Since I’m having trouble with my throat I’ll refer you to these instructions to keep the amount of speaking I do at a minimum.

In your book cover groups, create a mock-up of your book cover using the materials available to you. This mock up is a draft of your book cover and if you realize you don’t like certain elements or prefer a different layout, you will be able to make those changes for your final version due April 21.

You can use the printer to print certain images just be sure that when you go to print that you select the printer that reads like a website such as//cas.

These mock-ups will be turned in on Wednesday along with a MEMO you will write in class as a group.

Remember your Book Covers are Due Next Monday, April 21 2008.

Posted: April 14th, 2008 under in-class activity, multimedia in action.
Comments: none

Please note: the collaborative project has changed! It is now known as the collaborative book cover project as you will be designing book covers for if on a winter’s night a traveler. See Collaborative Project for more details!

Groups so far: Christina, Jamey, Kevin, Katie
Megan, Sam, Victoria
Marcus, Keely
Robert, Chris, Ed
Jovana, Saoirse, Lorraine, Krista

Posted: March 31st, 2008 under daily notes, multimedia in action.
Comments: none

In the nineteenth century, household work–considered women’s work–was burdensome, inefficient, and stifling. In 1874, William Blackstone, a merchant and manufacturer of corn planters, from Bluffton, Indiana invented a washing machine for his wife. Within five years his invention became big business but it was the Industrial Revolution, which had succeeded in transforming the workplace that was the real impetus for transforming domestic work, the home itself and women’s roles through the introduction of household appliances, like the washing machines pictured below. Appliances helped liberate women from the isolation of the home, and it was believed these time-and-labor saving devices could provide women with greater access to the larger world.

Washing Machine Advertisements. 

However, household labor largely remains women’s work today. Look at the images from popular washing machine manufacturers’ websites. Click on the screenshots to visit the websites. What messages are being conveyed through the images? Do you think the “role of liberator” is still being used to sell appliances?

Posted: March 4th, 2008 under daily notes, multimedia in action.
Comments: none

Do the objects we own describe or define our personalities in any way? What picture can we paint of someone by just knowing what sort of she drives or what brand of jeans he wears? Could you sneak into someone’s room and form a reliable impression of that person by noting his or her possessions? Remember the stories you constructed from your wallets?

Consumer researchers think that in many ways “we are what we own”; as a result, advertising agencies design campaigns that target certain products to certain types of personalities.

For his college thesis, John Freyer studied how consumer profiling works: “If you could collect information about how people consume goods and services, you could create a pretty good picture of their personality traits, and might even be able to predict the types of choices that they will make in the future.” Later, as a graduate student, Freyer put some of his ideas into action by setting up a web site and selling all his material possessions on eBay. In “All My Life for Sale,” he descirbes his spiritual journey into voluntary dispossession. At the same time, however, he supplies us with an amusing catalogue of those possessions, with information about their orugins, their histories, and ultimate destinations. Freyer invites us, as we go through his inventory of what he sold as auction, to consider these varied, sometimes curious but mostly mundane possessions as his own self-portrait. In that sense, they comprise–as Freyer apparently wishes us to see them–a portrait of the artist as a young man.

In 2000, John Freyer made $6,000 auctioning of all of his stuff on eBay. An agent saw an item about his project and invited him to make it into a book. He has become a minor media celebrity and has inspired numerous similar projects.

Read and peruse Freyer’s website and in small groups answer the following questions:

What would you say is the meaning of John Freyer’s project? Economic? Spiritual? Artisitic?
Why does he call his project “all my life for sale” and not “all my things for sale”?
What connections does he make between his life and his things?

The catalogue format gives Freyer a methodology to follow: a clear picture of each object, with a description to the side and pertinent information prominently displayed. Closely examine Freyer’s objects and his account of them. How do they provide you with a portrait of Freyer himself? In what ways do they project his identity and personality?

Why is eBay so important to Freyer’s project?
What does it enable him to do?
What connections do you see between Freyer’s project and a work of art?
What connections does he suggest?
Do you think that Freyer discovered his project as he proceeded to sell his stuff or that he began the project with the clear idea that it would become both a book and a kind of art exhibit?
Why do you think allmylifeforsale.com was purchased by an art museum and not a retailer?

Posted: February 10th, 2008 under multimedia in action.
Comments: none