Yes Men

The” Yes Men” from as Far as I Can tell are nothing but a bunch of corporate terrorist, who sole goal in life is to make hard working peoples’ lives difficult. They think by going around posing as some so called Evil Corporation they can somehow change the world. This is simply nonsense; all they are doing is making some poor middle management executive fill out more paper work then he needs to, and costing some fact checking guy at some media corporation his job. Good Job “Yes Men” all you ever accomplish is making people’s lives a little more difficult. Another thing, no one finds your jokes funny either, making oil out of people is sick, not funny. Only anarchist liberals like yourself get your jollies by presenting such ludicrous and horrible ideas. Exxon Mobile is one of the most environmentally responsible and consumer friendly corporations in the world. Every day the provided safe and effective energy that we consume, and without that energy we would be no better off then cavemen. The same goes for Dow Chemical, Dow provides products that make the way we live possible, what do we gain by making them go broke over some poor Indians that would most like just take jobs from Americans anyway. Besides Dow has no responsibility for an accident that was performed by another company, if those people are truly suffering, then the Indian government could help them, that’s what governments are for. The deception and lies that the “Yes Men” spread throughout our corporate culture is a virus on society, which does nothing but cause harm for no discernable reason. What is to be gain by spreading lies about some of America’s strongest companies? I think the “Yes Men” need to step back for a moment and realize that these corporations are run by normal hard working people and that the share holders are also normal hard working people, and that there is no such thing as an evil corporation. These corporations do more good then evil, while yes they may do some things that are underhanded or sometimes even cruel, it is for the greater good. It is for the good of the employees and for the good of the share holders, the employees and share holders that make up America. There was a phrase back in the sixty I believe and it went, what is good for General Motors is good for American, truer worlds have never been spoken. As for the picture I choose the anarchy symbol, because that’s all the “Yes Men” are, is a bunch of anarchist.

Yes Men Extra Blog

Pardon my French, but these two guys seem like assholes to me. I admit they are clever but I disagree with the blog below mine that they actually seem to accomplish things. True they brought to public attention an important catastrophe abroad caused by an American Corporation. However, I do not think they actually accomplished anything meaningful for their cause other than temporarily driving down the Dow's stock. If there was some sort of collaboration with the Bhopalis their effort might seem more sincere. Unfortunately the two men only facilitate "the other" paradigm by speaking on behalf of those affected in Bhopal without consultation. Bichlbaum and Bananno operate in the same structure of hierarchy they seemingly hope to deconstruct. Instead these two assume their place of taking on the Dow according to their own agenda while dismissing the effect they will have on the already broken spirit of these victims. Because they believe they are the "good guys" they can break the rules? I don't think so. What kind of message is that sending about ethics?  I am not defending Dow's stance (although their reasons of inaction bound by the stockholders is clearly sensible to anyone who understands capitalism) I do not think the "white lies"  of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno should be tolerated. Where is the logic in more lies leading to the truth? I would like to know the legal repercussions of their actions. Allowing this kind of behavior in the name of social responsibility can only pave the road to Hell. 

Instead of spending their time playing games, they could be raising money and awareness through legitimate means for Bhopal.

I think it would be fun to impersonate to the point of suggesting we actually are the two men on our radio project. We could make all kinds of promises and financial commitments to the University of Florida, broadcast it to the public and then contact the men to demand they follow through. 

--Sam

Yes Men Extra Blog

I thought the method used by the Yes Men is very clever--rather than protests and rallies against  crimes committed by corporations, they actually play the parts of these corporations, saying what the corporations will not say for themselves.  It's just a great approach to the problems in our world.  The media obviously doesn't tell us very much--I'm amazed that our news broadcasters are even covering these terrorist attacks occurring in India....oh yeah, there were like three Americans there, thus making the tragedy "relevant" to us.  So it's very true that the media needs an "excuse" to talk about something, and to bring it to the attention of the public.

What the Yes Men do is a very worthwhile, inspiring cause.  Through harnessing the media, they can play with the images of corporations, and most importantly, they actually seem to accomplish things.  Most protests that occur rarely get this kind of coverage and go unnoticed, so a creative approach to the issues such as this is absolutely necessary to make a difference in our media-driven world.

As for our radio project, I think this provides an interesting approach for some of the things we would like to do for the radio project.  By playing the parts of the corporations, we can articulate their interests and incentives in a way much different from what they would want us to hear.  I look forward to getting more involved with this project, though it is difficult now, being so separated from my group.  I hope that with the time we are given, we will able to accomplish all the things we want to accomplish.

