The enviromental hackers!

The environment has recently become one of the most discussed issues, but there`s still people out there who do not really take a look to our planet and see what we have done to it and instead of helping us to conserve what we still have, they destroy habitats and the beauty of our planet.

For this week`s blog we had to read the article "Yes Men!" which talks about how a group of environmental protectors hacked CHEVRON`s new program called "We Agree". Chevron had to protect its image sending emails to its clients and representatives, explaining them how a group of people prank them.

The real issue in this article is not the fact that this group of people hacked Chevron`s website, but the message they`re trying to transmit which gives Chevron a bad image. The main goal of this "prank" may be to make the company`s owner and other companies realize the damage they`re doing to the planet, specially after what happened in the Gulf of Mexico where a lot of oil spilled into the ocean damaging a big section of the environment, and wild life as well.

I found this image in the net, and it actually depicts the reality that people may leave in the future if we continue destroying our natural life and resources. 

We must take care of our environment, and I believe that this group of people, even though they may have done something illegal, they had an awesome idea and stood up for our planet!

Where`s Morality?

For this week we read chapter 3 from Lawrence Lessig`s book Free Culture. In this chapter he talks basically about the way that networks work in the internet and in search engines such as Google, yahoo and others. He presents the case of Jesse Jordan, who was sued by a search engine company when he was still in Universtity. As Lessig asks in his article I ask myself where`s the morality of the company who sued him? It is ridiculous to blame someone for doing something terrible when he was really talented.

Copyright has become one of the main problems for those who try to grow their knowledge and show their talent with the risk of being sued by using others ideas. It would be absurd to say that these people need to be punished by committing such "terrible" acts, but the reality is how people can explore and challenge themselves in develop their own inventions when copyrights close the doors in their faces?

Also it is pathetic and ironic how big companies are willing to ask for millions of dollars from people when at the same time they complain about how economy is going down. The truth is that company owners only cares about something, and that is money.

Julian Schnabel: Art and Film at AGO!

I decided to go to the Art Gallery of Ontario to attend Julian's Schnabel exhibition. Schnabel was born in New York and his artwork has been inspired and dedicated to multiple actors, writers and people that have had an impact in his life. Schnabel uses the medium of painting and film, and mix them together to create his works of art.

His collection contains different kind of paintings, including the ones on his unique technique of plates. Schnabel uses broken plates, embedding its fragments to add a sophisticated texture to the image of the painting. He also uses tarpaulin to add a glassy texture to the paint on the canvas.

My favorite artwork was Anno Domini, which Schnabel dedicates to the bullfight, one of his major inspirations. Anno Domini contains the feeling and movements of the arena, you can actually feel the moves of El Torero at the moment he's persuading the bull. It actually feels more like he is dancing with the bull rather than persuading it. The colours of Anno Domini caught my attention because of its vivid red colour over the canvas that are similar to blood spots. With this artwork, Schnabel is trying to describes the scenario where Anno Domini, El Torero, kills the bull; in other words the red spots are the blood spots that the bull has sprang over the arena.

I recommend this exhibition because it not only contains different works based on films and artist but also the beautiful artwork of Schnabel give the actual feeling and emotion he wants to give to the public.

Latinoamerica's Reality

So here's my Remix assignment... you can see the face of a boy in the first picture, he has the map of Latin America over his face, symbolizing his land. There are a couple of pictures that seemed to be engraved on the background that show the violence and the suffering of latin america, the tears of blood and the eyes of the boy reflect the reality that these people live. I want to give a little "taste" of a day of these people with the video. I used videos that practically show the images that you get to see everyday on the TV. Also the piece of music that I added give a more dramatic taste to the video. At last with my second picture I described how peace is not respected and how there is death and despair in these countries...

                                          

Video

I got the pictures for the images in google.ca, and creative commons... The videos are from youtube and blip.tv, the music background's composer is Edvin Marton and the piece is called Tosca Fantasy...



Image sources:
texture - http://shadowh3.deviantart.com/art/Wall-Texture-73682375
gang picture -http://walterguerra.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/campana-en-contra-la-delincuencia-en-esquipulas/219/

Video Sources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_LQFTgK5YI&p=36EE5457394B3CF0&playnext=1&index=14
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8xslhaxnOU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PzTZmHBTc4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhObBgRxXqk
http://blip.tv/play/hdFj%2BYRHAg

New Assignment Remix Theme

I've been thinking about different themes and ideas about my remix assignment and I have decided to change the life and nature theme to violence, focusing more in the violence that exist in latinamerican countries from where I come from...

Violence nowadays is one of the problems that the world has struggled with during the whole history. It affects to million of people everyday, not only with assaults and robs but also with assassinations and more... My new idea is to show the reality of the latin population that is somehow depicted in movies and shows, but people are not able to understand it at all because they are not living in that kind of situation...

With my images and video I want to give the reality not only of latin american countries but also of the whole planet...

For this week I want to describe my remix assignment. My idea is to create two images and a video showing how beautiful life can be using nature as a medium. We are able to express and give different meanings to nature, for example we can give the meaning of growth and success to a tree, or the meaning of peace to a white bird.

I want two create two different scenarios that will show two aspects of the life... the first one how beautiful is, and the second one showing the difficulties that we may struggle with throughout our whole life. In the video I want to show what people are missing living more concentrated in money, work and not enjoying their life...

Wanna get in shape??... Get Wii Fit!!

One of these days on my way home, I met a guy in the bus who told me that he likes to work out and stay on shape, and that one of the games for Nintendo Wii helps him to stay in shape and work out. The Nintendo company now has given a step further, allowing us the advantage of being on shape with Wii Fit.

Wii Fit is a balance board that is connected to the Nintendo Wii system. It contains different kinds of workouts, you can decide to do pushups or Yoga and the balance board detects each of your movements and displays them on the screen. so you don't have to worry about going to the gym anymore, when you can just work out comfortably at home with the Wii Fit.

The idea of creating a video game to get people to stay on shape is a success, not only because the game allows you to work out, it also makes you challenge yourself to get better and better, beating your old scores and it gives you different tips when you've gain weight or when you've lost it... Technology will keep on taking more steps further, in the future we may use 3D glasses to get the feeling that we're inside the game, and we'll get more sophisticated control systems as well...