Wikipedia (English-language) will be blacked out for 24 hours starting on Wednesday, January 18th
I have a love/hate relationship with Wikipedia. As with many web applications and services that can simplify the exchange of information, Wikipedia is one of those "use at your own risk" entities that is often the source of some very bad plagiarism in the papers and assignments students submit to their professors. As I say over and over again in my classes, scroll to the bottom of any Wikipedia entry and look at the sources of the information very carefully and with a critical eye before assuming it accurate.
Even so, the collaborative on-line encyclopedia project remains very useful for quick info on the fly, a place to get a basic sense of a topic area, and a nice starting off point for sparking connections and ideas you had maybe not thought of. Bottom line, anyone in academia would be lying if they said they didn't use it.
**updated**This a screen-grab of the Wikipedia site as it appeared at midnight EST
on Wednesday, January 18th.
With all of the openness and international collaboration associated with the Wikipedia project, there have been new movements afoot to try and control just how quickly and through what channels information flows on the net. At the same time, copyright is a growing concern and Internet piracy a hot topic of debate. Still, even if there is a legitimate basis for action in some arenas, these actions also carry the serious risk of limiting current freedoms on how information is exchanged and circulated on the web. In particular, the Stop Online Piracy Act, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives this past fall has raised many concerns. There are real questions about how freedom of speech and censorship will be addressed with an Act that attempts to limit how "foreign" websites access local publics. There is also the fear that this will be among the first of many moves to control and mediate how information and access to news and breaking world events will be dealt with. Just consider the crucial role the Internet has played in the wave of recent global and more localized protest movements, and you can see the significance of such legislation.
In a statement posted on their website, Wikipedia announced that as an act of protest against SOPA, it will black out the English-language version of their website for 24-hours on Wednesday, January 18th. At the same time, Wikipedia outlined the importance of maintaining a framework for open access and collaboration to maintain its existence:
"We depend on a legal infrastructure that
makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure
that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both
information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are
organizing and summarizing and collecting the world’s knowledge. We’re putting
it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it.
But that knowledge has to be published
somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due
process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only
speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or if your
views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas
already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to."
The public needs to debate these issues, and I think Wikipedia is taking a bold move to raise awareness about the ramifications of policing the Internet to such a high degree. I am also interested to see how everyday people are impacted without access to Wikipedia for a day. Could turn out to be the bigger story!
Last summer, I began rethinking the entire process of delivering visual information to my students via the traditional lecture format. Part of this reassessment had to do with my increasing usage of new media sources of information (be it through YouTube, Vimeo, and other web-based audio and visual materials). At the same time, new restrictions and questions of fair use and distribution of web-based content has sparked discussion about how best to present visual materials in the classroom context.
In the past decade, PowerPoint has won favour among most academics for creating lecture presentations. Easy to use, quick to produce, and with the added feature of facilitated upload to virtual learning environments like WebCT and Moodle, the PowerPoint is often the first choice for assembling images and other media. Still, there have always remained some complaints about the program, including the large size of the files (especially if using high resolution images); the time to upload and download files; the difficulty in easily sharing files across all computer platforms and digital devices; and the persistent issue of whether fair use is being employed if shared PowerPoint files include embedded materials from the web.
Prezi provides a highly intuitive and dynamic approach to assembling lecture presentations.
Enter Prezi. I first started hearing about this presentation tool over on ProfHacker a few years back when professors began raving about the potential uses of the new application in the classroom. It seemed to have some glitches at that time and so I did not pay attention at first. But last year, one of my student groups utilized Prezi for a dynamic discussion concerning performance art, and it was really then that I started thinking about how well suited Prezi was for my lecturing approach and style. First, Prezi is a cloud-based application, and utilizes a single "canvas" and a "story-telling" format as a starting point for every new presentation. In this way, the user is able to create a much better and more intuitive flow for a lecture, especially if they begin the class with a larger question or theme to explore. The ability to give a snapshot of the larger picture is really Prezi's biggest plus for me. Second, the presentations are dynamic in that users are able to zoom in and out of images and text without any distortion. For art historians, this is a serious bonus in terms of highlighting parts of a picture without the dreaded pixilation that occurs on a standard PowerPoint. Third, the ability to quickly and seamlessly embed visual materials, including video clips and other files, enables more fluidity between points in a lecture. See this quick video that highlights many of these features:
Finally, the question of fair use is approached in a very interesting way with Prezi. Since the presentation exists in the "cloud" with the user option to share the presentation via a private link, you are not asking others to download your Prezi with the accompanying embedded material (similar to how you view a YouTube embedded in a blog post). At the same time, it is much easier to share a Prezi since users can access it as a link from their computer, laptop, tablet, and even from their smart phone. Also, keeping in mind issues of fair use, it is very difficult to take a screen shot of a Prezi (believe me, I have tried using a number of tools both via Chrome and EverNote), which addresses some of the concerns with distributing materials beyond the classroom's educational use.
