The Blog Studio

I’m going to let you know surprising things in this blog post. Even though I don’t know how to drive, I’m really into cars.  Even though I work as a professional geek my entire education and half my working life have been centered around really, really obscure and nerdy books.

I was watching a Top Gear clip on YouTube, with Michael Gambon (you probably know him as the bootleg Dumbledore from Harry Potter or as Philip Marlow from the BBC Singing Detective). When Clarkson is talking to Gambon, he mentions a Beckett theatre production he was performing in. In this incarnation of the play there is no spoken dialogue. Only a recording of an actress is heard, while a man (Gambon in this version) lays on a bed. There is is a camera above him, that is just focused on his face and throws a tight close up of his face onto a huge screen the audience can see. The camera gets closer and closer to his face as the play progresses. It’s a play called Krapp’s Last Tape, and despite having premiered in 1958, it feels and acts like it’s from the future.

What does this have to do with anything?

Many people argue that Samuel Beckett is the best writer in English to ever wake up pissed at the world. That’s not my opinion (Jane Austen FTW!), but it’s a solid argument I can respect. In the play Gambon is discussing, there are many parallels between what we create on the web and the way the play is stage. No dialogue. A disembodied, recorded, mechanically provided voice. Watching someone on video. Being stuck in front of a camera. Watching a piece of technology while actually being there in person. There are probably dozens of more significant parallels we can draw between this staging of Beckett’s play and the web, social media and technology.

I’m starting to wonder, possibly even be slightly worried about high art and technology not getting frisky enough. If Beckett created this play that is so relevant to how we’re using technology now, what is being created right now that will be relevant 50 years from now? There are certainly plenty of interesting futurists out there, like Ray Kurtzweil and Douglass Rushkoff. Still, I view them as brilliant technical people, not artists in the Beckett sense, though of course, these kinds of lines can get blurry at the edges.

I’m putting this out to you, people of the interwebz, because I sincerely want to know the answers. Who are the tech Beckett’s at work right now that people will be discussing over SkyNet 50 years hence?

The Google Art Project is the best use of the web I have seen in a very, very long time. GAP is a web interface that uses the Google Street View engine to let you explore museums. It looks very similar to your favorite first person shooter. The concept is dead simple. It is the executing that makes this app so fantastic.

It loads right into your browser, with no downloads or plug-ins needed. You select a museum from the list, which includes many of the best of the world. Moma, National Gallery in London, Uffizi in Firenze and two dozen more. The list is impressive and covers a big range of time periods, styles and mediums. From here, feel free to wander the virtual museum of your choice. The interiors you walk around were photographed with the same tricycles that create the Google StreetView visuals, and look excellent. Walking around is smooth, and the artwork is clearly visible. You can easily kill hours wandering around and taking in the best paintings in the world. The quality of the art is high enough that you can enjoy staring at it for a while, and not feel like a second rate sucker.

Here’s the real kicker. Certain works of art in each museum have been given what Google calls “The Gigapixel Treatment”. These are photos that are 14 billion pixels deep. You can zoom in so close you can see the ridges in the paint, and the individual lines of the brush strokes. Digital representations like this are clearly the future of how we are going to view art online from here on out. It isn’t the same as viewing works of art in person, but it’s pretty close, and absolutely enjoyable. There is also huge potential for students, and anyone who wants to increase their knowledge of fine art.

Once again, Google has taken an idea that many people have had, and created something truly wonderful. Using a combination of photos, access and creativity with an eye towards enjoyment they have built something that people will be using for years. The lesson here is that perfect execution can make any idea into something groundbreaking.

A question we hear frequently from many clients: “Is the writing on my blog copyrighted?”

This question comes in all sort of variations, ranging from who owns the copyright, to the process needed to copyright something, to wondering if copyright even exists on the web. Copyright on the web can easily turn into a labyrinth of complications. I like to offer clients who ask a very simple solution that protects their work, and has the added bonus of helping to promote it. Register all the creative work on your blog under a Creative Commons license.

Working with hundreds of blogging clients over the years, has led us to the conclusion that Creative Commons is often misunderstood by people who are new to blogging. This is really a shame, because using CC can give your blog and creative work a big hand by helping others share and promote what you make. New, and even experienced bloggers, see Creative Commons as a license to steal their work, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Applying a Creative Commons license to the content you create actually ensures that you will receive proper credit for whatever you make, while letting people freely share your creations to help get the word out.

Many bloggers are very resistant to Creative Commons at first. We’ve heard many reasons, but the one we hear the most is “People are going to rip me off, and post my work everywhere!” Let’s think about that for a second. People are going to re-post your writing everywhere? The horror! What a problem to have! There are many reasons that people choose to blog. One of the most common is to promote themselves, their business and their work, in order to establish a reputation. If someone reads your blog post, then chooses to publish it elsewhere, that’s a fantastic compliment and a great way to have more people see what you’ve created.

Let’s face it, unless you are a successful professional blogger (and even then, this can be quite a stretch) you probably aren’t getting paid for your blog posts once they are published. If people share or re-post one of your pieces with a link back to the original, it’s a win for you. There is no chance of you being “ripped off” when people share your work. Most of us could use the exposure for what we create. Applying a Creative Commons license to your projects ensures that when people share your work, you receive proper credit.

