Parting words and resolutions

My semester in Interpersonal Media has taught me a whole bunch about how I interact with the people in my life. I notice myself keeping track of how much I talk to my housemates face-to-face in relation to how much I communicate with them over EMC. Same with my parents, my boyfriend, even my professors. The class has provided me with some valuable skills related to managing groups of people, especially over the Internet. As someone who uses the Internet and google docs to communicate with people extensively (thank you, Pioneer Log...), it has been helpful to learn ways to get online communication to be more productive.

And so this is the last entry in my blog. I'll miss Blogger, I have to say! I've been pleasantly surprised by how much the interface has changed in the past decade. I plan on writing about this more in my portfolio, but the blog is one of the most valuable things I will take away from this class! On that note, I've come up with a few resolutions that I want to keep based on my experience in Interpersonal Media this semester.

1. Set up and adhere to a schedule for my music blog : Last summer, I created Whiskey Kiss: A Music Blog in the hopes of building up my clips and gaining a following in the Portland music scene. It went pretty well! I gained a ton of followers on Twitter and even heard feedback from bands and others who appreciated my posts. I resolve to apply what I've learned about blogging to my little music blog. I plan on creating a schedule (like, if I want to have two posts a week, I'll make sure I have a post every Wednesday and Saturday by 7am or something like that). I also plan on utilizing more links and connection my blog to other blogs and band websites and things like that.
2. Do a better job of branding myself : I feel that I already use Twitter at a high functioning level, but I'd love to see myself becoming more professional and marketable. I want to use my Twitter to attract people to my projects (my blog, the newspaper, etc), and connect with people in the fields that interest me.
3. Pay more attention to the way that I interact online : Specifically, through email and Facebook. My Facebook use has gotten pretty casual, and it is easy for me to forget that the things I say on there can have real-world repercussions. For example, I'm not just "Zibby Pillote" on Facebook, I'm "Zibby Pillote: Editor, daughter, employee, friend, student." I need to be more aware of the way I talk to people.

And with that, I'm off to start my life as a more informed internet user and overall communicator. Thank you for reading my blog all semester long! Cheers!

Just be yourself!

"No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."-Nathaniel Hawthorne

Our discussions in class last week  had me thinking about one of my favorite quotes (stated above). Hawthorne may be an old guy who never could have possibly foreseen the depths of the Internet, but I think his quote about identity rings true about the way we split our lives between online and real life. The "multitude" in this situation would be the Internet--and the "self" would be our everyday life.

After playing Second Life in class the other day, I caught myself thinking about the game quite a bit afterward. It isn't something that I would want to include in my everyday life (just because I don't have the time) but it interested me that some people do just that. For the people that play Second Life often, wrapped up in an identity that is not their own, I wonder what it is like to re-enter the real world to participate in something like school or a job.

Though I've engaged in some online gaming platforms and have certainly maintained Internet personalities that not everyone in my real world life is aware of, I've never pretended to be someone I'm not or become so embroiled in an online identity that I had to switch back and forth with effort.

Yesterday I was scrolling through my tumblr dashboard and came across the following artwork by Johan Rosenmunthe. The works are part of a series called, "Off II," made in 2010, and I feel they relate very well to the concepts of identity that we've been talking about in class.

Rosenmunthe's artist statement reads: "Through digital communication like Facebook, Twitter, online dating and personal websites, the representation of our personality becomes more and more streamlined. We have the possibility to project an idea of how we are as a person into the world around us, but with the constant option of censoring information and invent fictional characteristics. Never have we had access to so much information about each other, and never has the information been so unreliable."

These are the concepts I feel our class finds a base.

He goes on to say the following (I have bolded parts I found interesting):

"In this project I have downloaded pictures of ‘friends’ that I only know through the Internet, and given them a new context. The persons are only visible through a digital representation, while the surroundings are as analog as possible. The sceneries are photographed places that invited to interaction – places that missed the company of human beings. The milieu adds a new meaning to the way the digital personas act, and gives their simplified characteristics meaning and personality again, by adding a setting to their digital components.

The project looks directly at the dichotomy of digital and analog processes, juxtaposing one against the other, and challenges viewers to make sense of what seems like a fractured image. The images themselves provide scenes of isolation and loneliness, as the characters within are so seemingly detached from their environment.

These images come to life when the viewer move in relation to them – seen up close, the people are blurred and the viewer has to step back to bring the motive into focus. At the same time, the scene in which the person is placed is blurred when viewed from a distance. So you have to move back and forth – between non-figurative colored squares and figurative representations of personality."

Rosenmunthe's art is trying to answer the question that I've been pondering--how do we move between two identities? It seems that he might say you can't. No matter what, one of the aspects of your self will be blurred, whether it is your online self (the image of the self) or the real world self (the image of the environment). 

Johan Rosenmunthe makes mixed media art. Check out his website for more, though this is his only project explicitly related to RHMS 270!

Connecting with comics

My boyfriend Christian has taught me a lot about comics in the past year. For instance, I now know what "microcomics" are and can almost maybe name a few comic book writers and what publishers they work for. In the past year I have been ushered in to a world of conventions, panels, and inking. And I'm really proud of Christian for all the work he does. Right now he's doing everything he can to get an internship related to comics, and he is always working on something in his sketch book.

For aspiring artist/writer types like Christian, I think the internet plays a huge role in getting your name out there. Many of the artists who submitted to Synergia just referred us to their websites and asked us to pick what we thought was best fit for our publication. By using his tumblr to showcase his art and writing, Christian is able to reach a wide audience, and can exhibit different media easily.

An example of Christian's work

Christian also uses Twitter to reach an audience. Though his Twitter is not completely devoted to his efforts with comic production, he uses it to promote himself. After going to Emerald City Comic Con in early March, Christian gained maybe 20 followers from Tweeting about the convention--all people who, theoretically, are important in his comic network. Twitter also allows him to access information about events like Portland's monthly Comics Underground, and connect with local artists and form bonds with them.

Christian inspires me to put my work out there more. For creative people, the internet is a really important tool in putting yourself out there, compiling your portfolio, and articulating your self image.

What do you do to "brand" yourself on the internet?