Is the Narrative Clip art?

How to use the Narrative Clip and App from Narrative on Vimeo.

It's time to geek out on photography, again.

When Mr. Mitchell brought up the Narrative Clip in class the other day I was intrigued by the idea of carrying around a camera that constantly shot photos. I was also a little bit creeped out by it. I somehow thought that once you wore it that it became a permanent fixture and you never ever took it off (Turns out, if you put it in your pocket it shuts off.).  After doing a bit more research, the Narrative Clip sounds like a fun idea--though it isn't without it's downfalls. 

The actual specs of the camera say it's only 5mp quality. Current iPhone camera quality is 8mp, so this narrative clip takes pictures about the same as older and more annoying android phones. Most of your indoor photos will end up looking grainy because of the low light, and in general the lower quality makes for worse editing and cropping. The clip takes a square photo, much like taking a shot for Instagram. But, apparently there are some lenses you can buy to help with the square picture issue. [Examples of photos taken with narrative clip: A, B, C]

One of the major downsides to technology like this is that it makes everyone too self aware that they're taking photos. This then makes every living moment of their lives a potential "Facebook moment," as I'll call it, a moment when you think to yourself "Oh, this would make a good [insert social media tool name here] post! This would get tons of likes from my friends!" Thus usually motivating you to take out your phone and get the perfect shot, and then upload it with a witty caption. You're no longer living your life for you, but instead you're living life for the 560 friends you have on Facebook, the 60 followers you have on your blog, and the 120 people who subscribe to your YouTube account. Smartphones already do this to some extent today. Humans long to mean something, and social networking gives us a chance to be whatever hero we want to be--we can sculpt our own image. Social media is a wonderful invention, but it can be overused to the point where you base your life's worth off of what your internet persona is and not the life it's reflecting.

On the other hand, the Narrative Clip can be an amazing way to document important moments in our lives. It would be so cool to have a few people wearing this at a wedding, a birthday party, or a family reunion to collect more personal pictures of the events. You could wear the narrative clip on traveling trips too. For someone who is horrible at journaling during trips (There's always something more interesting to be doing!), this tool would be invaluable for capturing all the small moments and details of being in a new country. The GPS would also come in handy with a map of your travels.

The Narrative Clip is a fun idea, but I would argue that the photos it produces aren't necessarily works of art.  The only way for the Narrative Clip to be art is if the user has a specific artistic purpose for the photos captured. You lose the art of photography when it becomes this automatic and monotonous snap of a photo. There is no artist behind it--it's just an empty box taking a photo every thirty seconds. Yes, some photos will turn out cool looking, but they aren't art. It's like when people see weird post-modern art and go "I could do that in kindergarten! That's just a blank canvas and a string attached to it!" The answer is, no, you couldn't. 

Art has thought and meaning behind it. It isn't the robotic reflex that the Narrative Clip turns it into. The art of photography is setting just the right manual settings on the camera, positioning it to get the right shot and frame the object in the photo, and hitting the shutter at just the right moment. The artist looks through the viewfinder and sees something beautiful or fascinating that they can give meaning to. Others look and see only a "Facebook moment" and the 20 notifications waiting for them after they upload their shot. 

Researching Reed

Our conversations in class today made me interested to see what Ishmael Reed himself had to say about his work. So I did some digging and here are some of the things I found.

This section of Conversations with Ishmael Reed,  is interesting to read because he responds to how some critics interpreted his book Mumbo Jumbo, and he also comments on how he sees 1920s America parallel to current America. 

"The only thing I can conclude is that my book caused these critics to hallucinate"

And if that quote doesn't get you reading that interview, I don't know what will.  

Here is another interview that delves into Reed's ideas on writing and politics. From everything I've seen so far, Reed is a very opinionated person who is not afraid to have his opinion made known. 

