Linking Creatives with Content & Distribution
Exploring the intersection of the arts and technology

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 "A stream-of-conscious raving about the intersection of arts, technology, and media distribution"

Just smile and take it . . .

 Every year I hope that the New Year will bring a bountiful joyous and depression-free three hundred and sixty-five days (not counting Leap Year since nobody, with the exception of a few calendar geeks, really knows or understands why and when it shows up anyway). If I am to be totally honest (if only just this once), I am not the most optimistic person. This revelation generally takes most who meet me by surprise because I smile a lot and love to laugh and give off an overwhelmingly happy go lucky impression (one I cannot afford let me tell you). I’ve come to rationalize that it's okay for me to embody both pro and con emotions and that the only way I can see the brightness for the future is in exploring some of the bleakness that has come before.

I shall begin. I am a creative artist, at least that’s what I call myself. I’ve written a couple of successful grants and generated funds that mostly went towards independent projects. I’ve had a stage play produced,  received a couple of writer’s certificates of honor, completed my first independent short film, have a   webseries in development and am in possession of a plethora of screenplays and two original TV pilots on the market that I've been trying to sell since, forever . And while that BIG break still proves elusive and there are times when I resent all the people that are more successful (this occurs usually on bill days), I nevertheless, continue to write and create in belief that creativity generates its own rewards and that the job of the creative artist is to continue to produce regardless of status. And it is at this point that I transition over to the role of the creative artist in relation to technology. Some would have you believe that art and technology are mutually exclusive and that any attempt to merge the two fields is naive at best, but I beg to differ. No longer can the creative artist go idly by pretending that their “artistic preeminence”precludes any necessity to understand the growing technological advancements around them. That's like saying, "I don't understand science or math, I'm an artist." It was fine when we said it in high school but doesn't hold the same weight it once did.

It is high time that "the creative artist" or that which represents the artistic or literary body remove its head from the sand and come to realize that technology is indeed our friend and that there are many complementary ways in which it can be used to compliment us in our disciplines. Now let's talk randomly about some of the strange advancements in technology that have evolved on the scene today. Where do I start? Wi-fi. Bluetooth. Firewire. Web 2.0. ( I can't even get my head around Web 3.0 yet) Blogging. Podcasting. Interactive. Websites/Blogsites, Vlogsites, Fancast video sites, everywhere a site, site . . . Social and Business Bookmarking(Digg, Reddit,Newsvine, d.e.l.i.c.i.o.u.s, etc) & Networking (Myspace, Facebook, Friendfeed, Linked-in etc) Interactive Web Production. Convergence. Print-on-Demand(POD). VOIP. RSS. RFID. Open ID. Electronic Document Management Systems(EDMS) and Content Management System (CMS). Wait, let me catch my breath.

Clearly there must be an entire sub-department within research and development at huge tech firms solely devoted to coming up with crafty titles, acronyms and bombastic “showboaty” words for the newest obscurity in protocols and processes. Let’s take a time trip -- it is the expansion of the almighty Internet that rose from the early days of the government’s ARPANET pilot project as a way of networking telecommunications with computing in the late 1960’s, that has provided the world with entire new ways of sharing what’s called a “critical mass” of intellectual information. Militarists and scientists working together to create something for the benevolence of society? Wow, what a novel idea! I like it. I firmly believe we have not even come close to the full extent of capabilities that this technology has to provide. Transitioning from text based to heavily graphic enhanced data and the linking of hypertext multimedia documents gave us the explosion of the World Wide Web, courtesy of Mr. Tim Berners-Lee and with it new ways to create and access, er, just about anything. If a creative artist is serious about their respective medium today it must be evident with a verifiable presence in cyberspace. I mean, really now, how do you expect anyone to know who you are? More importantly, how can you take yourself seriously as a creative individual, if you're not representing on the Net? Please, modern day Luddites (euphemistically speaking), direct all of your hate mail to my file 13.

New media and the dawn of the digital age. The medium of digital arts (is it a medium or the “art” itself?) and interactive media and web productions have not only gained proper respect even among some of the purists but have succeeded in revolutionizing other industries like motion pictures, animation, and even the recording and distribution of music. Even if web productions are still in the infant stage, there are some notable creative artists like the brilliant Felicia Day who are spearheading the charge and changing the way content is created and distributed over the web. This phenomenal woman writes, co-produces, and stars in the spectacularly famous web series about online gamers,The Guild. Even a non-gamer such as moi can appreciate this witty and eccentric online SITCOM! Ms. Day is a Geek of the highest order! Just google her name and a plethora of hits come up that go on for pages ad infinitum. Yes, Ms. Day of Buffy the Vampire fame didn't just sit around and wait for the studio gods to throw money at her. In fact, it was the opposite. She was proactive and eventually acquired the audience to push the web series to greater heights. Of course, this is the Cliff Notes version of her indie web fame but the moral of the story concerns the pervasiveness of talent and craft.

