Could Someone Point Me Towards Something To Buy?

Living in Los Angeles, I really feel the constant assault of advertisement. If there’s a flat surface near a street/freeway/road, chances are good that an ad is placed there. Thankfully, there are some ingenuitive folks out there who are creatively taking matters into their own hands and inspiring others to do the same.

Here are some cool examples of how different people are appropriating or commandeering public space:

KAWS footage from 1997 (via Anti-Advertising Agency)

LED Throwies! (via Graffiti Research Lab)

Fun stuff!

Law of Buffet Plates

 

 

Like an all-you-can-eat buffet, graduate school has proven to be almost too much of a good thing for me. Everything looks appetizing (ok, maybe this photo isn’t a good example), but there’s only so much time I can spend on extracurricular interests.  

Example: I was going to spend some time posting some blog entries about the introduction of the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008, which was introduced today in Congress. But since I have a weekend-long comprehensive exam that will determine whether or not I graduate in two months, I will have to save that for another day.

That’s too bad, because I think this is a pretty exciting piece of legislation for moving image archives, and I’d like to urge others to support it. But right now, I simply don’t have the time to read up on it and pass on relevant and well-balanced info. There is opposition to this bill by designers, photographers, and illustrators, and despite one inaccurate and misleading editorial, I have not done much to understand their plight. (And because I linked to that article, I feel the need to link to a much better response here).

So until I have some time on my hands, I’ll leave it to the experts for legal commentary (here and here).  

Law of Cliff Jumping

“If everyone else in the world was blogging, would you blog too?” 

I suppose so, and I was worried that perhaps I was simply following a trend or fad. But what sets blogs apart from other fads is that blogs (ideally) create a public space for personal expression, invite others into a dialogue, and further diversify the content of the web. So while blogging is a trendy thing these days, it is only a starting point. Bloggers and their readers aren’t just riding a wave, they are affecting the tide. 

I must admit that despite much resistance and apathy I have paid more and more attention to blogs in recent months. I have interests in many areas, including film studies, moving image archiving, technology, copyright, and politics. Needless to say, those areas of interest cover a lot of ground, and the amount of media content that is relevant to those interests is overwhelming. Parsing out the numerous news stories, articles, commentaries, and other media is damn near impossible without being on the web 24/7. So I have learned to depend on websites and blogs to do that work for me. Some examples:

• Techdirt is a great resource for stories and commentary on technology and its relationship with IP law, among other things.
• I use Raw Story to get political scoop with a lefty slant. Admittedly, it’s like the political Perez Hilton and is nearly as bad as Fox News when it comes to sensationalism, but I enjoy it just the same anyway.

But enough about other sites. I have no specific goals for this blog other than to provide info and commentary on things that I find interesting. I invite all to participate in any discussion that may arise as a result. Let’s go!