#thisismyjam has jumped social medium to Blogger from Facebook

#thisismy_LauraPalmer_jam

Hair Club for Men

Finally remembered to post the fifth and final musical détournement in my series on gender construction and socialization through the media.



Please support The Presets and Van She by purchasing this track through iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/are-you-one-van-she-tech-n.y.c./id200303697?i=200303719

This is my fifth musical détournement involving gender and the media, and the final in this series. This one is an investigation of the ties between hair and male virility, from the classical and biblical periods to today. It is a critique of consumer culture's attempts to play upon male insecurities and sell imagined masculinity.

The images and sounds in this video are the properties of the copyright holders. I mean in no way to infringe on their rights. The content is used solely for the purposes of criticism.

Fourth musical détournement on gender and media

Please support Peaches by purchasing this track through iTunes: 
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/bur...

This is my fourth musical détournement involving gender and the media. This one is a critique of television's active construction of female-female conflict as entertainment. Television, as a patriarchal apparatus, has historically taught women to fight one another in an attempt to keep them from realizing the potential of their collusion.

It's Dynasty catfights.

The images and sounds in this video are the properties of the copyright holders. I mean in no way to infringe on their rights. The content is used solely for the purposes of criticism.

Like a Riot

This is Betty Wut's first music compilation video constructed from found footage. It includes music from Moonbootica, The Rapture, and Battles.

That's a Wrap

That's a Wrap is a talkshow about the movie industry, produced by students in the Multi-Camera Video Production course at the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash College.

Watch me look slightly insane and talk lots of smack about movies with host Kees Henskens (right) and Aaron Bates, Area Manager of Danbarry Cinemas (left).

Both episodes can be watched on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdaFA7ARxut_wz9it9RgBQXG220YmOXr8

My Coulrophobia video

That was my contribution to the Coulrophobia Détournement Double project orchestrated by Betty Wut and myself. It is no way meant to be a competition, but instead complementary visual explorations on the same theme. The guidelines on the project are at:

http://matchcut.blogspot.com/2012/11/current-project-coulrophobia.html

It's taken me long enough to complete. And not a moment too soon-- the original coulrophobia video, clips of which were required in our videos, has been yanked from YouTube. Also, I have exactly one day left on my Adobe Premiere trial. Freddy has volunteered to download another trial for me under his account, so I hope to finish the three other video projects I've started.

Betty Wut's Coulrophobia video

Betty Wut completed her contribution to the Coulrophobia Détournement Double video project some time ago. I only just convinced her to allow me to upload it to YouTube. I am still working on mine since I lost the original progress I had made in a VideoPad crash. I've been very insistent on using free/open-source video editing software, but I've broken down and used Adobe Premiere. I had to get the Airbrushed project out of my system before moving on, so I cut my teeth on the software for that.

Above is her compilation music video Yes...NO! constructed from found footage on YouTube. Enjoy!

Third musical détournement on gender and media

Please support Fake Blood by purchasing this track through iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/air...

The latest album, Cells, is also available through iTunes:https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/cel...

This is my third musical détournement involving gender and the media. This one is a critique of advertising's role in manufacturing "standards" of feminine beauty and socializing children into them.

It's make-up ads and toy commercials from the 1950s through the 1980s.

The images and sounds in this video are the properties of the copyright holders. I mean in no way to infringe on them. The content is used solely for the purposes of criticism.

#noyolo

I've been publishing a new photo series on Facebook since closing CCPCtW that picks up some of the theme (and at least a portion of the subject matter) of that early series. It was prompted by my recent sudden reunion with an old friend who I've missed quite a lot.

Trixie, demonstrating kitten-zazen.

#noyolo borrows the trope of the ubiquitous Internet cat photo and employs it in a kind of spiritual subterfuge, smuggling buddhist concepts into the cloud through this common image. The photos attempt to convey the bussho (inherent, original buddha-nature) of my 14-year-old tortoiseshell long-hair, Trixie. Upon coming back into my care (or I into hers), she immediately grew accustomed to my nightly practice of writing in bed, typing away at my laptop, propped up on elbows, while stretched out on my belly.

Recognizing this ritual, she has incorporated her own practice into it, a kitten-zazen, if you will. She will stand to my right on the bed, waiting for me to clear a path of sufficient space between myself and my laptop so that she can walk to the left side. There she waits for me to remove my left arm from the position that allows me to type and stretch it out on the bed, where she will plop herself down across the arm. I then type with my right hand as she sits, in her catness, or, sometimes, turns to her side and uses the arm to prop up her head.

This happens almost invariably every night, in the same spot, and with her at least starting in the same position each time. As soon as I recognized this corresponding ritual, I began to document it with my free hand using Instagram and posting the images simultaneously to Facebook. To some images, I add a buddhist-themed caption, but typically I allow the image to be read on its own. In many, the laptop or some portion of it has also been captured, marrying both of our rituals in the images.

I have chosen the title #noyolo because it is multi-valent in relationship to the images. It is a hashtag, used to associate a topic or keyword (or several) with a social media post. This allows, in many social networks, for users to search the posts for that keyword. The phrasing is an appropriation and a turning back on itself of an unfortunately popular current homophobic phrase (and frequent hashtag): nohomo. It's an abbreviated interjection used to disavow same-sex attraction when engaging in activities that might stereotypically draw speculation on one's sexual orientation, such as hugging someone of the same sex. yolo is an acronym, with cache in our current culture, for "you only live once." noyolo, then, is a play on this indicating that you don't only live once, but instead you live in a cycle of rebirths, either literal or figurative. noyolo seems especially fitting to me when referring to a cat, with its fabled nine lives.

