Cool New Media Object (s)

go here

And here's another place to go

Hero of the week- John Goodlad

" the function of schools today appears to be more to sort the young for their place in society than to educate them for productive, responsible, satisfying participation in it" John Goodlad. John is my new best friend. He has a web site click here.

Here's another quote: "And we, the people, appear to understand that the linchpin of this aprrenticeship (in democracy) is a qualified, caring, competent teacher in every classroom"

Of course, you know that my hero will be someone new next week ( as I learn more about this education thang) sorry John. I hope we can still be friends.

I met myself

I forgot to mention that I met myself this weekend at the symposium. Stacey was in the first group of Priddy Fellows. A long time art teacher in Humble ISD, in her 50s, she took the year off on a leave of absence, left her hubby in Houston and got herself a little efficiency apartment here in Denton. She is now the Elementary Fine Arts Facilitator for Humble ISD. It was great to meet her and I'm sure we'll be in touch.

Check this out when you have time to burn

http://www.blinkink.co.uk/
because it will totally suck you in.

and this too.
http://www.dreamwv.com/probes/index.html

Marshall McLuhan Probes TV Medium

This is what we're talking about in Multimedia this week, the meduim is the message. Any brilliant insights out there?

The Art Outings

As part of our symposium this weekend ( see previous post or two) we went to two art outings. The first was a viola and piano recital and the second was a special gallery tour of the current exhibition, Ceremonies in African art at the Greater Denton Arts Council. The pieces we saw there are all a part of the private collection of Alfred Green Jr. and this is the last time they will be made available to the public. It is a staggering exhibit. If you are going to be up this way in the next month or so, it is worth the trip.
www.dentonarts.com/

All Things Art Leadership

The first annual Priddy Symposium in Arts Leadership blew our minds, or at least mine. Dr. Davis ( Director of the North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts and director of the Priddy fellowship program) arranged this amazing weekend for us. He called together past Priddy fellows and past Marcus ( the fellowship before the Priddy which was exclusively for visual arts, the Priddy is for visual and music) fellows as well as faculty and community leaders from the "metroplex" and made time and space available which allowed this rich generative dialogue to occure while he was overfeeding us and giving us free cocktails. I don't know what was richer, the food, the deserts, ( of which I ate many) or the conversations the presentations generated. We talked about what it takes to make the arts a viable, vibrant player and contributor in our culture from just about every angle one could conceive, from the down and dirty nitty gritty of money to the lofty ideals of what art does for us and in us as human beings and everything in between.
I am very full on many, many levels.
I will pass on the details and insights as the occasion is ripe, as I will try to do with everything I learn here.

Very cool

I've been at the first Priddy Symposium in Arts Leadership all weekend. There is a whole lot to say about that, but I want to tell you about this cool project that I think would be fab for a HS art club.

Take a look at http://accessarthere.blogspot.com

The girl doing this is in a sister program to the Priddy Fellowship called the Center for Outreach in the Development of the Arts (CODA) fellowship which is for undergraduates at Rhodes college in Memphis, http://www.rhodes.edu/academics/1117.asp also funded by the Priddys. She was a panel presentor at the Symposium and presented this to us since she is the first Senior to go through the program and so the first to do a CAP project. A very cool CAP project.

All things Fine Arts

I met with the Fine Arts Director for Denton ISD today. He was incrediably generous with his time and spent about 2 and a half hours with me going over his position and responsibilites, giving me the overview of what a Fine Arts director does for a school district. They have an amazing program here. I'll be volunteering for him this semester so I'm sure I'll learn more.

Back to Kansas

Well, I have certainly been in the good old 3rd dimension all day today. Working away on my paper on the reconceptualists ( I never heard of them before either) and going to class. 2 classes on Wednesday. We got the down and dirty on both PowerPoint animation and Photoshop all in an hour tonight. I need a nap.

Doughnuts in the 14th dimension

Heather, my fellow fellow, posted this on the Priddy Blog in response to what we're batting around in Multimedia which has to do with time and space. I thought you would enjoy it. It expains, at least in part, doughnuts in the 14th dimension.

Gimmie that old time religion

I saw something today most usually reserved for college campuses. A man about my age set up a stool in the middle of the sidewalk outside the student union and was, in the most immense preacher voice I've heard in a long time, think tent revival, preaching the gospel. A crowd of students stood around him and one stood out from the crowd, a Jewish kid, trying to argue with him. The preacher man evidently knew more scripture than the Jewish kid, but the Jewish kid made a hell of a lot more sense. And then, working the fringes of the crowd were the Mormon missionary kids in white shirts and black ties. The preacher was in jeans and a button down, short sleved, plaid, cotton shirt. Could have been Mormon but I don't think this is their M. O. I stood under a tree, (it is a spectacular sunny day) and listened for about 2 mins, my tolerance level, and then walked on home. As much as I don't enjoy the message I love the medium. I love that aspect of college life. It made me smile all the way home.

APA hell

Any APA style experts out there? I am freaking out about having to learn the entire style by 5 pm yesterday. I bought the manual and all it does is make me glaze over and have heart palpatations. So if you know this style and you would like to volunteer to be my personal tutor I will bake cookies for you or something, let me know.