There are several variations on the Creative Commons license. The one that we recommend to blogging clients is the Attribution-No Derivatives license. In the simplest term, when your work is licensed this way others can share, distribute and reprint it other places as long as they give you proper credit, and don’t modify your work.  Fair enough? With this license, your original creation will remain intact, and whenever it appears on the web, your name, and a link back to the original on your blog will be included.

Often, when people are looking to source content for a project, they will specifically search for Creative Commons licensed work, because they know that it can be legally shared. If your work falls under this umbrella, it increases the chance that someone will find and share it, increasing the exposure and bolstering your reputation. This is a great passive distribution strategy, and requires no work on your end, other than noting on your blog that the work is CC licensed.

The Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/ organization has an excellent website, and a huge amount of resources to help you understand and apply the licenses to your creation. Take a look at the site, have a look at the various licenses available and read through the FAQ page which will most likely answer any questions you have. If you need any more convincing, the Content Directory lists a portion of the thousands and thousands of people using CC licenses to protect, share and distribute their work. A quick look will show you that you’re in excellent company. Many of the most innovative creators on the web are proponents of Creative Commons.

The most important thing to keep in mind, is that letting others share your work is a cornerstone of the web, and the more people that see your work the better. Remember: Sharing is a good thing! 

The Guggenheim is hosting a worldwide bienniale in partnership with YouTube, and promises to be the biggest thing the art world has seen since Jeff Koons. To date, the renowned Modern and Contemporary Art Museum has received over 4000 videos from international artists, videographers and graphic designers in an open call for submissions. The Guggenheim has an insatiable appetite for fresh work, and they won’t be satisfied until they hear from YOU. So budding Picassos, Film Noir-ists and bravuras alike—it’s time to flex your creative muscles. The Guggenheim is accepting video submissions for the next ten days, and will short-list twenty entries to be exhibited at their museums in New York, Berlin, Bilbao and Venice in October 2010.

If you’re artistically inclined, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Few artists experience this level of elevation and only under the most exceptional of circumstances. This project also speaks to a growing trend in social media, which we discussed in our post referencing Ridley Scott’s ‘Life In A Day’ project: Crowdsourcing.  Crowdsourcing is at the forefront of countless public projects across many genres: the arts, politics—like David Cameron’s plan to crowd source the UK on fiscal policy, and your very own Facebook profile. The practice of crowd sourcing guarantees diversity of opinion, innumerable choice and ultimately, peak results. This presents groundbreaking opportunities for artists to forge deep, permeating connections in the international art world.  The divide between ‘art for art sake’ and preconceived notions of what is museum-worthy has effectively been broken down.  This is reminiscent of the Tate Modern’s graffiti exhibit a few years back.  For me, this is what social media is all about: increased connections and the spread of ideas. Prior to social media and online crowd sourcing how else could a local artist receive this kind of exposure?

The Guggenheim and YouTube jury will select 200 videos to stream on the youtube.com/play channel with the twenty most outstanding submissions exhibited in Guggenheims worldwide.  Take note, The NY Guggenheim blog ‘The Take’ instructs that the jury will seek out creative, innovative and experimental submissions. For further information visit http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york and to make a submission via http://www.youtube.com/play

Take a risk! Submit and let us know when you do.

I read the news today, oh boy/ About a lucky man who made the grade…

Ridley Scott and YouTube have been inspired by social media connectivity and The Beatles classic ‘A Day in the Life.” Through a global collaborative effort, Scott and YouTube plan to create a documentary of what life was like on July 24th 2010—much like John Lennon’s musing on the temporal in ‘A Day in the Life.’

This is definitely a new direction for filmmaking and for digital media.  Usually, a film begins and ends with industry topdogs.  Hollywood creative teams (execs, producers, writers and directors) will take a story and generate a film for a mass audience.  Filmmaking has been turned on its head by opening up the creative process to the everyman. Social media, crowd sourcing and collaborative creation are where it’s at in the post-future world we live in.

Come July 24th we can all collaborate with Ridley Scott, earn a ‘co-director’ credit and carve out a niche in filmmaking when the movie premiers at Sundance 2011. It’s an amazing opportunity indeed… but what’s even more exciting, is this new genre of filmmaking will have broader implications that effect the notion of “art”, and the media industry in general. Ridley Scott is recognizing the potential for greatness in the amateur.

What is ‘Life In A Day’ director Kevin McDonals looking for?  McDonals released a statement which read, “Life in a Day is a time capsule that will allow future generations to discover how we lived on the 24th of July 2010.” What content will peak his interest? And why is July 24th 2010 the big day?  Is it an arbitrary date selected to accommodate Ridley Scott’s production schedules, or is there some deeper meaning?

Will the ‘Life in a Day’ team include average, everyday citizens shaving, hitting Starbucks and heading to the office?  What about authenticity?  Will submissions be an honest account of July 24th or will people submit sensationalized material?

Are you submitting your life to YouTube and Ridley Scott?  What will you contribute to this “time capsule?” Leave us a comment and let us know!

To learn more about the ‘Life in a Day Project’ you can search the hashtags #RidleyScott and #lifeinaday visit http://www.youtube.com/lifeinaday and watch Ridley Scott’s directions in the video above: