katieloos

Freshman Major: Undecided My technology and software skills begin and end with Mi crosoft Office and Paint. I love making art, mainly drawing with ink or graphite. I am currently in the International Arts and Culture Cohort as a part of the Women’s Leadership Program here at GW. I’m also very interested in learning about underrepresented women in the arts. I have a dog named Kitty Here's some art I like to make!
 * Katie Loos**

**Week 1 Homework - Article Response**

Much like the majority of the millennial generation, I am an avid internet user. The online world has, and continues to influence my constructed view of the arts. Yet, as this article addresses, the imminent progression of technology has far surpassed the pace of law makers. I find this especially holds true when acknowledging the role of social media and the conflict between privacy and outr ight appropriation. Given that the article “Bound by Law” was copyrighted in 2006, the tensions between artists and intellectual property laws presented have only escalated with the rise of social networking in the past ten years. Social media creates an outlet for individuals to express themselves with all of the benefits and drawbacks of being in the spotlight of a global audience.

The primary intent of copyright is to encourage the production and distribution of original works through means of constitutional law.The right fosters a sense of protection for the artist from plagiarism and legitimizes their work as their own. In popular culture today, where social media is a major platform for up and coming artists, copyright measures fall into the hands of internet providers who are obligated to remove offending material at an artist’s request, but only in certain cases. Most often the rap id spread of communication grabs the artist’s property and pulls it into the public domain to the point of no return. I often wonder how artists can be so trusting ofposting their work with such limited assurance of protection. At the same time, however, I find myself feeling a similar sense of security. When I log onto Instagram and post something I’m working on or even a photo of myself, I’ve voiced an implicit trust between me and the rest of the world. This is a sort of unreasonable faith I have placed in a global internet community which is proved wrong time and time again. Internet posts are constantly recycled and reconfigured//.// Just take a look at meme culture. Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter are all breeding grounds for the mutation of original ideas and poststhat leap from user to user. The article mentions that parodies are oneof the few exceptions for fair use, but memes are parodies on steroids. Like a parody, they can’t be controlled because they’re not an actual replication of the original. A meme will rework and redefine a single post then exchange that content over a sea of users, often to the point of obscurity. This leads me to question if our public domain is //too// rich. Have we surpassed the point of attempting to monitor original content at all? Has the internet broken the barrier of “overprotecting intellectual property” as JudgeKozinski alluded to? (33) I feel as though the confines of copyright law are somewhat weakened by the internet. This of course is most applicable when the original content is first introduced online. The issue is that more and more content is published on the internet over paper or television outlets where the law truly holds less weight. Although the rapid passage of information allows this leniency, artists should still be weary of the way in which they introduce and protect their work, but also the influences they choose to include. Copyrights are such a tricky subject and now more than ever, I’m interested in how they’ll play a role in the discussion of a digital media class.
 * Exercise 1: Presence/Absence **
 * Project 1:**
 * GIF Exercise:**
 * Augmented Reality Response:**


 * Is AR just one of many related recent phenomena that play a role in overlaying the physical space with information? What’s special about AR compared to other forms of Augmented Space? **

As I define an Augmented Space as “a physical space overlaid with dynamically changing information,” I have derived the term from the paradigm of augmented reality. Unlike a virtual reality, augmented realities superimpose images over the user’s view of the real world, which constructs a composite experience between both real and constructed space. Augmented realities work intimately with the surroundings in plain access to the user. Therefore, when we compare the experience of playing a video game on a large tv monitor to a small screen, the smaller screen is less of a virtual immersion and more of an augmentation of the physical space you are largely present in. Augmented realities may be one of many recent phenomena that overlay a physical space with information, but also it should be noted that many of such phenomena can be defined as augmented space. For example, I discussed Janet Cardiff’s famous “audio walks” which realize this concept. While the walks use limited sophisticated technologies, they combine audio instructions and sound effects to influence the physical experience of the user. Therefore, it is important to understand the broad scope of which an augmented space can include as a concept. While an augmented //reality// is not a relatively new idea, I allow the term augmented space to incorporate the greater possibilities of artist interpretation.

However, I should clarify that work like Clariff’s which is classified as an augmented space, but work solely at the three dimensional and two dimensional level, is just one platform of the concept. There is still room for modern technology and innovation within the term. As I mentioned, GPS, wireless location services, and surveillance technologies which ultimately define data space, serve to provide a substantially new aesthetic. The impact of such a technological overlay implies that the change is continuous and all encompassing of the physical space. If there were to be a defining line between Augmented realities and augmented space, I would justify that the perpetual presence of technology can form a more literal and immersive “reality” than a space. Of course, data spaces are almost never entirely continuous, which is exactly why the term “space” is more applicable.

In this rapidly advancing technological world, physical spaces, especially in the public realm are becoming more and more augmented. In this sense the idea of an augmented space could be gradually considered an augmented //reality// under a far more distanced lens. AR may eventually come to define our environment, but for now I refer to an augmented space as the layers to which that reality can be experienced and seen.


 * Final Project Ideas: **
 * 1. Ads for my life in Phillips Hall **
 * Walking down the levels of stairs in phillips and looking at the student org posters. At each level a preexisting poster will transform into a personal memory- or "an ad for my life" **


 * 2. The complete Katie Loos shopping experience!**
 * "We go to CVS!" I use the products to plant my images on the shelves. They will be mundane items, "ex: pack of gum, ointment, rash spray, a hallmark card etc" but the experience will be involved from the moment you walk in the door. Picking up a basket, looking at a list I have given, and "checking out" (I'll figure it out..I don't want money to actually be spent). The shopping experience will be accompanied with an audio guide and the products will be relevant in some way to an experience in my life, or maybe present at an event in my life.**




 * 3. Vex stop**
 * I could not for the life of me get this to rotate, but it says "(because I live on the Vern Campus) -watching the Vexs (vern express) come and go outside of Funger is the site for the objects/images" then the arrow points to a spot on the ground which says "placed on the ground maybe?"**
 * I do not dig this idea, mainly because I can't stand the vex.**

=**Final Project:**= Due to the fact that I have taken this course with the intent to fulfill a requirement of the Women's Leadership Program, I felt it would be disingenuous not to incorporate female leaders into my final project. My augmented reality experience guides the viewer through the floors of Phillips Hall, and asks them to survey cautionary signs, paper fliers, and other minute details that cover the walls, ceiling, and floors of the building. The "scavenger-hunt" is thematically constructed to exhibit female poets. I wanted to venture beyond sharing an experience I was familiar with, and take the time to research a subject a know little about. Therefore, this project simultaneously introduced me to the work of eight incredible female poets as well as challenged me to apply the Adobe softwares and Aurasma program which assemble our course curriculum. The final project requires the student to create a "self-portrait" by leading the viewer through an augmented experience. As a freshman, over the past year my understanding of higher education, measures of time, and all of which I hold to be true and of importance to me have rapidly altered and transformed. My final project takes place in Phillips Hall, the home of the Columbian School of Arts and Sciences, and it serves as a reflection of education, what I may choose to make of it, and of course, women in the arts.

The piece covers all eight floors of the building, with each floor a tribute to a different poet. The experience is not guided, and viewers can start at any floor and follow any order. For the sake of time during the critique, I will identify the triggers, but I welcome the objective of discovering the trigger without direction.


 * First Floor: //Afterimages// -Audre Lorde**
 * Second Floor: "Danger" //The Blackstone Rangers// - Gwendolyn Brooks**
 * Third Floor: //The Black Art//- Anne Sexton**


 * Fourth Floor: //I Rise//- Maya Angelou**
 * Fifth Floor: //I'm Nobody! Who are you?// - Emily Dickinson**
 * Sixth Floor: //An Introduction//- Kamala Das**
 * "I Shrank Pitifully"**


 * Seventh Floor: //Milk and Honey//- Rupi Kaur**


 * Eighth Floor: //I am Vertical//- Sylvia Plath**