YES MEN___EXTRA BLOG

As our new band project creeps nearer and nearer, ideas continuously spark up and get discussed between band members. Ideas for a theme ended when we decided to create and connect our project by talking about the idea of truly being an individual and to break away from society. Even with our theme of the project figured out, there is still a lot of work to do dealing with how we are going to present and display our major theme in a radio broadcast. We already have many great ideas of how to display this information during the radio broadcast. Many of our ideas are actually similar to the ways of the "yes men." Their ways being, to create a satirical way to display information to the public that is normally overlooked. Reading about the yes men and what they have done is inspiring when it comes to doing this project. One idea that I would like to see be created is to make our website similar to theirs. Not only will we be connecting our project with readings from class, but, we will also be doing ourselves a favor by mimicking a great function and factor of the yes men's publicity and success. I believe we can use the yes men as our teacher for this specific project. The readings in course reserves were very helpful due to all of the ideas embedded in the text. I noticed a lot of things that we could create similarity to in our own project. Overall, the yes men readings and videos were a huge help in thinking up ideas of how to present our radio project. I believe that the yes men are a great point to start at and from their inspiration, see where our project takes us. Be prepared for an awesome turn-out.
-Coulter

The more I think about the radio project that we are working on, the more ideas come to mind--ideas that are so numerous that I'm not quite sure I'll have the time to actually do half of them.  Rather than tie myself down to a single, specific theme, I wanted a way to express many ideas and ways of thinking, and arrive at a conclusion based on all of these things.  And so I think the idea of exploring subculture, and the struggle to truly be an individual and to break away from society is an interesting one.  I think there are many ways to go with the project, and we will not be at a loss for ideas at any point.  

I can't deny that one of my biggest inspirations for my ideas on this project have come through the Richard Linklater movies I have been watching lately, particularly Slacker and Waking Life.  I think their play on structure is interesting, and how through the use of an eclectic number of ideas, one overall theme seems to emerge, like the many strokes of a brush creating an entire picture.  But of course, I don't want to produce a work exactly like this--we will definitely be bringing in other ideas and making this an original work.

One thing I am interested in utilizing is music, although I almost don't want to play any songs of any sort, unless this plays a direct part in this array  of voices speaking.  I would like to try to loop parts of songs to create certain moods and tensions if necessary.  But I'm not sure how easy this would be--to create a continuous flow of music.  I would have to cut and past certain parts of a song, and mend them to fit perfectly, that way there are no skips.  It's something that could happen to be very difficult, I will have to see how well it works.

So we'll definitely be putting a lot of work into this project.  I can't wait to see how it turns out, and how all of our ideas come together to create a unified work.

what do you mean radio project? I'm talkin' about website!

I know that my fellow band members have all written this weeks blog about our newest upcoming project, our radio project. However, I have been wanting to write this blog about the final product of my film memory website project. If you saw my last website displaying memory work compared to my new film memory project, you would think two totally different people did the projects. You would have never guessed that I did both. It looks as if a child made the first one because of how generic, plain and sloppy it was. This new one, as it seems to me, looks outstanding. I learned newer skills and improved my already existing skills to create a sharp-looking and more advanced website. Just looking at the homepage it is apparent that my website making skills have become more advanced. One factor that makes this website better than the one before is video clips. I added video clips of the movie I was analyzing along with a few clips of my self from high school. Although this was an easy task once it has been learned, it appears on the site to others as very advanced. At least, this is the way I feel it appears. On my first website project I did not use columns, but, for this one I did use them and it cleaned up and made my website look neat and more professional. Also, I feel like I mastered the idea of "textual voiceover." At first I did not have an idea of how to do it, but while working on the site, I discovered ways of making it work. Another factor that made my newest site better than the last is my use of photoshop. I got a lot better at using the program photoshop and was able to make my altered pictures really neat looking. Overall, This project dominates my last one. 

-Coulter  

Raido Project?

We have now begun to work on our final projects for the class. Our band has decided to do a radio project, which explores the different view people have. We will mostly be focusing in on the individual versus the media, and the individual versus society. We want the project to bring together many different elements, including sound effects, music, and distortion. Here are my ideas for how the radio program will play out. Now I don’t actually expect the project look much like the ideas I am lying down here, because we are so early on in the planning process, and this is more of just a brain storming session.
I see the program opening up with a fake advertisement, (a real one would be cool though, I could always use extra money). Then we transition into Ryan as the narrator talking about society or the struggle against society or something like that. There should be music playing in the background, during this part. After that I really don’t know what we should do to move into the part where we are coving our own topics, or even how we want to cover the topics. Do we want it to be us just talking, or do we want to present it in a covert way. Like people on the street talking, or like we are hosting a call in talk show and each of us calls in, or maybe some even more creative way. Anyway that important that we figure that out, because other than that we have a fairly good of idea of what we are doing in the project. We know we want transitions between our pieces that include, some sort of indie rock, some clips of people like Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh talking, and we want to use trippy effects on all of it. We should probably meet at some point this weekend to finalize some stuff, and write our project out line. Remember we also have to talk about our presentation, and the website we have to make. Does anyone know what we have to even do for the presentation? Like what are we supposed to talk about for that half hour. Anyway we have a lot of work to get done, and like no time to do it. So I will end with why I have a radio for my picture this week. It’s because we are doing a radio project. J
-Michael