Please, repeat after me, "We must not shun new media because of fears of copyright infringement!" I promote a lot of my work on sites under a Creative Commons License in which I retain certain rights. I am able to help garner a readership while simultaneously marketing material like screenplays and stage plays to prospective buyers/producers. I remember attending a Screenwriting expo seminar in which then President of the  Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti scared the be-Jeezus out of me with his hellfire sermon on the dangerous of copyright infringement in the new digital age. As a screeenwriter I thought, well, okay, should I live in fear that someone or better yet,  an unknown entity is going to swoop down and steal my words right off the page and never give me credit? On one hand I was glad that the importance of attribution and copyright was a topic worth discussing. On the other, I nevertheless, had reservations about some of what Mr. Valenti was saying . Yet, I was afraid to dissent. I sat there quietly with a lump in my throat and didn't say a word while the head of the MPAA and prominent lobbyist for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act raved on about the dubiousness of the Internet when it comes to copyright infringement, music downloads, etc. He also discussed runaway film production and I found myself not agreeing wholly with his position on that matter either. Still, I sat there quiet as a church mouse, not wanting to raise my hand and be considered the lone rogue conspirator amongst otherwise like minded Hollywood types.  Hey now, silent no more! (See, case in point. The "Hey now" reference can be attributed to a character from the now defunct Larry Sanders Show.) We're all just doing someone else material anyway. Every story ever conceived can be attributed back to either the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Native Americans - not necessarily in that order.

To speak to some of your concerns, this doesn't mean that the  idea of intellectual property is moot in this new digital age but it does mean use common sense when picking your battles. Moreover, it really translates to this mantra: As creative artists we should be looking to alternative ways of programming and promoting ourselves. 

I mean, really, do you want to end up like the seemingly schizophrenic company Monster Cable, attempting to sue everyone and their mother for utilizing the term "Monster" for other business purposes that are blatantly unrelated to any facet of Monster Cable's own proprietary interests? Just like screenplay titles cannot be copyrighted, neither can common generic terms be attributed to one single trademark in the world. Besides, as it has been pointed out on the web in various blogs and forums, no one is going to confuse the business of Monster Cable and its products  with that of Monster Mini Golf.  To use a phrase that was lovingly coined on an episode of This Week in Tech with Leo Laporte, (I'm sure it's been said before . . .) -- "Have they met the Internet?"    

One word – (not plastics for all you The Graduate fans) mobility. I heard it from an unnamed source (I swear!) at the phone company (TPC - for those of you who watched The President's Analyst) that the home phone or commonly used land line will become obsolete, replaced by the wireless, and sometimes dreaded, cell phone once and for all here in the states. I think there are some Asian and European countries where this has already become significant. What this means is all the crap about “air time rates” is just that crap, proprietary crap that multinational corporations use as a way of billing the consumer for services, so that once wireless phones universally replace actual land lines,  the entire fixed model of paying for air time will suddenly be reconfigured in a more practical sense for home users.  I always knew air time was phony.

Speaking of which, “They can send a man to the Moon but I can’t sell a lousy grilled cheese sandwich with a facial imprint of the Virgin Mary on eBay for $28,000.” Actually, someone beat me to it. Darn! Online auctions and the people who can’t live without them – a brilliant way of uniting the buyers and the sellers of the world in perfect (er, blind ignorance) harmony. Gotta love it! And I'm talking to all of you artists out there who are in the process of excavating your basements, going through your closets, digging out and putting a price tag on anything you think some other poor schmuck might consider valuable on an online auction. I have an entire photography portfolio based on water themes that I'm trying to turn a penny on. Hey, it's a viable way to supplement income. Plus, who am I to judge if some sci-fi geek in Peoria wants to pay five thousand dollars for that ten dollar Watchmen poster you bought at Comic-con?

Okay, what else is there to be happy about? Think happy thoughts . . . If only I could put the image of Ferdinand Celine’s Death on the Installment Plan chronicling his miserable life growing up in the Parisian slums out of my mind. I’d be really happy if there was some kind of national health care coverage but I digress, and that is what writers do. Oh I know, we can now look to the clouds for computing and Software as a Service (SaaS), relying more on hosting services and less on a physical server based infrastructure. As an independent artist this brings a smile to my face to know I no longer have to shell out ridiculous sums of money for software to keep a multitude of services running.  Although all the Microsoft partner meetings I attend keep telling me the model should be Software plus Service, and that relying solely on the cloud for business is a fool's folly. But then again, they would say that wouldn't they? Especially since the very nature of the Cloud deconstructs their entire proprietary software driven business model. I do understand that the Cloud has to contend with other issues; bandwidth is certainly chief among them.

