Jon Burge Found Guilty on All Counts - June 28, 2010 from Chicago News Cooperative on Vimeo.
Showing posts with label new media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new media. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Representing Chicago: Media Burn Archive
New Chicago Studies article!
Media burn represents Chicago with innovative online archive on Thursday, May 6 at Film Studies Center
It was 1970, and Sony’s Portopak had just become the video camera of choice for a growing number of Chicago’s underground filmmakers. When Judy Hoffman wanted to interview garbage collectors, waitresses and aldermen to capture the images and sounds of a “different city” than what was shown on television, that camera made it possible.
“It was called Guerilla Television,” Hoffman, now a professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Chicago, explained. “You couldn’t get anything seen on TV that wasn’t produced in a studio, but we started playing around with this new technology … to change how film was produced and received.”
Much of this independent work would be in danger of vanishing, Hoffman says, if not for Media Burn - a project to share the city’s most valuable independent films for free online. Hoffman sees Media Burn’s archive, which boasts hours of footage with city luminaries and everyday citizens - among them the legendary author and radio broadcaster Studs Terkel - to be a resource to students and researchers studying Chicago’s intricate cultural and political history.
Results of Media Burn’s six-year online archiving project will be shared with the University on May 6 at 7:00 p.m. in the Film Studies Center in a presentation called Representing Chicago: Experimental Video and Television at the Media Burn Archive. In addition to screening videos from the collection, the presentation will walk viewers through the Media Burn digital archive and discuss the particular role media plays in making Chicago’s people, politics, and culture accessible.
“The type of work you find in this archive doesn’t exist anywhere else—it’s totally unique. This is because it was done on a medium that was very looked down upon,” says Hoffman, who is using the archive to teach a spring course on Chicago’s film history.
Sara Chapman (AB 04), Executive Director of Media Burn Digital Archive, echoes this sentiment: “The type of work that came out of this movement is not easy to categorize. It does not at all resemble the feature-length documentary movies that are distributed in movie theaters, featuring voiceovers and archival photos or anything like that. The work is often very personal, and it is usually made by a small group of people, maybe a single individual or maybe a handful of people.”
But the material is extensive: Famed Alderman Vito Marzullo; former owner of the White Sox Bill Veeck; eight of the working-class men and women interviewed for Studs Terkel’s book Working.
And then there is Studs Terkel himself, who donated his own collection to Media Burn. Hoffman and her collaborator Tom Weinberg, Media Burn’s president and founder, shot him after their final Working portrait was finished. Hoffman describes the experience of working with Terkel as “tremendous,” as he flowed easily between the roles of mentor and subject.
“He respected people, and was thoroughly passionate about social justice.” Pair that independent spirit with a revolutionary new form of videography, she says, and: “There were no rules. We were about making [our own] rules, and making change.”
That particular film made it onto PBS. But Hoffman insists that what remains of the footage she and other independent filmmakers shot throughout the 1970s would not be available without Media Burn’s extensive efforts to digitize and share the work.
According to Chapman, the archive houses over 6,000 videotapes in total, and spans 40 years of video work from all over the world, including footage of the U.S. invasion of Panama and illegal art collectives in Moscow, Russia.
“Over one-third of the collection has a direct connection to Chicago, whether documenting the early video movement here, the arts, politics, or daily life,” she adds. “Nowhere else can students find these kinds of portraits of our city and its people, politics, and neighborhoods.”
Representing Chicago: Experimental Video and Television at the Media Burn Archive will be at the Film Studies Center (Cobb 307) on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at 7 pm. For reservations, call (773) 702-8596.
Media burn represents Chicago with innovative online archive on Thursday, May 6 at Film Studies Center
It was 1970, and Sony’s Portopak had just become the video camera of choice for a growing number of Chicago’s underground filmmakers. When Judy Hoffman wanted to interview garbage collectors, waitresses and aldermen to capture the images and sounds of a “different city” than what was shown on television, that camera made it possible.
“It was called Guerilla Television,” Hoffman, now a professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Chicago, explained. “You couldn’t get anything seen on TV that wasn’t produced in a studio, but we started playing around with this new technology … to change how film was produced and received.”
Much of this independent work would be in danger of vanishing, Hoffman says, if not for Media Burn - a project to share the city’s most valuable independent films for free online. Hoffman sees Media Burn’s archive, which boasts hours of footage with city luminaries and everyday citizens - among them the legendary author and radio broadcaster Studs Terkel - to be a resource to students and researchers studying Chicago’s intricate cultural and political history.
Results of Media Burn’s six-year online archiving project will be shared with the University on May 6 at 7:00 p.m. in the Film Studies Center in a presentation called Representing Chicago: Experimental Video and Television at the Media Burn Archive. In addition to screening videos from the collection, the presentation will walk viewers through the Media Burn digital archive and discuss the particular role media plays in making Chicago’s people, politics, and culture accessible.
