Montagnard Documentary

This sums up the Global Revisited project were asked to make a documentary on an Montagnard topic of our choice. I chose the topic religion: and how its is now. I didn't want to focus on the persecutions but the good stuff and what its like now to be in the states and practicing Christianity. I was not able to meet with anyone due to time but I talked to Andrew Young and he gave me some great resources.

Citation:

Youtube and www.cal.org/co/montagnards/vrelig.html

Below is my video :

Is Digital Media Bad for us?

In this final week of blog posts I answer the question: Is Digital Media Bad for us?

I feel like Digital Media is good and bad. Digital Media has opened up a new horizon for creativity and communication, but I do feel like we are beginning to rely on media way to much.

In Nicholas Carr's book In The Shallows Carr discusses how digital media is effecting our brains. I was lucky to read the whole book during my Critical Perspectives course and it was quite enlightening. Carr explains that our society's use of technology has effect our youth at large. Kids now can not even read a book they read on computers or use cliff notes and such to get a quick summary.

This new digital age we have everything at our disposal in a matter of seconds... we need to reflect back on the analog days and what it meant to write with pen and paper and listen to Cd's not Ipods.

I love technology don't get me wrong, the way choreographers are using the new explosion of digital media is great and excites me.


Well that's it! the last blog ( I think) thank you Bob King for the new world you have opened us all up to :)

Week Six Remix Baby!!!

So this week we played around with Camtasia, and Audio Hijacker. I have never used either of the programs so it was fun to play around with them. The topic of our remix was traditional vs. contemporary.

My idea/plan was to use Marylin Monroe a very classy lady singing and then my  new favorite band called the cataracs featuring a girl called Dev who is much different then the traditional Marylin. Then because I'm a dancer I used the beautiful Gillian Murphy in Swan Lake and the new movie Black Swan. I didn't want the videos to all be playing at the same time, I wanted to make a "real" remix with smooth transitions.

I was surprised how easy in a sense it took for me to get use to both of the programs, I'm very happy with my end product and below is a link just in case I can't get it to upload :


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElPW18IjkQY

Week Five Creating

This week we are focusing on creating.

In the NPR video "Issa", it discuss how the net to sell music is now more dominate then album sales. What ever happen to being really excited when an album came out and going to the store the day it came out? Or looking at the really cool album artwork?

I must admit the atomic tom video shows people playing music on the subway train with there iPhones. It was pretty comical and shows just how much technology is transforming. The social issues video on cosmetics and the ingredient sodium laurthem sulfate was very accurate. It shows how bold our society is, when we have a view on something it instantly goes on Youtube or a blog site. Everyone wants to be heard.

The wikipedia entry on remix talks about what it is ( an alteration on media) and the copyright implications. I feel that remixing is a form of copyright because your stealing material and then changing it and calling it your own.

The "fair use" law I completely agree with but unfortunately many of us do not follow this. "American Lawbreaking" was very insightful and shows an accurate example of what is going on this new age.

The remix controversy between Justin McIntosh and Pogo and Disney is crazy!The video is freaking genius!!!I agree with the author of this article, this video causes no harm to disney.

What is Digital Media??? Creativity in the new digital age?

Alwin Nikolai "Gallery"

This week we are diving into the topics of digital media, copyright, and the performing arts in this new age. In Bob Kings audio we get a good defintion on what digital media is. Basically its the difference between the analog age ( continuous file) and the digital age (tiny pieces assigned a numerical value). A good example of a medium of this would be film. Without studying digital media we wouldn't be able to live in this modern world, we would be at a standstill and lost.

Lev Manovich states that new media is the use of computer for distribution and exhibition rather than production. A good example would be like 3-d and text-image compositions.

Johnathan Lethem "Ecstasy of Influence" talks about creativity. Most artist are converted to art by art itself. We try to make "familiar strange" and we almost are making culture property this leads me into the topic of copyright.

Lawrence Lessing talks about changes in copyright which we have alot to deal with when it comes to impact of digital technologies and the old traditional copyright laws. Are society has made it so easy to get any source in a matter of minutes, kids can download music without purchasing from Itunes. Are we criminals? The film Girl Talk goes into more depth about this.