"I'm not some pathetic token standing before the settler cultural committee pleading 'Choose me. Choose me.' The kind of "minority" literature promoted by the white academic establishment, which controls what students read, includes images and plots that are no different from the kind of stereotypes we get on TV. These people don't know how much their tokens are despised in their own communities. My interest in African religion in this hemisphere is the same as the enthusiasm the Irish writers had toward a Celtic revival, or contemporary Asian American writers have in texts written in Kanji, or Hispanic writers in Aztec, or Toltec. Writers try to renew precolonial traditions all over the world. "

I found a JSTOR article where Reed talks about minstrelsy, post-modernism, and modernism and much more, of course. It's rather long to read, but interesting nonetheless. 

I talked in the Nickel Review about technology, and I said in 1967 that technology would be the black writer's boon. Nam June Paik has said that Rock and Roll is the U.S.'s greatest export, and Hip Hop, Rap and other manifestations of black culture, or black technology, are being marketed all over the world for billions of dollars,very little of which is being seen by its creators. Think also of how black technology influences post-modernism, Ron Sukenick's experiments with Voodoo, the performance art of Laurie Anderson, Twyla Tharp, Heavy Metal, the downtown New York scene; how Jazz influenced people like Jackson Pollock. With software publishing and new high tech video technology we will go to town. With video we can leap beyond the racist film distribution networks, right into the living room

...  

I just don't think that I've been influenced all that much by modernism. I've been interested in the forms they use, the discontinuity, but many years ago I discovered that these ideas were not originated by modernists. I think that avantgarde movements tend to take themselves too seriously and believe that they are originating forms which are, in fact, ancient.

And finally on page 10 of Sharon Jesse's essay Ishmael Reed's Multi-Culture: The Production of Cultural Perspective, she references an interview where Reed gives his motivation for writing historical history. (I couldn't find the actual book with the real interview online, so this'll have to do. If you wanted to know more I guess you could always check out the book from the library.) 

In an interview with John O'Brien, Reed says that he and other minority artists "aim" their questioning at "those who supply the nation with its mind... the people involved in culture," but that what he and other artists want is "to sabotage history" so that the "Historical Establishment" "won't know whether we're serious or whether we are writing fiction... Always keep them guessing"

 ---

Reed has also written many opinion articles for the New York Times and a journalism website called Counterpunch. Although they don't have much to do with Mumbo Jumbo, these articles can give us insight as to how he thinks about things. And, he does have his own website where you can find even more information if you're still looking for it at this point. 

Postmodern art adventure

I watched this a few days ago and thought it fit well into the post-modernist way of thinking about art where art can be anything as long as it holds significance for someone and leads you to a new understanding of something. Also goes along with the idea where if you have to question it then of course it's art. (This explanation may sound vague, but, then again, so does the definition post-modernism...)

Also, the medium itself is post-modern because this video series is running on YouTube, and anyone with a camera and a YouTube account is invited to join in and share in their experiences with this project.

This particular Art Assignment involves two people coming together to meet in the exact middle between their two current locations. The video itself explains this idea further, but basically the "art" assignment is having two people travel to a set location. So how is that art? At 3:00 the creator of the Art Assignment project, Sarah Green, explains that this project is in fact art because "art doesn't have to be an object--or material. It can be something like ... triggers for experiences instead." I found this to echo some post-modernists' ideas on art.

One example that came to my mind when Sarah Green said this was Bruce Nauman's piece called "Body Pressure," which is, at first glance, just some blank drywall on the wall.

Apparently, this is a very introspective art piece that helps the participant focus on their own body. I was talking to Jia about this and she said that thinking about how the body is pressed against the wall, what muscles are tensed, how skin deforms against the wall, and how the wall is touching you is supposedly very meditative.

A brain explosion and the aftermath

Here are my current thoughts on history and fiction. I don't pretend like I have anything figured out yet, but I wanted to get some ideas written out because these questions have been annoying me since the beginning of this class. Especially annoying is that history is what I want to study in college, so I would like to figure out what these things mean because they have actual application to my future (scary, right?). 

I may or may not come back to this later in the semester... We'll see if any of my thoughts change... I just wanted a place to write and figure out exactly where I stand with respect to this new postmodernist  weirdness. 

If you bother to read this, I'm interested to hear any thoughts you might have on these questions. 