“The type of work you find in this archive doesn’t exist anywhere else—it’s totally unique. This is because it was done on a medium that was very looked down upon,” says Hoffman, who is using the archive to teach a spring course on Chicago’s film history.
Sara Chapman (AB 04), Executive Director of Media Burn Digital Archive, echoes this sentiment: “The type of work that came out of this movement is not easy to categorize. It does not at all resemble the feature-length documentary movies that are distributed in movie theaters, featuring voiceovers and archival photos or anything like that. The work is often very personal, and it is usually made by a small group of people, maybe a single individual or maybe a handful of people.”
But the material is extensive: Famed Alderman Vito Marzullo; former owner of the White Sox Bill Veeck; eight of the working-class men and women interviewed for Studs Terkel’s book Working.
And then there is Studs Terkel himself, who donated his own collection to Media Burn. Hoffman and her collaborator Tom Weinberg, Media Burn’s president and founder, shot him after their final Working portrait was finished. Hoffman describes the experience of working with Terkel as “tremendous,” as he flowed easily between the roles of mentor and subject.
“He respected people, and was thoroughly passionate about social justice.” Pair that independent spirit with a revolutionary new form of videography, she says, and: “There were no rules. We were about making [our own] rules, and making change.”
That particular film made it onto PBS. But Hoffman insists that what remains of the footage she and other independent filmmakers shot throughout the 1970s would not be available without Media Burn’s extensive efforts to digitize and share the work.
According to Chapman, the archive houses over 6,000 videotapes in total, and spans 40 years of video work from all over the world, including footage of the U.S. invasion of Panama and illegal art collectives in Moscow, Russia.
“Over one-third of the collection has a direct connection to Chicago, whether documenting the early video movement here, the arts, politics, or daily life,” she adds. “Nowhere else can students find these kinds of portraits of our city and its people, politics, and neighborhoods.”
Representing Chicago: Experimental Video and Television at the Media Burn Archive will be at the Film Studies Center (Cobb 307) on Thursday, May 6, 2010 at 7 pm. For reservations, call (773) 702-8596.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Welcome to the College[.uchicago.edu]
Baby needs a brand new website.
I've signed on with Susie, my awesome co-worker from the News Office, and one other student journalist to bring the College of the University of Chicago a re-vamped homepage with regularly updated articles and profiles about student life. Like the story that's up now—my article on the recent, student-driven campaign to invite Michelle Obama to campus. I've copied the text below. We're looking for more student contributors (and I'm looking for ways around the limit on how many hours a student may be employed... let you know how that works out!), so please contact me for information. As you may see from my unfortunate little foray into photography on the College site, we are particularly in need of students who are skilled behind the camera.
--
Organization of Black Students and Student Government hope video-letter campaign will bring Michelle Obama back to Hyde Park.
When second-year Edward James met Michelle Obama, he was struck by how tall she was. They took a photo together at a campaign event in his hometown of Sarasota, FL, in 2008, and "she towered over me."
Last Wednesday, James got the chance to record a personal video to the First Lady, inviting her back to Hyde Park, her former home. "I told her that I’ve grown since that time," he said, "and it would be really nice to stand next to her again."
James is just one of several dozen students who issued Michelle Obama a personal invitation to speak on campus as part of a video-letter campaign they dubbed "Ask Michelle Obama out to Homecoming!"
The Organization of Black Students (OBS) and Student Government (SG) sponsored the event, held Oct. 29 in the Reynolds Club. OBS hopes the video messages will convince Mrs. Obama to deliver the 2010 George E. Kent Lecture.
The Kent Lecture is named for the late George E. Kent, a professor of English Language and Literature. The annual lecture has featured many African-American luminaries, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Angela Davis, Cornel West, and, most recently, sociologist William Julius Wilson.
According to James, the OBS political chair, Susan Sher, the First Lady’s chief of staff, told the organizers that it would take an invitation of epic proportions for Mrs. Obama to visit. OBS began its efforts last spring, when organizers sent Mrs. Obama a letter. Sher, a former administrator at the University of Chicago Medical Center, responded, suggesting that the group share more of "what students have to say."
"It became clear that sending a letter was not enough," said fourth-year Chris Williams, the SG vice president for student affairs. "We needed a unique and loud message from the University community." Williams cited the 1,000 Valentine's Day letters that University of California, Merced students wrote to invite the First Lady to speak at their commencement last year as evidence that the campaign would work.
Michelle Obama was a natural choice to deliver the lecture, according to James. James said OBS is inspired by her work to connect the University to the South Side community as founding director of the University Community Service Center.