Steve Dixion talks about performing arts and digital media. I really enjoyed this. Performing arts is considered "digital" when technology plays a key role . Like Merce Cunnigham using virtual dancers and Alwin Nikolai in his piece " Gallery" where he uses black lights. I believe this new age of digital media has made the performing arts better. Technology has added a whole new element to the performing arts, on the flip side it has caused problems because its taking away from the " live experience" of theater. The digital age has caused creativity to be pushed to a whole other level.

Week Four! Mining and Visulaizing What We Gathered

This week's assignment is to do a project brief based on what we know about the Montagnards and what we what to find out about them. My interest is the traditional religion of animism. I understand that many of the Montagnards that live in America now practice Catholic ( which I am) and Protestant religions but I want to know the history of the traditional Montagnard religion. I want to learn about the rituals and sacred practices of animism and the history of it since I don't know much about it. 

What I still want to learn is about why Animism is still not practiced as much and the whole "deal" on the persecutions. There is plenty of information on the persecutions online but I want to hear some concrete information on this topic because with all the information out there it all sorta gets jumbled up in my brain. 

Here are some links that have some information about the old tradition:

http://www.cal.org/co/montagnards/vlife.html
 http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2010/05/viet-fabricated-communist-style.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvkBWT8Xn7Q

 A person in the Montagnard community that I would like to meet with is a clergyman, although I'm sure this person does not currently practice the old tradition of Animism I'm sure this person knows the history of it and could explain to me in more detail what its about.

Week Two- Framing

Framing is changing one's way of thinking. Its done without even noticing. Pascal Boyer stated that framing was done in the "basement of the mind". With framing we begin to develop culture, identity, and geography. We can't talk about framing without putting in the main focus of this DMA course, the "Global Village" which is defined on a planetary scale and a planetary scale of communication or network. Our ethnic diversity has been framed and that is what builds sterotypes and misconceptions of people and cultures. Wade Davis wanted to end the habit of of cultures "failed attempts to be like us". 

McLuhan brought the term "the medium is the message" to life in a world that was bursting with pop art like Andy Warhol and new media such as television. He wanted the world to understand that the medium was only part of the message and he wanted the world to understand that media has been used to almost re-frame the way we think, when you think about it its sorta scary. 

 Our world has been tangled between technology and human nature. Donna Haraway believed that we are all  "dependent on technologies including machines" and I completely agree. We are so dependent on technology we can hardly do anything for ourselves without using technology. I hope that our society can come away from the entanglement of media but I know that is far from possible.

DMA Blog One

This is me: dancer,student,daughter,friend.

My brother and I at my dance performance

This is my life. My name is Ciera Edwards I'm 19 years old and a student at University of North Carolina School of the Arts for contemporary dance. I was born in  North Carolina but I have lived in many places because my dad was in the Marine Corps. I did high school in Virginia so that is what I consider home. I have an older brother named Ronnie who is twenty seven years old. I miss Virginia because I love the atmosphere and how busy the place is without being a city. I'm not entirely sure how many generations my parents came to the USA but I do know that my dad is Gypsy and French(see photo below). My mom is Gullah which is an island country. My mom is a bartender at the Kennedy Center for the Preforming Arts which is in Washington DC. My Dad is an interventionist and substance abuse worker but he was in the military for thirty years. The main problem for young people in the United States is the pressures by the media to act a certain way or "follow the crowd" to be accepted. Digital media in any young persons life is extremely important.We rely on it to make friends and do everyday things that use to once be done without technology. We rely so much on technology that we are constantly connected,we can never be without it. I have never been involved with growing food but I'm interested in anything that I can learn from and grow cultured to. I got interested in art at a very young age. My parents put me into dance because I couldn't calm down and they wanted to give me something to do during the cold winters when there was nothing to do. The more we moved to different states I kept enrolling in dance. 

My French culture

Mom, Teddy (dog), Dad

For young people just moving to the states I would tell them to continue to hold true to your values and don't change your self too much. What makes you different is your culture and that is why America is so different. All these different cultures bring something special to America. I have traveled to Germany and it was a wonderful experience, so much that I am actually studying the language and culture now. Since I lived in many different places like Hawaii, Washington State, and California just to name a few, I had to adapt to many different cultures which has made me a better individual. 


What matters most to me is being a good citizen to society and being able to learn as much as I can and give back to my community. We are nothing without sharing and I hope to learn more about other cultures and people as the years go on.