Thursday, April 19, 2012

Unit 3 Wrap-up

Understanding and following how corporations and industries (big and small) utilize social mediums effectively in marketing their products has altered my approach on/in using these mediums to their full, and sometimes, unexpected potential. Not only does understanding how a company uses medium outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. to promote business and keep and expand client basis is crucial in applying to our own careers as digital pioneers. Leah Betancourt’s article on how these companies use social media data was a mixture of recycled know-its and eye-opening discoveries. Information towards successful use of social media in business includes learning more about customer base and tailoring to enhance their experiences. Having to follow organizations helped to apply Dave Tolivers 7 ways in enhancing customer experience. This information has helped to improve approaches in visual and contextual content layout for remodeling personal websites or media sites for future/potential employers/clients. Though I am still riding the fence on Tweeting, I found Lauren Fischer’s page of successful campaigns using Twitter to brainstorm second thoughts on the hidden and untapped potential Twitter may have. Currently I am still not sold on tweeting. 
With our current age of digital users converging materials, ideas, thoughts, songs, you name it, defining and applying copyright laws has fell into the gray area. Music is usually the first medium many think of when the issue of copyright arises because so many of the digital users are familiar with sharing or pirating songs/albums of various artists without having to pay monies. I feel that Paul Miller’s excerpts to be an interesting approach to the issues of sampling or copyright infringements. As artist, specifically digital artist, it becomes crucial in understanding how far or much we can use as inspiration in order to create our own original ideas, and whether or not we should be restricted completely from integrating others works in the process.  . . .TBC

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Sample Post 5

Exploring through whosampled.com shows how much the music industry relies on sampling, be it a beat, a riff, chorus, shriek,etc., most musicians rely on the influence and inspiration of others. To an extent this is quite innovative when producing new pieces, yet when multiple groups share the same beats it becomes an aesthetic issue more or less to the audience. Sampling music is similar to coining a phrase, you may be the originator of that phrase yet coining doesn’t’ entitle the creator instant profit from the phrase if it becomes mainstream/viral. Much like phrases I view music as being coined allowing for the wide public to view and manipulate their experience of viewing to their liking. Even if this means sampling beats and lyrics in order to create or inspire their own works. As artist sample other works, they are recreating the piece through their own experience adding their personal reflective style to the sampled piece. Miller points out that the twenty-first-century self is so fully immersed in and defined by the data that surrounds it…(Miller 61). Themes throughout art are repeated, this can be seen in mediums such as: music, film, television, books, games. Concepts can be drawn from previous arts and used to create/inspire an idea that will be used in a similar manner yet portrayed in a different way. Listening and watching the sampled piece of The White Stripes song Fell in Love With a Girl and being applied to Weird Al’s parody Angry White Boy Polka shows creative use of the Stripes beat and chorus line, yet when he copied the music video clip of the music segment sampled seemed too much. Like those at Costco who lunch off the samples and take too much, same goes with the sampling of music, in that taking too much of something becomes stealing. This is the issue touched on by Keller and others in conflict with copyright laws. Just how much is enough to be considered stealing or an original creation? Overall I feel that allowing the freedom to sample and create “Frankenstein” music or any other arts should be promoted, especially in a society that is becoming more and more a “mix culture”.
“Rhythm science builds on the early success of file-sharing to create a milieu where people can exchange culture and information at will and create new forms, new styles, new ways of thinking (Miller 65).”
   We sample and collage/create these samples in a fashion that reflects our form of thought and expression we reference in order to make ourselves credible as well as familiar. Bridging these samples allows for the discovery of new-old and new-new artist, just as whosampled.com has done. It creates connections to other artist and creators of similar styles and idea that we may not have known if it weren’t for the sampled segment, in a way it is creating a wider audience base and publicity for similar sounding beats, lyrics, and what have you.