The third meaning was the topic of discussion this week in class, but most of my time was spent working on my project, and the band presentation both of which are due Monday. My project is on the Shawshank Redemption, a movie that I have seen many times and is one of my favorites. It is a movie about a man, who loses his old life, only to form a new one where he truly found happiness. The Shawshank Redemption had many themes that related back to the text that we have read so far this year, which made it a good choice for my project. I found a lot of connections with Chorus of Stones, which is the text that we most recently finished. As for my band partners, Sam did her project on the movie Clue, which was one of my favorite games as a child. Her site plays with both elements form the game and the movie, which creates a fascinating adventure for the mind. As for Ryan he did his project on, well I am not sure exactly the movie, but the site is very interesting. He seems to be playing with the dream world versus the real world.
The other major project due Monday is our Band Presentation, which is on the “Grain of the Voice”. “Grain of the Voice” is a theoretical text by Barthes that explores what lies beneath the singing voice of an individual. The text is an expansion on the subject of the third meaning, showing how it exists outside of images. This text in particular is especially hard to understand, since it builds on the other texts that come before it. You can really break down the text into four different sections. There is the part about no longer using adjectives to describe music; there is the grain of the voice, Genosong and Phenosong, and the Lied vs Melodie. We plan on using examples of different music to explain the different elements that Barthes talks about. One of the most interesting things I took away from the piece was the idea that music was getting too commercial, and that the ever increasing move towards perfection was not necessarily a good thing. It’s the happy mistakes that make music interesting; it’s the imperfections that make a song great.
Anyway it was a busy week, but hopefully I will get everything done well, as for my picture I choose a piano, in honor of “Grain of the Voice”. While the text is on only the singing voice, you can expand it to all music.

As Sam mentioned, I too have had to watch my movie a countless number of times.  And given the heavy, existential themes of Waking Life, this was not exactly healthy for my morale.  I feel like the final outcome of my website really reflects my struggle to deal with such disturbing thoughts, and how I tried to sort through it all in my head.   It was not an easy process. It took me a lot of thinking and sleepless nights watching the movie and sifting through its many ideas, trying to find an order in it all.  Yet I feel that the outcome was worth it, for it resulted in a project that I feel to be much more genuine and personal than the last.  I especially feel like the art on the website really mirrors how I felt while studying the movie, and the close-up picture I took of my face still bothers me when I look at it--I feel like it's another face looking back at me, one that is troubled and restless.

Yet I feel that this project has been very important for me--it has greatly affected the way I observe and produce any medium of art or literature.  This, as well as our study of the Third Meaning, has completely opened up my understanding of art and given a great insight into what I should be doing as a musician myself.  As I am currently forming a band here in Gainesville, I find that I am already applying many of the ideas and themes that have been discussed in class, as well as Waking Life, into the music I make.

From the moment I started my project on Waking Life, I had a vision of exactly what I wanted my website to accomplish, and overall I am very proud of how it turned out.  Everything from the aesthetic of the pages to the images that I used were exactly as I had imagined.  This is another way that this class overall has really benefited me: I feel that with this class, my ability to actually flesh out the artistic ideas that I envision has grown.  From the the picture you see at the top of this blog to the website I have created, I can say that I actually have the ability to successfully form the artistic works, and therefore also convey the messages, that I want to--something that I have always struggled with in the past.

And as for the radio project, I already have some ideas, although I feel like I have yet to be struck by an overall vision.  But I am sure that the things we will study in class will help spark such an idea.

--Ryan

Friday Night Lights

For this weeks blog I have decided to write on my web site and its progress. The picture above is the cover of the film for which I have chosen to do my film memory work on. The reasoning for this decision is because whenever I watch this film it takes me back to my high school years of playing football. All of it's hardships and tough over comings in which high school football attains. It was some of the best years of my life thus far, and every time I see this movie it gives me that feeling again. It is hard to explain exactly what that feeling is because only I can understand it. It is a feeling that is not to be able to explain. I feel like with this web site project I am having more fun creating and playing with all of the tools of the web program. I seem to be a lot more intrigued and interested in my memory work from this specific film. This project has opened my eyes in ways i never thought possible until upon doing this project. It has opened my eyes in a way in which it is impossible for myself to try and explain on paper or verbally. One thing that I am really excited about showing on my web site is little video clips all throught the linked pages. I did not do this on my last project and I am excitred to see reactions to them. I also have made this site way less generic as I had made my last project. I feel this recent project looks a million time better and a million time more interesting than my previous project. I still have a ton of work to do on it before it's deadline on monday, but, so far I am very proud of what I have accoplished.