Where I've been

Here it is Wednesday and my last post was on Monday. That's because on Tuesday I was vomiting. I know, TMI, but true nonetheless. I had a 24 hour bug, literally, 24 hrs start to finish. I managed to write my first draft of my first paper Advocating the Value and Utility of Arts Education inbetween trips to the bathroom. I presented the draft to the class ( Politics and Advocacy) today and we had a big, long, delicious debate over it. I feel great today. Afterward 4 of us crashed (we thought we were invited but it turns out we weren't but they let us stay anyway) Greater Denton Arts Council Executive Board meeting. That was interesting on many levels. They couldn't have been more gracious to us, even taking time out to explain the purpose and process of the board and to illuminate projects and topics they were discussing. There's a whole lotta shakin' goin' on in the greater Denton arts scene.

I'm going home this weekend, so you won't hear from me again until Monday. I'm going to hole up in my little house in Dickinson and write 2 papers, read a boatload of articles and chapters and stuff in general and try to find my heinie. It's been missing in action since I got here.

Party girl

All I did was play, pretty much, Saturday and Sunday. I did manage to do laundry, run errands, buy groceries and cook for the week after Cliff left and before the departmental party for Art History and Art Ed. The party was great, lots of folks and food. I met some former Priddy Fellows and picked their brains. All were very positive about their experience. I will meet them all in a couple weeks at a symposium planned especially for us.
Then I came home and studied until after midnight. Got up early, did some on-line research this morning and now am headed out, first to the library and then the "office".
It's raining hard, a little storm. This will be my first experience navigating the walk to campus in inclement weather. Glad I have my little polka dot umbrella, a parting gift from Donna!

Rah, Rah, Sis Boom Bah!

050, originally uploaded by mabrylady.

After the Spider trek we stoped into the SMU stadium to watch the first half of the UNT vs.SMU game. We really just wanted to watch the band, which we did and then came on home. We stayed long enough to watch the Mean Green ( UNT) forfiet the lead to SMU on a penalty after the clock had run out. We're still listening to the game on the radio and we're going to lose. But it was a good game and they played well. But mostly it was a fun bit of Americana to participate in. And now I won't go my entire tenure at UNT with out seeing a game, thanks to my band nerd hubby. We had a good day.

Giant Spider Web trek

004, originally uploaded by mabrylady.

Cliff and I went to see the giant spider web, the web is giant not the spider. In fact, there are many, many beaucoups spiders involved in this project at Lake Tawakoni State Park near Wills Point TX east of Dallas. And the spiders are of many types. They all just got together and went nuts. More photos on my flickr page, the link to that is to your left.

Core issues

I took a break from the books today to go to a "core strengthing" class at the rec center. I have core issues. I think I may need to attend a few more of these to get them resolved.

The rest of the day was spent reading about core issues in curriculum writing for arts education.

Cliff arrives tonight to spend the weekend. We may go see the giant spider web in Wills Point.
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/spdest/findadest/parks/lake_tawakoni/

Check out Lasse

Ok, if I understand this right, he doesn't play drums or piano at all, not even a little, nada, none whatsoever. He recorded every note on the piano and every beat of the drum as an individual shot and then edited the shots together in this order to make this song ( which he "wrote") Correct me if I'm wrong.
So, if he wanted to he could take the same bunch of shots and rearrange them into another song without ever "playing" another note.

Amateur - Lasse Gjertsen

Scripture and Normal

There is, in Denton, an actual intersection of Scripture and Normal ( streets). There's a poem in that.

I found this because I got lost this morning on my way to The Cupboard, the 1970s style whole foods grocery I like so much. I feel so pressured for time right now that getting lost was the best thing that could have happened to me. It's a beautiful sunny day with a slight breeze, it's hot, but I was driving and I got to wander around the sweet little town of Denton a bit. It made me reevaluate my day and I bought flowers at the Cupboard along with my groceries. I'm writing to you and then I'm going to step aerobics. Home work will wait until after lunch.

Whew!

The presentation went really well. Lots of heady discussion and no one can tell us what Multimedia is. So there ya go, that's art fer ya.

The Honeymoon is Over

I've been watching the Soroity Sistas coming and going this week. It's all jeans and Tees now. Hardly any makeup even, and flip flops! How early in the relationship we let ourselves go!

What the heck IS Multimedia anyway?

I spent the day working with my presentation partner, Maria, to prepare for our presentation to our Seminar in Art Education, which we all fondly call "Multimedia" on the topic of- no less than- "What is Multimedia?" Our job is to facilitate a "lively" discussion on the topic. We read chapters from Inventing the Medium by J. Murray and Principles of New Media by L. Manovich and we looked at two interesting web sites www.artmuseum.net/w2vr/index.html and www.sfmoma.org/msoma/index.html .

We decided to facilitate by inventing a game around 10 questions. Here they are for your consideration. Weigh in if you have any brilliant insights.

1. What is the defining principle(s) of new media? What is a new media object and what distinguishes it from an old media object?

2. Discuss the influences of the Industrial Revolution and Postmodernism on the development of new media?

3. What were the parallel tendencies in modern art and computing technology after WW II.

4. What are the moral implications of new media?

5. Is it true that without discrete units that there is no languange and therefore no communication? Why or why not?

6. Why do we struggle to make computers coherent and expressibe despite all that can be said of their inhuman rigidity? How does our interst in engaging with computers reflect our culture and humanity?

7. Is it possible for human intentionality to be completely removed from the creative process? What are the implications of such a possibility?

8. How do modularity, automation, variablity, and transcoding depend upon new media being mathematical and programmable? How is that different from old media?

9. If the computer is a universal machine capable of representing anything, then can it represent all of human knowledge?

10. What is the "Yin and Yang" of the new media collaboration between engineer and artist?