zhopward

__**Bio**__ Name: Zoe Hopkins-Ward Year: Senior Hometown: Half Moon Bay, CA I am studying political science with minors in history and biological anthropology. I am interested in working for political campaigns and believe that knowing how to use photoshop and other skills learned in this class will be very useful.

__**Week One Homework: //Bounded By Law// Reaction**__

I think copyright laws are incredibly important, but obviously they are a very complicated issue and legislation that is meant simply to help and protect people can cause problems. I think that we need to have copyright laws. Many artists and people work hard to produce their work and with certain types of art, simply selling it once is not a sustainable way to support themselves. Copyright protections are a way to allow people to continue to support themselves through licensing. The money gained from copyright agreements can be so valuable for people.

However, these protections can also be abused. I thought the offhand comment they made about owning the rights to the “Happy Birthday” song was very, very interesting. They spoke about it in the way that I did above as a way for people to sell and make money. However, I thought their description as someone being a seller rather than a creator was very important. At this point, the people that own the rights did not have any part in writing the song, but are still able to demand exorbitant prices for it and continue to rake in the profits. This sort of copyright ownership seems incredibly unnecessary obviously is not protecting artists the way the spirit of the law may have really intended it to be.

Before reading this comic, it had never really occurred to me what a problem copyright laws can pose for documentary filmmakers in particular. I think I always considered that documentaries were legally treated similarly to news outlets and reporters, who I think are able to comment and include copyrighted material without any real issue. Unless, of course, newspapers do have to jump through hoops to be able to use them. The ability to show the world around them is the point of documentaries and they need to be able to do that in order to succeed.

The difference between the actual daily practice of fair use as defined by filmmakers and other people in the industry define it. Frightening artists into not creating things because they are so afraid that it may violate some vague copyright agreement that could be incredibly difficult for them to find is counterproductive. This sort of regulation and legislation needs to have the input of everyone that is effected by it, including the artists themselves. If the legislation is so restrictive that artists feel they are unable to produce than something needs to change about the legislation. But, I still believe that there must be some form of protection in order to protect the people that originally created the work in question.

Ultimately, this comic, while very informative, made me feel rather conflicted about the use of copyright laws in the US. Artists need to be protected and deserve to receive the proper amount of recognition for their work if other people want to use it. However, I agree that some of the protections seem to go way too far. Copyright laws need to be enforced in ways that protect, yet still allow room for creation and collaboration. I would be very interested to see what other countries’ copyright laws look like to gain some insight or guidance.


 * Presence Absence Assignment**









__**Surrealist Composite Project Steps**__





Final Edits: Fixed man's shadow. Adjusted feet. Blurred stars and moon to match ocean. Increased size of the ship and added a shadow on the ocean. Increased number of sparks around man.

__**Cinemagraph**__



__**Short Video Project**__ media type="youtube" key="EnK1_OQEAts" width="560" height="315"

__**Augmented Reality Response**__

Your question of “What makes augmented reality special?” is a very interesting question. As with all art, striving to create something unique and new is one of the ultimate goals of the artist, but this question, I think, goes beyond the goals of the individual artist to the goal of the medium itself.

Augmented space also has an important connection to augmented reality. With augmented space, the physical space is “data dense,” and each point in the space potentially contains information that can be communicated to the consumer. Because of this additional data, the the physical space now will have many more dimensions than it did without this augmentation. Augmented reality is a form of augmented space.

Augmented reality is not an entirely new concept, per say. For a long time before augmented reality came onto the scene, artists had been enhancing and changing the space around people to change the way they looked at it and create something new. Starting in the 1990s, virtual reality attempted to create an entirely new space for the viewer to experience and immerse themselves in. Numerous other forms of media use technology to dynamically deliver dynamic data to, or extract data from, physical space, such as video surveillance, cellspace technologies, and video displays.

Augmented reality and augmented space are both different from virtual reality in a few ways. With virtual reality, the user and the artist are using a virtual (as the name suggests) simulation to share an experience. With virtual reality, the entire experience is simulated. This is not the case with augmented reality and augmented space in general. Augmented space and augmented reality use space that has already existed. The artist or creator simply adds information to the already existing space to change it and alter the perception. This interaction between the real and the created is what makes augmented reality and augmented space different than virtual reality.

However, this does not mean that virtual reality and augmented reality and augmented space are physical opposites. Rather, it is a matter of scale. Augmented reality and augmented space use the space and environment around the consumer to create the new experience. Virtual reality takes this further, and creates a new experience by creating something completely new rather than borrowing from what is already around.

Augmented space gives us a new way to think about some very old subjects. Augmented space and augmented reality challenge the way we think about architecture itself. For hundreds of years, fresco painters and architects have been trying to change the environment around them by adding different layers of data. Augmented space and augmented reality also attempt to do this, but these mediums are able to transcend many of the physical limitations that those other mediums have. This intersection of ancient ideas and new technology make augmented reality and augmented space special and different than what has come before.

__**Site Specific Self-Portrait**__


 * Trigger Stop 1**


 * Overlays Stop 1**


 * Augmented Image**


 * Trigger Stop 2**


 * Overlays Stop 2**


 * Complete Image Stop 2**


 * Trigger Image Stop 3**


 * Overlay Stop 3**


 * Complete Image Stop 3**


 * Trigger Stop 4**


 * Overlays Stop 4**


 * Complete Image Stop 4**