For this assignment we had to take a photo from a series of photographs taken by Jonathan Worth of author Cory Doctorow and remix them.   The photos were found here and we were encouraged to draw ideas from the themes and topics of Cory’s books for this remix.

I found this assignment that hardest of the week.  It wasn’t the assignment itself that I had trouble doing, it was coming up with a good idea.  I literally sat in front of my computer for a good forty-five minutes before I came up with anything that I liked at all.

I ended up spending a little bit of time on his website and came across one of his books called “The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” and got my first idea that I really liked (and immediately thought of the really stinking annoying song they play over and over on the carousel of progress in Disney).  Here is a clip to a trailer for the book:

This preview talks a lot how our society is constantly changing and evolving and that is what it makes our future great.  I starting thinking about how I could show that in one of the pictures.  I decided that I wanted to take one picture and show it in different stages of evolution.  I was going to take the picture and make it look “older”.  I was then going to combine the four pictures next to one another so that the changes would appear more drastic.

To do this I uploaded the picture into gimp. I then reduced the size of the picture so that each would be about 200×200.  I then used the posterize tool to make my pictures look older.  I played around with this tool for a bit until I made the pictures look how I wanted them too.  After getting all four pictures to a setting that I was comfortable with I placed them side by side so that you could see the difference in effect.

Here is what I came up with:

*Disclaimer*: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. It is not a violation of any copyright laws because I am enabled through Creative Commons, and not infringing upon anyone as I take an image and make it my own!

Another assignment for these past two weeks has been to take the work of author, Cory Doctorow, the photos from Jonathan Worth and make something brand new from it! However, the assignment implies to go beyond that. When making the remix, create a story behind it, behind whatever ideas go through your head when you’re creating a remixed version of this assignment. So before I could dive straight into GIMP and remix it up, I had to look at Cory’s work and all that he was offering.

This assignment had a lot of pressure that came with it too because not only was it going to be graded but many others would also be looking at these as we posted them. Therefore, I really wanted grasp and understand all that Cory was proposing. It was ironic because one of these books were introduced during my senior year of high school, which was Pirate Cinema. But before I go into what the book is about, it’s important to remember that a main theme throughout Doctorow’s work is how copyright is really redundant because every piece of work has been stemmed from someone else’s idea: in 2013, there really is no such thing as being original. Since this is something Cory fights for — for the ability to use whatever you want without fear of infringement unless you’re directly copying it and profiting! So the book covers  the storyline of someone who lives in the far far future where something like copyright carries a much bigger toll than anything we could imagine. The main characters spends the novel fighting his year long ban from the internet, which is a common punishment for small offenses during this time.

With many ideas in mind, I searched through photos and photos that were provided.  Until I found the right one for what i had in mind! When thinking of Pirate Cinema, the first thing that came into to mind was, ‘Man on the run! Hide!’ and how the main character would have to be careful as he attempted to go against the ruling class in order to establish fairness. Therefore, since he was running, he would have to be inconspicuous and camouflage, right? Below is how I played around with GIMP and the different filters until I got my final product, with something i am truly content with. The way I see it is that when you remix someone else’s work, you put on camouflage; new layers, new filters, all that good stuff and while deep down, it may have started out as someone else’s, you’ve made it your own with your own different techniques! Oh, I also chopped it up to prove further that the creative commons really allows you to cut and dice whatever you want with free range.

Jonathan Worth shared a collection of portrait photos he did of Cory Doctorow that we must use to remix, regenerate, and make our own.

I chose to base my remix on one of his book’s, Pirate Cinema.  The plot is centered around a sixteen year boy who loves making movies illegally.  Based in dystopian near-future Britain, this concept is extremely illegal and receives an exaggerated punishment.

To remix a photo of Cory Doctorow, I went with the theme of old-time pirates mixed with copyright.  I wanted him to represent the main character in the book, but exaggerated and with a new twist.  I know the title of the book has no connection with old-time pirates, but that was the first thing that popped into my head!  On his wrist is the copyright symbol that’s been cut through, as well as some scars that he may have received from escaping the authorities.

Here’s the photo before remixing:

And the final product:

He seems to have a hidden glint in his eye, which says he’s up to something but we’ll never find out what it is!

While Mozilla Popcorn wins the prize for worst/hardest assignment ever in DS106 history, this project ranks pretty high on the challenging list of assignments.

We had to remix a picture (or remix someone else’s remix) of Cory Doctorow. He is a british science fiction author who works under with Creative Common License. Johnathan Worth took pictures of Mr. Doctorow and then asked DS106 students to remix them.

Honestly it took me forever to decide what to do. I looked at a lot of examples of other people’s work and was very impressed. Two of my favorites are Amber (seriously, so amazing!) and Kelsie (so creative!) remixes. Remix has honestly been one of my tougher weeks and I just mulled and mulled over  what to do for days.

Finally I just decided that I was going to be more literal in my work. I loved Kelsie’s remix so much that I decided to use her picture, after all we could remix someone else’s remix. Here is her original picture.

Here is her inspiration behind her remix:

“I looked on Cory’s website at some of his books and thought that Pirate Cinema seemed really interesting. We are running into copyright and download errors so I thought it would be interesting if I used the theme of this book in my remixed picture of Cory. In this book, the main character gets banned from the internet for a whole year! I can’t imagine not having the internet for a year. I mean not only would I not have homework {which I could get used to} but I wouldn’t be able to go on social media sites, check email, watch videos, or Netflix! Oh man…it would be like being in prison. And that’swhere my inspiration came from.”

Seriously, she made such a good connection!

Anway, for my remix of Kelsie’s remix, I decided I was just going to get a picture of a cinema frame/clip and put Kelsie’s picture into it. I decided upon this because Pirate Cinema is about downloading movies off the internet, and like Kelsie said, you are banned from the internet because it’s illegal. So I thought I’d tie in the more literal side of the book in with Kelsie’s more abstract work. You put those two things together and what do you get?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

I used GIMP to make this. I opened the picture and cinema frame as layers and then resized the picture to fix the frame. I thought the distressed cinema frame gave the picture more character.

This is my submission for the “Post-Photographic Portrait” assignment.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Doctorow’s books are a mix of science fiction, fantasy and ethical dilemmas.

Using one of the photos from the fortheremix site ,  some simple text, and a brush for Photoshop I made a clean cover for a book, or even poster.  The original is in the 14X20 600dpi range, but the copy attached here is just a smashed down 3X4in version 72dpi.

I chose to obscure the subject’s face (Doctorow) to play into the ambiguity I wanted the viewer to begin to feel even before they began the book.  A glimpse into the mind f— blow they are about to participate in by reading the story.

Here is a LINK to a DOWNLOADABLE original.

You got comments?  Questions?  Give a shout out to the Girl Living Without a Net.  Or you can hit me up on Twitter @dayeseye