Prezi provides many options to use the application
for students and educators.
In my case, I have also purchased the Edu Pro version of Prezi which contains the message "For Educational Use Only" on all my materials and also allows me to produce Prezi's offline on a desktop application and keep my presentations private (unless I want to make them public--as in the two examples on this post). See an example of one of my Prezi's below created for an Introduction to Film Studies Course and another Prezi I assembled for information related to the Field School to Paris and Documenta that I will be part of this May/June 2012. You can also search public Prezi's here and see how many different ways an application like this can be used both inside and outside the classroom. I look forward to experimenting with Prezi over this academic term and would love to hear back from any of you (students and faculty) using Prezi about the pros and cons you have experienced.
**Note** when viewing a Prezi, you can opt to click on the arrow sign to take you to the next step (or go back) in the presentation, or you can go "rogue" as it were and zoom in and out to go directly to any part of the presentation that interests you. This is a great feature if you want to quickly access some part of the presentation right away.
Artistic appropriation is considered in a great article tweeted by the NYTimes below image source: NYTimes
Happy New Year! It was wonderful getting
away for the holidays to a warm and tropical locale—a highly recommended remedy
to weeks of final exams, marking, and final project deadlines. Faced with the
new term and a new slate of students, I am truly refreshed and looking forward
to what the semester will bring in terms of good conversation and new musings.
The Twitter world also went into something
of a hibernated state over the holidays and has reawakened with a great deal of
activity. Glancing at my feed over the past week, I was happy to see
artist/activist Ai Weiwei returning to his Twitter account, but it seems that the sad
developments in Egypt have also taken over much renewed discussion (see my
final tweet pick for an engaging article). The requisite best-of
2011 lists are also fun to read, and so a few of my picks will have you thinking back
and assessing what you gained and learned. It’s great to be back home and ready
to tackle a new year!
GOOD Books: When 2012 was the future
Today's #TED: Paddy
Ashdown on how global power is shifting and how nations are connected in ways
never seen before
Scorsese's HUGO is the best movie I've
seen in at least a year. Don't miss it. It's wonderful.
Outdated law + rip/mix culture collide:
Richard Prince & Fair Use in the NYTimes:
12 Art World Habits to Ditch in 2012...
are you offended?
Show & Tell: “Things I Saw This
Year”:
“To
live in Cairo these days is to live in constant disorientation.”@yasminerashidi on the
spasms of violence in Egypt
With a new year ahead
of us, it is time once again to start thinking about all the great
opportunities to plan and research potential trips, or even just great fantasy
visits, to a whole new crop of exciting art exhibitions around the world. As with the list I compiled in 2011, my picks usually
revolve around visits to great art cities or to places I have already put on my
conference and/or research itinerary. This year I am most excited about the
planned Field School to Paris that I blogged about here that will include an
optional trip to Documenta 13 in Kassel,
Germany—arguably the premier art exhibition event of this year. I hope my list
inspires some of you to push your travel plans in new directions. It was especially
wonderful hearing back from those of you who actually got to the shows on my
2011 list (I was most jealous of those who got to see the Richter show at the
Tate—I missed it by a few weeks when I was in the UK last fall!). But even for
those of us sticking closer to home, there are always great shows taking place
in local galleries.
Once again, the list reflects the information made
available on gallery websites for upcoming exhibitions and is purely based on
my own interests. See it as a wish list. Happy New Year!
10. Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver: Beat
Nation (February 25-June 3): As with last year, I am starting close to home
with an intriguing show that examines the new cultures of hybridity that fuse
forms of popular youth, music, and hip hop culture and the language of
aboriginal storytelling and visual arts. For those of you familiar with the
work of Brian Jungen, this exhibition promises to be a dynamic and innovative
one.
9. National Gallery of
Art, Washington D.C.: Warhol Headlines (traveling through Europe 2012): This
past winter I had a chance to see this fascinating and very eye-opening exhibition in Washington D.C. exploring Andy Warhol’s lifelong obsession with the news media and tabloid headlines.
The National Gallery of Art assembled 80 Warhol works of various media to examine this
theme, and I was happy to see that the show will be traveling through Europe
this summer, landing first in Frankfurt at the Museum of Modern Art from
February 11-May 13th and then off to Rome at the National Gallery of
Art from June 11-September 9th. It will then make a reappearance in
the US from October 14- January 16, 2013 in Pittsburgh at the Andy Warhol
Museum.
