Finally Denver...

Well I'm finally in Denver and staying with my gracious cousins Steve and Claire Parker. I am in the process of acclimating my self to the time and the altitude. Today I went for a run and the result was not very impressive. Now I must wait for Monday to come and start this journey (the real journey).

15 minutes = 30+ minutes

Anybody who knows me knows that I tend to underestimate things; the time it takes to get home, the time it takes to finish a project, the actual costs of college, and the latest underestimate, how far Denver is when you're driving.

If you thought other wise Denver is far, especially when by yourself. So I've made it a third of the way to Dayton, Ohio and it obviously took longer than I estimated. I'll be off early in the morning (really early, like 10am) so I better go to sleep.

I'll keep everyone posted on the progress and thanks for reading, I know how entertaining I am...

Coming down to the wire

Well the 2 months since I received my acceptance packet have come and gone and now I will be leaving for Denver, CO in less than a week (6 days, 17 hours, 53 minutes, and 12 seconds give or take a few seconds). I have booked my stays in Dayton, OH and Kansas City, MO and will be staying with my gracious cousins in Denver until Monday February, 11 2013, the beginning of a life changing experience. For those of you who are new to GALAXY N3WS RADIO, Welcome!

Revival of GALAXY N3WS RADIO

I am reviving my blog that has been used for various reasons and shenanigans. 

 The reason for the revival is:

I have been accepted to serve in Americorps NCCC FEMA Corps.

I will be serving the South West Region, based out of Denver, Colorado, and serving from February '13 to December '13.

Here is an explanation of what FEMA Corps is from a fellow FEMA Corps blogger:

• 
• The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) joined forces to establish a FEMA-devoted division of 1,600 service corps members within AmeriCorps’ National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) solely dedicated to disaster readiness, response, and recovery. 
• FEMA Corps members serve a 10-month term, with an option to apply for a second 10-month term of service. NCCC- FEMA Corps is a full-time, team-based, residential service program for men and women between the age of 18 to 24, operated in the same campus structure as AmeriCorps NCCC. FEMA Corps members are assigned to one of five NCCC campuses, located in Denver, Colorado; Sacramento, California; Perry Point, Maryland; Vicksburg, Mississippi; and Vinton, Iowa. FEMA Corps members receive a living allowance of approximately $4,000 for the 10 months of service (about $200 every two weeks before taxes), housing, meals, limited medical benefits, up to $400 a month for childcare, if necessary, member uniforms, and a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award upon successful completion of the program. 
• FEMA Corps members are national service participants and will provide support in areas ranging from working directly with disaster survivors to supporting disaster recovery centers to sharing valuable disaster readiness and mitigation information with the public.
• Thanks to Nick Humphries at http://nickinfemacorps.com/

I will be stationed at Colorado Heights University an amazing school in Denver, here is a picture of the campus courtesy of the school.

More to come.

Thanks for reading...

Video Narrative

The homebrew video idea came around at about the same time of the class. A friend is really into video, photo, and editing and he wanted to make a video. I found out I had to do a video for the class. So we started filming, the camera ran out of batteries, we stopped filming. So we needed to film another day. This actually created a really good situation for the video. It allowed us to film the brewing of a beer and the bottling of the same beer which happened 3 weeks later. So we were able to film the whole process. I have never really done any video editing so this was a new experience. I used iMovie but I now think I should have used Final Cut. iMovie gave me a lot of crap but I eventually got it finished. I then had tons of trouble with uploading to youtube. Eventually just uploaded it to vimeo and called it a day. The End

Hamster Hell

Hamster Hell from Ben S on Vimeo.

Appropriation

Ben Selin

Comm313

01/03/2012

Appropriation

1.     The Pictures Generation

a.     The Pictures Generation included artists like Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo, David Salle, Richard Prince, Jack Goldstein and Sherrie Levine. Although not mentioned in the article in my opinion Andy Warhol was a kind of precursor and inspirer to the Pictures Generation.

b.     The Pictures Generation grew up in an age of political turmoil and media avalanches.

c.     Their work exuded a rebel attitude that was exemplified in their work. Most of the Pictures Generation’s art was little more than appropriated images cut out or collaged with others. They often created funny scenarios or powerful ideas that any one image couldn’t have shown.

d.     Not all of the Pictures Generation art was appropriated. Some art was original photography staged for the occasion. Often, artists recreated original art work in their own light. Toys were also often used as subjects of their photos.

2.     Fair Use

a.     In the article Richard Prince’s Canal Zone series of photos was accused of copyright infringement. Richard Prince used the defense of fair use. In this case I think fair use is a bit questionable. One of the big fair use rules uses parody to justify it, but only by parodying the actual art being used. In the case of Prince’s works they are more parodying society which did not hold over with Jim Koons us of Art Rodger’s photo “Puppies”. In this case I tend to agree. Prince’s modified photos are interesting and do add something to them, but is it fair use? I’m hesitant to say yes.

b.     An example of fair use on the internet is the creation of thumbnails for use in search engines. I totally agree with this use. It makes sense that search engines should be able to create these thumbnails to make searching much easier. At first it seems an obvious example of fair use, but if you really think about it the search engines are creating exact of copies of original copy written works. The ruling is that they are small enough and are not meant to be viewed at the size of the original work.

3.     Appropriation

a.     I think the internet has completely muddled the fair use laws and they should be retooled. People tend to use pictures they find on the internet without ever thinking about and I think it should be ok to do so. People who don’t want their work used should be more careful by including watermarks and keeping resolutions low.

b.     With that in mind I am a profound user of other people’s work. I tend to forget that other people should receive money for me using it or modifying it. It is just so easy to count something that you doctored and modified to be your own original work. I tend to very casual with intellectual property, being a kid money and property in that sense has so much less meaning it is easy to forget that it’s technically stealing. Also me being so young I think I would be flattered to have someone use my work. Although I would probably want some sort of compensation.

c.     On the other hand I work for a professional photographer and he is very particular about people using his property and using other people’s property. In his line of work it is very important to uphold these copyright laws. He wouldn’t have a job if people could steal is photos off of his website or by other means.