Re-Write Culture
Jan 11, 2016
Re-Write Culture
Lawrence Lessig
Stanford University/Law Professor
1. photography
Daguerre1839
daguerrotype
photography=costly
William Fox Talbot: cheaper, made negatives (1870s)
QuickTime™ and a decompressor
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George Eastman, 1888, invented Kodak
• Eastman-Kodak camera: $25• Snapshot: permanent record
Lessig compares Kodak Photography to digital media tools today
• Video editing system in 1990: $75,000
• Today: $374
The real significance of Eastman’s invention… was not economic.
It was social.
Kodak taught Americans how to smile
Lessig: “Professional photography gave individuals a glimpse of places they would never otherwise see. Amateur photography gave them the ability to record their own lives in a way they had never been able to do before.”
Battle at the turn of the 20th century:
Should we require a person having their picture taken to give permission?
• On one hand: Capture images in public view: it’s a right.
• On the other hand: Take something away of value if you take a photo
The legal environment let the technology flourish.
COPYRIGHT: Photography was a new
technology 100 years ago.:It’s important that people were
free to take pictures whenever they wanted.
• Media literacy: learn to write about the media with the media
• One learns to “write” by “writing” with images
• Read only vs. write/rewrite
What does it mean to write with visuals?
• Just Think: tinkering with culture teaches as well as creates.
• We have all these wonderful new tools to tinker with...like….????
NEWTECHNOLOGY: • It’s so important in our day and age to
learn how to write with visuals
NEWTECHNOLOGY: • It’s so important in our day and age to
learn how to write with visuals
3 . 9/11, Blogs
Blogs kept giving us personals stories after the networks and cable outlets turned to the “experts”
blogosphere vs. the packaging of TV news
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Lessig: • The Internet enables people to capture
images• Spread messages instantaneously• Unlike Kodak, the Internet allows creations
to be shared with a HUGE amt. of people, practically instantaneously.
• Blogs emerged as a new way to engage in public discourse “the most important form of unchoreographed public discourse that we have”
• Democracy: never about just elections• It means: control through reasoned
discourse: The public sphere.• De Toqueville: was most impressed by
the Jury and the process of deliberation• Not a lot of room for political discourse.
Lessig:• Blogs gave news stories a different life
cycle: blogs keep stories ALIVE• A concentrated media hides things from
the public• Bloggers are amateur in the sense of an
Olympic athlete: not paid.• Blogs=a way to triangulate the truth.• Blogs: the 5th estate (whereas
newspapers are the 4th estate)
NEWTECHNOLOGY: • The internet provides a means
for sharing information that enhances public discourse. (Think Benkler here and the “networked public sphere”)
4. Open Source• We learn through
tinkering.• Open source software:
collective knowledge-building (Benkler)
• Tinkering is no longer an isolated activity.
4. Open Source• Sourceforge• Linux• Open Source Lab
NEWTECHNOLOGY• The internet provides a means
for tinkering collectively
5. CONCLUSION
• Big debate:• Dad dad can tinker with the car engine
and yet today, a girl CAN’T tinker with the images she’s found b/c of copyright issues.
“We are building a legal system that completely suppresses the natural tendencies of today’s digital kids. We’re building an architecture that unleashes 60 percent of the brain and a legal system that closes down that part of the brain.”
• Were building a legal system that completely suppresses the natural tendencies of today’s digital kids.
• “We’re building a technology that takes the magic of Kodak, mixes moving images and sound, and adds a space for commentary and an opportunity to spread that creativity everywhere.
(This is good for public discourse.)
• But we’re building the law to close down that technology.”
COPYRIGHT: • We need to preserve our right
to tinker with images, b/c this ultimately enhances public discourse.
Lessig on Colbert
MIX 1
MIX 2
Music
Stroke of Genius• In October of 2001, a d.j. named Roy Kerr, calling himself the
Freelance Hellraiser, sent Temple-Morris a mashup called “A Stroke of Genius,” laying Christina Aguilera’s vocal from “Genie in a Bottle,” a lubricious pop song, over the music from the Strokes’ “Hard to Explain,” a brittle, honking guitar song. “Stroke” is a perfect pop song, better than either of its sources. What was harmonically sweet in the original songs becomes huge and complex in the combination. Aguilera’s vocal is an unabashedly expressive ode to her sexuality, and her control over it.
• Some a-cappellas are on commercially released singles, specifically intended for d.j. use, while others appear on the Internet, having been leaked by people working in the studio where the song was recorded
• The Trailermash.com• MAshuptown
• Endless Love• Ten things I hate about the Ten commandments• The weakest link• Hillary Clinton Vs. Barack Obama• Willy Wonka and the Blow Factory• Must Love Jaws• Mary Poppins
• Dick Cheney vs. Bush
Team Project
Student ProjectsBoxing match
Not so good:Evolution of the MediaA little mean