 Let’s move on to the fourth estate. The press. (There was this guy once who confused the fourth estate with the Fifth Column but remember, the Fifth Column was a Nazi spy ring!) It is a good thing to see the tremendous strides public journalism and citizen presses have made in the last decade. From homegrown news reporting and citizen action boards to the wonderful conflicted world of blogging and ezines, to new print-on-demand digital mastering services, the traditional modes and mainstream entities responsible for reporting the news or creating literary material have had to embrace innovative mechanisms that give the individual more control over the finished product. It is a beautiful thing to witness ordinary people taking an active voice in the journalism and literary process who aren’t beholden to large media conglomerates. And yes, I know bloggers don't always get it right but the truth is out there somewhere in the blogosphere, it just takes a little research and less sleep. I am of the opinion that it was out of the necessity to make a difference, to go beyond the surface, that the new wave of public journalism has taken on such a huge significance in the twenty-first century and will so well beyond. I applaud the intelligent and resourceful men and women who venture into those untold waters and look forward to their tremendous efforts in actually seeking all the news that’s fit to print . . . and some that probably isn't . . . in the future.  I may not give a damn about some college student in the Midwest  blogging about how many times he's gotten laid in the past month but I damn sure will defend his right to keep the blogosphere posted about said exploits. I'm sure he has an audience somewhere. By the way, if you really want an informative AND erotic conversation about the carnal get it from a professional and mosey on over to sex columnist/educator Violet Blue's website and podcast forum at Open Source Sex.   I guarantee you'll be educated, entertained, and turned on.

Another thing I don't get is people who say they don't use the Internet because they may see porn and/or a naked photo when they turn on their computer. I even read a comment in response to a tech article in which the respondent indicated she didn't visit any social media networking sites because someone might show a naked picture or a sex act. My goodness, talk about putting the blame on technology, rather than dealing with one's own sexual frustrations and hangups. Hello, out there! Sex pre-dates the Internet and the World Wide Web by like, a gazillion years! Sure, I have to erase all of the sexspam that clutters my email junk folder like the next person but it doesn't ruin my day or make me reconsider the benefits of being online. 

Jumping back to print media for a moment. Of late many print magazines and newspapers have found themselves in a quandary over staying afloat in the new digital age. And while I do not wish to get caught in a debate about whether or not print media is dead or dying, I do believe that the very fact that question is being asked, indicates the importance of emergent modes of media distribution.

And then there's Twitter . . . No actual recognizable business model but venture capitalists keep pouring in the bucks. . . A world of silly abandon with tweets like"I'm eating lunch now." or "I'd like to give a shout out to [fill in the blank]" . . . To some, no measurable value other than psychological but the whole world's doing it! . . . Um, you can reach me on Twitter @multimediaarts.   And don't get me wrong, there are some interesting ongoing tweeted media discussions.

On the rise are Entire Mobile Media labs complete with computer terminals, high speed Internet connections, microphones, webcams and digital cameras, and non-linear editing stations for the creative artist on the go. You'll find a proficient amount of these labs in classrooms as teachers seek to engage students minds and broaden their horizons by providing tools that help them to analyze information for better informed decisions. Indeed we have all become reluctant scholars as we search for the next innovation to market our wares and ideas. Some folks, however, believe technology has corrupted the arts more than it has helped. Yes, I remember way back in the old days – the early 1980’s!—when I use to write all the articles in long hand while editor at my high school social science & arts and feminist newspaper and then painstakingly enter it into the massive blue type setting machine. This behemoth took up nearly all the space in the student’s press office and all the writers had to sign up to take their turn at entering copy. And while there may have existed a real camaraderie between students working together to finish the school paper, there were a lot of arguments too over confirming schedules between classes to get all the copy set before rushing off to the print shop. Well, due to advancements in personal computing we have more options and flexibility.

Now I can be as much of a conspiracy theorist as the next angry artist and talk about all the downfalls of technology: the government spying, the Big Brother paradigm, the VCR continually blinking 12:00, the Radio Frequency Identification transponder tags (RFID) that help business productivity but are designed to track a customer’s every move, the demographic grocery store cards that offer you discounts on meat and cheese as a contingent of getting all your personal information and I’m sure the list could go on. But hey, no matter how you look at it, it still takes 100 pennies to equal a dollar! Whatever that means . . .

I've saved the best for last. PODCASTING HAS UNITED THE WORLD! Sorry, I'll put away my hyperbole and start again. Podcasting is dynamite! Oh well, I tried. Thanks to the evolution of the audio blog and the geeks who pioneered RSS feeds as a method of delivering content, radio is no longer only in the hands of the MAN. Seriously though, writers like Scott Sigler, Tee Morris, and P.G. Holyfield to name a few have found this new technology indispensable as they along with others are using it as a tool to launch serialized fiction. I am guilty as charged. Sure there is a lot of crap out there but remember, one person's crap is another person's delight. And whether you refer to it as podcasts or netcasts or mediacasts, the point is the creative individual has the ability to speak in his/her own forum and generate buzz. No longer must we sit around on our hands and wait for the big publishing firms or broadcast sponsors to call. Produce your own show, develop an audience and promote the heck out of your broadcast using any means necessary to get the word out about your art. Of course, not every writer or creative artist will land that big deal coming off of a successful podcast of their work but that hasn't deterred any of us from entering the marathon and learning ways to eventually monetize.

So there you have it. Even a working-class creative artist such as myself sees much promise in the impending years to come as new discoveries are made, and emergent distribution platforms developed, that push the humanities and technology to greater incestuous heights. If  only somewhere along the lines the revenues would exceed the expenses. One can only dream . . .

 --- See you in the ether!

La-Tonia Denise Willis, creative-artist-of-the-future

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