I only have a small obsession with quotes

Apparently postmodernists weren't the first ones to challenge the validity of history.
I laugh at the irony in that we can't be certain whether these historical quotes are accurate either. 

"The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice." — Mark Twain

"History is more or less bunk" — Henry Ford

"What is history but a fable agreed upon?" — Napoleon Bonaparte

"Historian: an unsuccessful novelist" — H. L. Mencken

"History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools." — Ambrose Bierce

"History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies." — Alexis de Tocqueville

"History is a cyclic poem written by time upon the memories of man." — Percy Bysshe Shelly

Night Vale: non-fiction vs fiction

For all of you Night Vale fans out there, here is an interesting thought on fiction and non-fiction...

There is no such thing as fiction. Just non-fiction written in the wrong parallel universe.
— Night Vale podcast (@NightValeRadio) May 20, 2013

Thank goodness this isn't true, though, or else there would be some parallel universe out there with a bunch of stalker-ish vampires running around fighting macho werewovles. 

Then again, it would be cool to find a universe with hobbits. 

[If you don't know what Night Vale is, learn more here.  Or you could start listening to the podcast and try to figure it out.]

Mumbo Jumbled

I'll be honest, when I sat down to read this book for the first time, all I wanted to do was fling it out the nearest window and watch it sink into a pile of cold snow.

The only other time when I've wanted to destroy a reading assignment was when we read Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises last semester. I eventually learned to appreciate Hemingway's style, and hopefully I can do the same for Ishmael Reed's writing. It'll take some more work to convince me, though, because right now reading this book is like wading waist deep in a pool of mud. 

First of all, you can't just put numbers into the middle of a sentence like that. 1 would think that he was just a lazy writer who had 1000s of other things on his mind. 0r P3rH4p2 17's Ju57 W473R3D d0Wn l337 5p33K (2 can play at this game, Ishmael). Also, the weird names, new words, and the jumpiness of the chapters make it hard to concentrate but also make concentration essential to the understanding of the book. Can you see why I'm frustrated? On a more positive note, I do like the occasional pictures that go along with the story (like the invitation to the Chitterling Switch). 

It's like Reed is constantly trying to jab you awake as you read. He doesn't want us to fall "asleep" and get too comfortable reading this book. His writing gives us annoying mental pokes and says "Did you get that? Did you see what I did there?" He almost shoves the fact that he has complete control over the story in our faces. 

Well, at least he knows what he's doing. Perhaps we will too, eventually. 

I feel like this book is another good example of how an author can use metaphors to write however they please in order to prove a point. We know that Ishmael Reed must be a good writer, so if his writing style is strange to us, and if it breaks conventions that we're used to, then it must hold a deeper metaphorical meaning to it. If he's a good writer he wouldn't just mess up the structure because he didn't know any better. There was a deep thought process behind this book, and he's left it up to the reader to figure out what he's saying. So maybe reading this book can be a hunt for the hidden metaphor instead of a walk through deep mud. 

I'm slightly excited to see where this book will go and how the story will unfold. (I'm still a bit skeptical as to if I'll enjoy it or not, though.) For now, I shall go attempt to finish tonight's reading of Mumbo Jumbo, and hopefully this time my mind won't feel like scrambled eggs afterwards.

History and photojournalism

This photo of a baseball player popping some bubble gum reminded me of Tateh's silhouettes. Sanchez says that the silhouettes are full of empty space that can be interpreted however the viewer sees fit. Here, the editing gives the photo a crisp black and white look and draws your eye towards the bubble.  (Source: Michael Holahan)

One of the panel presentations given on Ragtime talked about  Jesús Sánchez's article "Doctorow's Ragtime: A Breach in the Frame of History." In this article, one of the many things that he discusses is the use of photography and images to define the past, and how those also are limited just like textual histories. 

"Texts, as well as pictures, construct an alternative world which will never reach the referential realm, since they are based on the absence of that which they seek to represent. [...] Besides their inherent failure as truthful representations, the history captured in the pictures, silhouettes and moving pictures is further confined by the unidirectionality of the artist's perspective."

