Blinky Bug Workshop

On Saturday 06/28/08, we had a guy come in at 9:30 to do a special workshop with the ZeumMasters. The workshop was about making Blinky Bugs. "What is a Blink Bug?" you may ask. A Blinky Bug is a bug you make from using electronic parts like: LCD Lights, copper wire, guitar strings, conductive tape, pipe cleaner and 3volt button battery.

He told us how one day he was bored and he had a bunch of old electronic parts lying around so he decided to experiment by putting the parts together. He also told us that before he discovered the conductive tape or glue dot he had to saughter the parts together(hot glue gun the parts together). He said it is cheaper to buy the materials online instead of an arts and craft store, walgreens or electronic store.

For me, when Ari told us about the blinky bug workshop i thought "This is going to be boring or dumb" but once we actually got to making it, my attitudes changed. I actually liked it, i wanted to keep making more but time ran out. My blinky bug didn't work and was all messed up. One reason mines didn't work is because i chose red and blue eyes and those two colors don't work together. This has to do with how l.e.d.s work. But look above. Two blue eyes and it works!

Talking about Hip Hop

This morning we had an amazing workshop about gender and power in hip hop.

Hip hop is something I always loved to listen to because not only did I grow up on hip hop, it's a part of my culture. However, what I learned during this workshop was that a lot of mainstream hip hop is controlled by these rich white, old men that have the choice and power on whether to put certain hip hop in the media or not. Also, the media has a way of only showing the public, hip hop that they think should be what the public needs to here. And that the public they are thinking about making money off of is the youth.

There was some great discussion that went throughout the workshop and I was able to give a lot of input on what I thought about hip hop.

I noticed that because a lot of things I see and hear on the internet, such as on youtube and on other cool websites, I think are being held back and sometimes interesting for the public to hear on the radio but are not given that opportunity. To be specific, a lot of music that is always on the radio mostly has the same message...such as talking about the sexuality of both male and female, turf issues, violence, weapons, politics, drugs, and sometimes about where their from and how things set off in their hood/neighborhood.

During this workshop, the group and I were asked an agree or disagree question on whether it matters if you personally care more about listening to the beat rather than the lyrics or vice versa. I told everyone that the beat of the music determines whether or not I want to listen to the rap/song or not. This is because the tone and base of the beat gives me the opportunity "to lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the lyrics.

Sorry to say, but if I, JJ, don't have the opportunity "to lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the beat then, something is really wrong with this song because leaning and rocking to the beat gives me a feel to the lyrics and make me want to say, "This song GO"! When I say that, it means that I really like this rap/song/music and when a person such as I, don't know the lyrics to a rap/song, it only frustrates me when I cannot "lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the beat.

In others people's opinions, they said that the lyrics attract them more rather than the beat because they would like to actually get a message out of the rap/song/music instead of just leaning with it and rocking with and to the beat.

The workshop made me feel open to saying everything that was on my mind about hip hop. It felt like there was no right or wrong answer and that anything I said, other people in the workshop could relate to and speak on more about what I had to say. -JJ

Censorship In Our Media

Long time no blog. This morning at Zeum we had a World Savvy workshop about photography, censorship & the media. When I first heard the words: censorship and the media, I immediately thought of human rights, the Iraq war, and Google. The news informed us of China trying to limit search results on Google, and the US government trying to cover up the current situation in Iraq. But today we focused on things a little closer to us, like censorship of our school newspaper or artists we listen to. By seeing censorship in a new light, I got to learn more about how it affects me everyday.

When I got to the workshop, we started doing the agree/disagree activity. A situation was presented to us and we chose whether to agree or disagree. After all the situations were presented, we would discuss each one and why we made the decisions we made. At first, everyone stood firm on their side, but once we discussed each one, "what-if situations" were thrown at us, making us question our choice. In the end, it was clear that it was hard to draw a line between censoring to prevent offensiveness and profanity, and exploiting censorship as a way to manipulate the public. Our next activity was an experiment to see how much of what we see in the media is controlled by one big corporation. The results were mind shocking, showing us that though we may get our sources from a couple different places, most of them are owned by one big corporation that could possibly be just showing us a side of the story that they favor.

Through these activities, I got to see how censorship is closer to me than I once thought it was. Censorship, like most things, has a good and a bad side. It all depends on what you limit and where you draw the line. But once you allow one thing to be uncensored, it opens many other doors and controversies over what else should be uncensored. Often, different people will view one thing differently. Some people may be offended but some may see it as perfectly fine, and wrong to censor. Even at school, you may think it's right to have the school censor things like profanity on the school newspaper, but what if one teacher thought that a certain article was inappropriate and the writer didn't? The battle of censorship rages on, and the decisions towards what should be censored is affecting our view of the world everyday. Sometimes what we think is the truth, could be just one big corporation showing you their favorite side of the story to try to get you to think a certain way. In a world where everything is controversial and the truth is debatable, where should censorship in the media stand?

We are Noise MACHINES.

Pam here. I just took part in a fantastic workshop in Studio Z. The leader of the workshop was our very own Zeum educator, Matthew. He led this sound effects workshop from 2-4 called "Fun with Foley: Sound Effects Extravaganza". I was in charge of recording the sounds.

Jack Foley was one of the best sound effect technicians of all time.

"Basically, get anything that makes noise" is what Matthew told me when we were setting up. After scrambling around all over Zeum to get various sound effect instruments...a cowbell, a miniature door, a glass jar filled with beads, frisbees, bells, other things I don't know what to call... we were set to create our very own Foley sound effects.

Our movie clip was a short film about Felix the Cat, and the kids and even a few adults in the room were definitely in their element, making noises to go with the cartoon. We got a few volunteers to do voice overs for characters like the pirate and the old man.

Here's what we made. Enjoy! (and click HERE after to watch the original. A lot of people said they liked our sounds better. You be the judge. )


-PAM-