I've decided to write my blog tonight since this weekend is going to be jam packed with other work.. seriously love the class Kate, but I will be cursing ENG1131 these next fews days as projects role together with deadlines approaching. I was glad we all got together to talk Wednesday morning. I think it gave our band the opportunity to discuss and fine tune critical theories Barthes envisions here such as the role of the adjective, pheno/geno song, and the "grain." Confidence in our understanding of the text will definitely help in assembly and presentation of our interpretation. I haven't focused much on the band project the past few days though.. sorry guys. I feel like every step forward I take in this film memory project I take a secret passage way 3 steps back!!(Im doing my webpage on CLUE)How many times did you all watch your movie? I probably have watched CLUE ten times now. It actually got to the point where people were banning it from playing in communal rooms. Watching it so many times really helped instill a sense of the filmic qualities in my creative consciousness though.My photoshoping and HTML skills have improved enough to provide some more ease in conveying an aesthetic to match my ideas which has been helpful. Still it seems that I am constantly having to re-save and upload pictures and the entire process is just monstrously time consuming. I hope you all are having more success and enjoyment. Does anyone have any ideas for a final project? I bet knowing so much about the grain of the voice will help us with all the theoretical radio stuff. Ryan had mentioned the possibility of playing the keyboard. Maybe at our band meeting Sunday we can start to talk about some ideas to explore. It seems like a very broad project

Roswell

Upon completion of viewing Roswell, It was easy to see why Kate had assigned this film. Like La Jetee, Nuit et Brouillard, and even the Shining the short documentary-esc film broaches ideas about memory, identity and even childhood. The cinematography of Roswell was unique in its amateur style. Simple animation and trick photography maintain a simplistic style well suited to the tone. There was a childish quality to the movie itself that centered on the life and journeys of a Starboy. Is this meant to be Bill? In Nuit et Brouillard we know that the director was himself a victim of the concentration camps. Does this closeness provide a deeper insight into the story? It seems in the case of Nuit et Brouillard the message is that we can never understand, even those who were there can not remember the real, the vividness, the horror of the Holocaust as it happened. In Roswell however, Bill invites the audience to join in his amusement and opens doorways to unconventional theories that may be some comfort in this universal condition of loneliness. These overwhelming emotions such as isolation are not only a planetary sentiment; even "aliens" experience them. I empathized with Starboy, the interstellar wanderer, searching the cosmos for his lonely letter-writing lady. Starboy is not the enemy; he is on our side against time. The difference between Starboy and us though is that he can escape it. Can you and I escape time? The film is nostalgic but is still mostly encouraging that, yes we can. Bill Brown makes us believe we can do whatever we want.. like make UFOs fly. So simple it is to see when your eyes want to. Perhaps it is through imagination and believing that we are able to escape the cruel experiments of time and hang onto our youth. 

Go Gators

This week in class we spent most of the time discussing choirs of stones, while outside of class my band has been working on our presentation. Also on Friday we discussed the movie Roswell. Roswell can be best described as interesting, due to the way that most of the film is in time laps. The film makes use of many different filming techniques, all used to convey a sense of a surreal lonely reality. I also feel that Roswell is a good example of a film with a third meaning. There is something beyond just the images on the screen. As for exactly what the third meaning is, I have a bit of an idea. I know it has something to do with the feeling that an image gives you, but you don’t exactly know where the feeling is coming from. Hopefully I will have a better idea of the third meaning after the band presentation on Monday. As for closing thoughts on Roswell, it is a film that brings a lot of different elements together, in a way that convey a meaning that is greater then the some of its individual elements.
Now I will switch topics from discussing a complex movie, to discussing a complex book, Choirs of Stones. After reading the book and discussing it for two days in class, I have these final thoughts on it. As far as I can tell, Choirs of Stones is an indictment on Masculinity. The lesson of the book is that masculinity makes men do evil things. Her criticism of masculinity though, should not be taken as an attack on men however. Choirs of Stones is essentially saying that men aren’t evil, but the ideals that society places on them are. Also no discussion of choirs of stones is complete without a discussion on childhood. The theme that childhood, trauma effects adults to a great degree runs throughout the book. In fact I would go as far as to say that, Choirs of Stones, tries to draw the conclusion, that most of the world’s problems are caused because people have really bad childhoods.
I will wrap up this week’s blog with a couple thoughts on the band presentation; we will be doing very soon. If you want a more detailed description of my thoughts please read my blog post from last week. I still don’t really get the connection between geno-song and grain, except for the fact that neither of them seems to be something that is obvious in the singing voice.
As for my picture, I chose a stone, because it reminds me of Choirs of Stones. It also reminds me of Roswell. You know the whole desert theme.
On a side note, make sure you go vote on Tuesday. Unless you know nothing of the issues, in which case don’t vote for a candidate arbitrarily.