"Michelle Obama is big on community service, big on giving back, whether that’s going to public schools in D.C. and reading to children, or planting an organic garden in the White House," he said. "Now it’s not uncommon to see [college] kids mentoring in the Kenwood, Bronzeville, and Woodlawn areas. These are neighborhoods that have in the past had an antagonistic relationship with the University, but through her help and her great work we are becoming better stewards of our community…[Mrs. Obama] is a beacon of hope for a lot of people, including this community."
Though the Kent Lectures are facilitated by University students, James added that the event is always open to the public, and usually packs Rockefeller Chapel with students and people from all over Chicago. Besides exposing the student body to influential public figures, the Kent Lecture series has often brought together the University and its South Side community—a goal Michelle Obama pursued during her time in Hyde Park, James is quick to point out.
He said one video message to Mrs. Obama stood out in particular because it was made by a student who grew up on the South Side. "She said Mrs. Obama had been a role model to her. I think that’s great, to have somebody [like Michelle Obama] whom you can relate to, somebody who can see the world from your vantage point."
I've signed on with Susie, my awesome co-worker from the News Office, and one other student journalist to bring the College of the University of Chicago a re-vamped homepage with regularly updated articles and profiles about student life. Like the story that's up now—my article on the recent, student-driven campaign to invite Michelle Obama to campus. I've copied the text below. We're looking for more student contributors (and I'm looking for ways around the limit on how many hours a student may be employed... let you know how that works out!), so please contact me for information. As you may see from my unfortunate little foray into photography on the College site, we are particularly in need of students who are skilled behind the camera.
--
Dear Mrs. Obama...
Organization of Black Students and Student Government hope video-letter campaign will bring Michelle Obama back to Hyde Park.
When second-year Edward James met Michelle Obama, he was struck by how tall she was. They took a photo together at a campaign event in his hometown of Sarasota, FL, in 2008, and "she towered over me."
Last Wednesday, James got the chance to record a personal video to the First Lady, inviting her back to Hyde Park, her former home. "I told her that I’ve grown since that time," he said, "and it would be really nice to stand next to her again."
James is just one of several dozen students who issued Michelle Obama a personal invitation to speak on campus as part of a video-letter campaign they dubbed "Ask Michelle Obama out to Homecoming!"
The Organization of Black Students (OBS) and Student Government (SG) sponsored the event, held Oct. 29 in the Reynolds Club. OBS hopes the video messages will convince Mrs. Obama to deliver the 2010 George E. Kent Lecture.
The Kent Lecture is named for the late George E. Kent, a professor of English Language and Literature. The annual lecture has featured many African-American luminaries, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Angela Davis, Cornel West, and, most recently, sociologist William Julius Wilson.
According to James, the OBS political chair, Susan Sher, the First Lady’s chief of staff, told the organizers that it would take an invitation of epic proportions for Mrs. Obama to visit. OBS began its efforts last spring, when organizers sent Mrs. Obama a letter. Sher, a former administrator at the University of Chicago Medical Center, responded, suggesting that the group share more of "what students have to say."
"It became clear that sending a letter was not enough," said fourth-year Chris Williams, the SG vice president for student affairs. "We needed a unique and loud message from the University community." Williams cited the 1,000 Valentine's Day letters that University of California, Merced students wrote to invite the First Lady to speak at their commencement last year as evidence that the campaign would work.
Michelle Obama was a natural choice to deliver the lecture, according to James. James said OBS is inspired by her work to connect the University to the South Side community as founding director of the University Community Service Center.
"Michelle Obama is big on community service, big on giving back, whether that’s going to public schools in D.C. and reading to children, or planting an organic garden in the White House," he said. "Now it’s not uncommon to see [college] kids mentoring in the Kenwood, Bronzeville, and Woodlawn areas. These are neighborhoods that have in the past had an antagonistic relationship with the University, but through her help and her great work we are becoming better stewards of our community…[Mrs. Obama] is a beacon of hope for a lot of people, including this community."
Though the Kent Lectures are facilitated by University students, James added that the event is always open to the public, and usually packs Rockefeller Chapel with students and people from all over Chicago. Besides exposing the student body to influential public figures, the Kent Lecture series has often brought together the University and its South Side community—a goal Michelle Obama pursued during her time in Hyde Park, James is quick to point out.
He said one video message to Mrs. Obama stood out in particular because it was made by a student who grew up on the South Side. "She said Mrs. Obama had been a role model to her. I think that’s great, to have somebody [like Michelle Obama] whom you can relate to, somebody who can see the world from your vantage point."
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Blogged down with work
Please pop over to the Chicago Studies' Blog that Works to see my first post, plus a link to my Maroon article on real estate in Woodlawn!
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