I haven't quite figured out what Sánchez means by pictures being based on an absence of what they seek to represent, but I do see many comparisons between historical narrative and photojournalism--both share artistic qualities and limitations as a form of information. I've spent a while trying to think about how postmodernists would criticize photojournalism as a form of historical documentation, and basically what I've discovered is that photojournalism is just another form of narrative.

Sánchez points out that both textual narratives and photographic narratives are told with the artist's perspective or worldview. He says that this is what is so troubling to Theodor Dreiser in Ragtime is his search to find the perfect angle at which to view the world, and so he constantly turns in his chair longing for new perspective. Photojournalists and historians are also constantly turning like Dreiser--looking for new perspectives and ideas through which to view the past and the present. Narratives are limited by an artist's worldview, but this perspective is always changing. 

The photographer had to anticipate
this man's fire breathing so that they
could take the picture at just the right
moment (Source: Sanjeev Syal)

When you have a camera in your hand, you have to be constantly physically turning around. You have to see the action before it happens so that you can capture crucial moments on camera. It is these moments of action--from the brief flickers of emotion on someone's face, to the winning score in a sports event--that will tell the story. The entire point of photojournalism is to create a pictorial narrative of current events throughout the world. Whenever I was assigned on a photo project I would ask myself "what is the story I am trying to tell?" When you go into a project with a specific vision for what kind of story you want to tell, then you can focus on taking pictures that will support that narrative. You can anticipate what kind of shots you will need. Or, alternatively, you can take thousands of pictures, and then in editing fit several into a story and a coherent photo essay. Either way, successful photojournalists give meaning to their work by telling stories with sets of pictures, much like how historians give meaning to primary sources through narration and analyzation.

Here, the lines created by the praying
people draw your eye to the blocked 
traffic, giving a sense of how important
religion is to these people if they stop
in the middle of the road just to pray at
the right time (Source: Probal Rashid).

Similar to the historical fiction novel, photojournalism is an art that uses creativity to present a story, and sometimes it's this creativity that makes the message more powerful. Photographers use lines, patterns, colors, and the rule of thirds to frame images in such a way to draw your eye in a path on the photograph. The message of a certain picture can be changed or emphasized by a simple crop edit. The way that the photos are edited and framed help the viewer see what kind of story the photographer is trying to tell, much like metaphors and other writing techniques are used in historical novels.

In this picture your eye immediatly
goes to the face of Obama which is 
set in the rule of thirds, and then you 
see that the background is a picture of
a deindustrializing  American town.
The irony of this photo in that Obama
ran his campaign on the slogan
"Change," and yet this town is still
suffering. (Source: Jacob Ehrbahn)

 Finally, many times the photojournalist will create a photo essay to expose or comment on social conventions or political brokenness. There are many powerful photo essays that follow the journeys of people in the army, families trying to pay for health care, small town farmers struggling, and just about any other social problem you can think of. These photo narratives make others' struggles more real to us, and seeing a real face behind the story has more meaning than any editorial article written on the same subject. Yes, there can be many possible interpretations to a single photo, and yes, there will always be bias and certain perspective behind every photo essay, but that doesn't mean that we should disregard all photojournalism, just as we shouldn't disregard all historical narratives. Photojournalism, historical fiction, and historical narrative, all strive to give meaning to our lives by interpreting our past. Understanding that these are interpretations of the past, will then help us create our own individual meanings for our collective history. 

Here are some other photos I found that give powerful visual commentary on the struggling lower classes in America, much like how Ragtime's ironic narration inspired sympathy for the poorer classes. Instead of outright saying "Look at all these people and all these statistics that show how unjust this balance of wealth is," both Ragtime and photographs like these show the injustice through irony.

I'm sure this homeless man would be content with simply "enough." (Source: Humans of New York)

The irony of this poster during the Great Depression (Photographer: Dorothea Lange)

A homeless man prays over his food at a dining hall--note the framing of the photo with the American flag in the background. (Source: Jacob Ehrbahn)

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There are countless other examples that I could have included. If you are more interested in the subject here are a few links to get you started:
Examples of photo essays
More historical photography
More photojournalism