Anuj+Patel

Anuj Patel I am a political science major with hopefully a minor in biochemistry. I wouldn’t say I’m inept with computers, just don’t call me if you need tech support, because that’s where the stereotype ends for me. I’m vaguely familiar with photoshop and premiere, having taken an introductory class in 8th grade, but in terms of art, I am sorely lacking in experience. For my art credit, I took two years of studio production, so I have experience with framing camera shots and creating television segments, as well as Tricaster software, which I would consider myself rather competent with during love broadcasts. Probably the most interesting thing about me is that I spent the last four years involved in a sport called dragonboating, in which I was the owner, coach, captain, and steersman of a local nonprofit youth club in Long Beach which would regularly win high level races against other high school age and adult teams. Artistically, I’m more interested in pieces that are highly intricate and composed of a plethora of symbols to create something larger and more meaningful than each components. For example, these pieces by Dustin Yellin are my favorite works of art, as he creates a human body out of thousands of smaller, meaningful components layered three dimensionally. The most compelling aspect is that one uncovers or notices something new every time one looks upon it and there is a sense of discovery as one’s eyes scour the piece.

I believe the concept of fair use is rather vague, because each individual case can be argued to be for research purposes, a form of parody, or any of the other listed categories of free use. Due to the ambiguous nature of free use, I agree with the judge presented in the article who forced the plaintiff to pay attorney fees as they tried to hemorrhage the defendant of assets in order to win the copyright infringement case. It may not be feasible, but I believe that there can be no one blanket law to define what can or can’t be considered infringement, and so each case should be looked at individually. For example, on the Disney Channel, the characters all use computers and phones with a pear logo, and they refer to their IPears, clearly a parody of Apple and its various Mac products. The use of the parodied technology is likely intended for humor, but also there is the aspect of the network airing the copyrighted logo of Apple Inc. which must be avoided. That doesn’t seem to make much sense, as the network would not seeing an increase in revenue if they were to use Apple products, if anything, Apple would pay to increase their brand exposure, so there should not be any issue of copyright infringement, and yet there is. Copyright law also needs to catch up to modern media, as Twitter currently amends its policies regarding what is colloquially known as joke theft. When an event occurs in the real world, the internet collectively rushes to their phones to create jokes in an attempt to gain fame, and more often than not the same joke is “created” by many people. Twitter is then faced with numerous complaints by tweeters that others have copied their jokes, and it is nearly impossible to distinguish who had prior knowledge of another’s work, as so few jokes are truly original. This issue may seem rather inconsequential, but the issue gains levity when one looks over the theft of jokes by professional standup comedians. When Amy Schumer is paid $17 million for a Netflix special, and demands that she be paid $60 million like legend Dave Chappelle, she was criticized for stealing jokes from other, lesser known comedians. While the jokes were simple and crude in nature, many have compiled comparisons of how similar her sets are to other comedians, and while she claims to have no prior knowledge, there is almost no way to determine for certain if she had stolen the jokes, bar an actual confession from Schumer herself. I would like to see a more elegant solution, but as of right now, the “most fair” way to determine if she had infringed on other comedians intellectual property would be at the discretion of a judge. I see copyright infringement as critically important to protecting new creations, and I’d like to give the benefit of the doubt to newer content over the original source material that the new creator would be accused of stealing from, but each case is unique and would have to be examined to the greatest extent of the law.


 * Presence Absence **



From viewing the watch this exhibit, I felt there was more than just the visual aspect of the piece, there was almost a kind of empathetic connection with the character in the piece, as the walk through the crowd was an experience. The nature of moving images tends to allow the brain to fill in the gaps of what it knows should be there, and so I felt rather suffocated and uncomfortable, as the artist likely intended from observing and experiencing the piece. There was an interesting amount of body study, as certain aspects of the human face were shown uncomfortably close, which I believe was a comment on how our own bodies don't feel completely natural to us, and the medium of motion pictures allowed for us to not only see this, but also experience it as well.

Cinemagraph Test

Manovich Response Humans have a habit of severely cluttering a space as soon as it is made available, as everyone wants a piece of the new are, regardless of where it is, as long as a profit may be made. The biggest issue with augmented reality is who owns any given space, as a company would pay untold amounts to expand its advertising to brand new spaces not yet cluttered by its rivals. As we can see with places such as Times Square, ads become commonplace and ubiquitous, often becoming much of the landscape itself. That being said, the possible advantages of augmented reality in a smartphone are untold. From relatively simple things such as a game like Pokemon GO, which has record numbers of people interacting with the physical world in ways they previously had not, due to the draw of the augmented side of reality, to extremely useful and complex augments, such as an overlay one can point over an unconscious person showing a rescuer how to perform CPR, augmented reality has the possibility to truly provide information to humanity in such an efficient and interesting way, allowing us to be more engaged with the physical world around us. Of course the danger with infinite information and content at one’s fingertips is that one becomes overwhelmed or numb to it all, as we simply become processors for content, and not individuals who may appreciate all the world has to offer. There is a real danger here, but no more than a television or any smartphone already poses, and with augmented reality, at least one is engaged to some degree with the physical space around them. As land is one of the most definitively finite resources known to man, the opportunities presented by augmented reality in terms of building memorial or structures that are meant to be observed but do not require a physical presence. This frees up land for more necessary constructs. Things such as sign posts may see less use as the digital space is filled with all the information one would need, and these signs can’t be graffitied or destroyed. Things such as evacuation routes during large scale floods or earthquakes could be created to assist people in precarious positions by providing much needed information in the most simple and easy to follow instructions. The greatest aspect of augmented reality is the fact that there is an almost infinite supply of building materials, as one doesn’t need any marble to create a virtual Michelangelo's David, and it can be replicated as many times as the artist wishes, allowing people the world over to appreciate the art as though it were right in front of them. The one glaring issue is how much information one would be putting into the public sphere regarding location and what one is currently seeing. By accessing one’s camera and geotag to generate a digital space around oneself, anyone with access to that network has the ability to breach one privacy to a level previously unheard of.