Steven Universe, and Rick and Morty. It's an essential part of their lives. While some schools will experiment with highly traditional forms of animation like flip books and claymation, like Peppler states, popular digital techniques have yet to enter the majority of classroom education centers. This is partially due to a lack of knowledge on the part of art educators. It would be beneficial for art educators to put effort into learning animation softwares in order to engage students in a method of art making that's so exciting and special to kids. After learning and experimenting with these softwares, teachers would need to convince school boards of the educational potential of integrating animation lessons into the curriculum. Peaking students particular interests using pop culture media will allow for more thoughtful and engaged creativity.
2. Lankshear and Knobel talk about digitally remixing music by taking components of existing recorded music and splicing it together to create a new version of the original. Often remixes I've come across are a faster pace than the original for the purpose of club dance music. I find that this distortion of sometimes wonderful songs is tragic and fear inducing. The song has been chopped up and mixed in strange ways that gets one's heart racing. The remixes are too flashy- they try to introduce as many weird effects as possible without the thought of how the music needs to resemble the original melodies. I will admit that some remixers do their job well, but it is few and far between. I think a better application of the term remix when applied to music are reinterpretations or "covers" of original songs. These tend to be more heartfelt and respectful of the original art piece. People often contribute extra riffs on guitars, changing of keys, tempo alterations, more voices, different instruments, and extensions of melody. Covers can sometimes even be more like-able than original songs. For example, I prefer pentatonix's interpretation of Omi's Cheerleader to the original version. It's much more dynamic with its use of rhythm and layering of voices.
3. After reading Kylie Peppler's animation section in her article New Opportunities for Interest Driven Arts Learning in a Digital Age, and thinking about the students I've had over the summer for the past five years, I am beginning to think that animation should be integrated into the elementary and high school curriculums. Students have extreme interest in animation techniques, as they all grow up watching 3D animated features like Disney Pixar's the Incredibles, Finding Nemo, and Frozen, and 2D animated tv shows like Phineas and Ferb, Steven Universe, and Rick and Morty. It's an essential part of their lives. While some schools will experiment with highly traditional forms of animation like flip books and claymation, like Peppler states, popular digital techniques have yet to enter the majority of classroom education centers. This is partially due to a lack of knowledge on the part of art educators. It would be beneficial for art educators to put effort into learning animation softwares in order to engage students in a method of art making that's so exciting and special to kids. After learning and experimenting with these softwares, teachers would need to convince school boards of the educational potential of integrating animation lessons into the curriculum. Peaking students particular interests using pop culture media will allow for more thoughtful and engaged creativity.
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