Trixie and I have been reunited because she is nearing the end of this particular life, and as its close draws near, she has so much to teach and such little time in which to do it.

Another Mailing Travelogue update

The original Facebook post.

And another three states in a single day.

Mailing Travelogue update

Original post on Facebook.

I received three mailings from three different states in one day.

Mailing Travelogue

After receiving my first unsolicited travel information mailing.

There has been a distinct shift in the type of anonymous mailings I have been receiving after beginning my Husbrand project.  Instead of collages and other artworks of appropriated materials, I am now receiving travel information from various visitors bureaus throughout the country and other materials insinuating worldwide travel.

I have made the occasional Facebook comment related to these mailings, but withheld full disclosure in hopes of conceiving an appropriate delivery method. Due to the spatial, geographical nature of these mailings, I have started mapping related images and information to Google Maps. Use the indicators on the map below to access information on these mailings.


View Travel Mailings in a larger map

My related Facebook post of January 8, 2013.

Musical Détournement II

Please support The Black Ghosts and Switch by purchasing this track through iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/switch-remixes-ep/id472535698

This is my second musical détournement involving gender and the media. This one is a critique of irrational phallic fear, a field of responses developed in reaction to images of transgressive gender positions.

The images and sounds in this video are the properties of the copyright holders. I mean in no way to infringe upon them. The content is used solely for the purposes of criticism.

If this dude's for real, good luck to him

While trolling Craigslist for ideas for my next Husbrand ad, I came across this loving message from a very loving 28-year-old who wants to raise loving children. Of course, given my own proclivity toward marriage, I love it.

Coulrophobia Détournement Double (with Betty Wut)

The rules by which she and I will each construct a détourned video on the same theme:

1. Video must be accompanied by any version of "Send in the Clowns," legally purchased from Google Play,  iTunes, AmazonMP3,   eMusic .
2. Can include audio from other clips (of no longer than :30) but the total work cannot exceed the run-time of the selected song.
3. Must include some portion of the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2nK_qmvJ7A, but each clip can be no more than :30 in run-time before transitioning to another.
4. Can include video from other clips found only on YouTube, but each can be no more than :30 before transitioning to another.
5. Finished work must be uploaded for public view on YouTube with their standard license selected and a purchase link back to the song included.

If anyone else is reading and wants to participate, please do! I would love to see what you come up with and post links to your work on YouTube.

I'm a late adopter in this case, but...

I used Instragram for the first time today for the Public Privates project. It is the second in a series of photographs showing the progress of cleaning my bedroom, my own private space.

1977 Filter.

Social Media and Participatory Culture online class for Summer 2013

Here's the initial description for a new course I am developing and have the green light to offer through distance-learning this summer:

For the month of June 2012, Facebook had one trillion page views with 870 million unique visitors, or nearly 47% of all Web users. It is clear that social media is not just a fad that indulges our narcissistic and voyeuristic pleasures, but a powerful communication tool. This course explores the reach and potential of various social media channels from multiple perspectives. We will look at the conventional use of social media in marketing, but also as forms of individual expression and social group communication. We will also examine the place of social media in a larger participatory culture of reality TV and user-generated content.

And, in true social-media-crowd-sourcing fashion, I'd like anyone and everyone's input. Let me know your ideas, resources, projects...

A Day at the Movies

I am reminded of a day, when I was about 20 years old, that my church young adult group at that time had a Day at the Movies. We, as a group, spent the whole day at a second-run theater in Louisville, watching four different films. It was an incredible experience. I don't even remember the movies except for the last one, Madonna: Truth or Dare. Yep. A church group field trip and we're watching Madonna simulate oral sex on a bottle. No wonder my views on religion are so fucked up.

Will cinema and the whole social film-viewing experience survive the threat of interactive and social media? The advent of television took a huge bite out of the film audience. How much is left? And will we even want to see what remains? Visit your cinema before it's dead. Even the chains are not immortal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loews_Cineplex_Entertainment

AMC buys Loews. A Chinese firm buys AMC:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-wanda-group-amc-theatres-renovations-367774

"More so, we are enthusiastic about combining AMC’s leadership in the U.S. with Wanda’s leadership in China, the world’s fastest-growing market."

Never mind their human and civil rights abuses. Let's eat some popcorn. While watching a film set in the world's fastest-growing market. Again and again.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88130534@N06/8149228967/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88130534@N06/8149234219/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88130534@N06/8149237197/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/88130534@N06/8149240483/

Timeline travel

Today, I begin two new projects, the first of which continues my experiments with Facebook.  By placing your cursor on the timeline at any point in your Facebook wall, you can add a photo, status, location, or life event at that point in the timeline, adjusting the date based on the preceding or succeeding posts. Logical use of this would be to align your virtual timeline with the events of your biological timeline through life events: births of children, divorces, conversion to new religions. For me, though, this opens up possibilities of virtual time travel: I have started using Facebook out of time.

Second installation complete.

Another forged fortune.