8. San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco: Francesca Woodman (November 5-February 20):
Francesca Woodman was part of an important and somewhat controversial film that I previewed as part of the 2010 Vancouver International Film Festival. Her life story and
unique photographic practice are often difficult to disentangle, but this
retrospective of Woodman’s work (the
first in twenty years) introduces her vision and approach to a new generation
of artists dealing with the ambiguities and difficulties of subjecthood and
self-portraiture.
7. Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles: Ends of the Earth (April 8-July 30): This
exhibition caught my attention for its unique and ambitious scope, aiming to
trace the development and history of Land Art, an art form and media practice that
deliberately attempts to escape the art institution all together. Over eighty
artists from around the world will be represented in what looks to be a one of
a kind show, not unlike the recent exhibition MOCA did dealing with Street Art.
6. New Museum, New
York: The Ungovernables (February 15-April 22): The New Museum is a unique
institution dedicated to showcasing under-recognized contemporary artists from
around the world. Since its founding in the 1970’s, the
New York based museum has launched the careers and/or brought to worldwide attention many of
the artists studied in contemporary art history classes today such as Ana
Mendieta, Andrea Zittel, and William Kentridge. This show is part of the museum’s
second triennial and will, as stated on its website, feature thirty-four
artists, artist groups, and temporary collectives—totaling over fifty
participants—born between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s, many of whom have never
before exhibited in the US. I especially love the title of the exhibition and
the themes involving civil disobedience and questions of central power that
will shape the discussion around this show.
Niki de Saint Phalle, Shooting Picture (1971)
source: Tate Modern
5. Tate Modern,
London: A Bigger Splash- Painting After Performance Art (November 7- April 1,2013): I spend a great deal of time talking about the crisis around painting
after the late 1960’s with my students, and so I was most intrigued with this
show exploring the juxtaposition of action and abstract painting with performance
based art practices. So far, the description from the Tate is pretty brief, but
it promises to deliver what looks like one of the most dynamic conversations
around painting this year.
4. Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York: The Steins Collect (February 28-June 3): For any of you who
caught Woody Allen’s 2011 film Midnight in Paris this year, you will recall all of
the great sequences that captured the world of Gertude Stein, Pablo Picasso,
Salvador Dali, and other luminaries of the Paris Avant-Garde. This exhibition
pays homage to the patronage of the Steins and their close relationships and
influence on an art community that could not have existed or come to public
acclaim without their support.
3. Musee D’Orsay,
Paris: Degas and the Nude (March 13-July 1); Impressionism and Fashion (Sept25-end of year): One of my favourite points in any late nineteenth century art
history class that I teach is the moment where I get to “de-code” the Degas
nude and ballerina for an unknowing audience. I won’t spoil the surprise for
those yet to catch up on their Impressionist art history, but I am very excited
that the Orsay will tackle this subject, along with the permutations of
Impressionism and its link to fashion in these two very important exhibitions.
2. Museum of Modern
Art, New York: Cindy Sherman (February 26-June 11): Along with Documenta, this
is the show I long to see the most. For all of the hype around Sherman and the
recent criticisms she has received from the art world surrounding her commercial
ventures (with cosmetics company MAC as just one example), her body of work
stand as among the most important and influential of any living artist today. I
blogged about Sherman’s record-breaking photograph here last year, and think
this retrospective will garner the same kind of excitement and interest as
Abramovic in 2010.
1. Kassel, Germany: Documenta13 (June 9-September 16): Simply put, a once every five year event that is a
must-see for anyone interested in the present state of contemporary art. I have blogged extensively about the event already and look forward to experiencing it
with a great group of students in the summer! Let me know if you get to any of these exhibitions as the year goes on. Happy travels!
This fall semester has been one of the busiest of all time for me-- a great deal of travel and teaching and many fantastic opportunities to begin new projects and make new personal and professional connections. Thankfully however we thought ahead and booked a much needed Caribbean holiday vacation back in the summer-- good thinking!
I will be handing in final marks tonight and bidding adieu to students and faculty (and my blog as well) until the new year. I wish all of you a wonderful holiday season and a very happy and safe new year's celebration. Thanks once again for all of your warm feedback on my blog and its contents-- it has become a true labour of love that I hope to find more time for in the spring semester. Look for me to resume posting in early January with a new series of posts on essential art exhibitions to visit in 2012 and an update on the many new technological tools I have been testing out on my tablet and home computer.
For now, have a listen to the Three Tenors covering John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Happy Christmas, War is Over. Considering all of the tumultuous events globally in 2011, it seemed a very fitting wish to send out to the blogosphere.
