Breathing Spaces

The article which I chose is "Walking as a Do-It-Yourself Urbanism" by Kenny Cupers.  I chose this article because I found the idea of "breathing in spaces" of the city interesting.  Postcards in London are distributed throughout the city and on these postcards are different "spaces" such as buses, the subway, phone booths, coffee shops and internet cafes.  The finder of the postcard is invited to explore these different places.  I think the city is an interesting place to explore in general.  There is much one can learn by walking through it.  I accomplished my Drift 2 sound walk in the city and felt that these ideas applied to me.  

One of the main points of this article is seeing how walking can transform urban space.  The presence of moving bodies can transform the urban environment for the walkers themselves.  Cupers touches upon the idea that the city is a place of a "fluid space of change and creation".  There has been a dichotomy of "the planners" as creators of the city and "the people" as the users.   The city can be seen as a place that is governed by rational urban planning or a place of alienation and darkness.  It can be seen as a space which is out of control.  

The ideas are relevant to me as a media artist because they show me that I should take advantage of my surroundings and explore them.  I should find ways to be creative with the environment and find these breathing spaces in the city.  There is a lot I can learn from this experience.  

Video Hardware/Software Response

I really liked using the Olympus camera.  I thought the image quality was really good.  It did everything I wanted it to.  I like the fact that it is simple to use and not a complicated piece of equipment.  Also, I like the fact that it is a simple electronic yet one can still make art with it.  

The Olympus digital camera was definitely easier to use than other digital cameras I have used.  It is very basic.  It does just what you need it to.  Other cameras I have used have been more complicated. 

I was able to successfully implement my capturing strategies of extreme close-ups and blurry images by any means possible.  The images came out even better than I thought they would.  The close-ups look very good and the blurry images are definitely as blurry as I needed them to be.  

In an ideal world, my camera of choice would have really good image resolution.  It would be able to capture things at night.  My camera would also have really good sound quality.  The camera would have editing functions so that one could make an image in sepia tone, for example.  My camera would also be water-proof.  

The editing software which I used for Drift 2 was Final Cut Express.  I have quite a bit of experience with this software.  I know it better than any other editing software.  I did projects on it at my last college.  I am absolutely in love with this software.  I think it's perfect.  It has everything a film artist could want.  Final Cut Express has a timeline and one can make the timeline as small or as big as they want.  It's really precise.  For example, if one wanted to put a certain clip 30 seconds into the movie, they could do that with Final Cut Express.  I will definitely use this software again for future projects.