Embed Code mp3 player - We will go over this in class

Below is the code you will need to enter into the WYSIWYG HTML editor on blogger. (When you go compose your post switch to "edit html" and then add the code, otherwise it will show up as text as it does here rather than the audio player you want to create).

Your file needs to be stored in a public folder on webspace somewhere. If you have a dropbox account you can store the file in your public folder then right click on it to get the url address which you copy and paste into the code below.

You may also store the file in the public folder on your SSES file server account. The address of files stored there is

If you put a file call demo.mp3 into your public_html folder, the URL is:

http://spartans.sstx.org/~afassi/demo.mp3

The part in bold above is a tilde followed by your user name.  Your user name is the same one you use for email etc. 

<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=URL_OF_YOUR_FILE_HERE" height="27" width="320"></embed>

Lego Walden

A Lego representation of a scene in "Brute Neighbors."

At the start of the video, I put a picture of Thoreau's actual house on the lake, and fade to its Lego representation. A Lego Thoreau walks out of his cabin, and, in 54 images, closes the door and walks to the forest behind his house. This scene was designed to represent one part of "Brute Neighbors," so I have nature sounds like a creek rushing by and the rustling of leaves in the wind playing in the background. Thoreau walks past a forest and then I played the portion of the text that pertains to the next scene, a battle between the ants. Thoreau walks up to a small, 2X3 flat brick, which is the "chip" on which the legions of ants do battle. The scene cuts to a close up of the brick, and the ant pieces are now visible. Then, it "zooms" in one more time to show a small skirmish between red and black warriors. It zooms out to show Thoreau examining the wood chip, and then zooms out again to show someone examining Thoreau.

The battle between the ants is important because it is similar to a battle between humans, as evidenced by the comparison that Thoreau makes to the Myrmidons. In the video, the battle occurs on such a small scale that it is only visible after "zooming" in twice, represented by the transitions between the ant pieces and the warriors. Similarly, it would be possible to extrapolate to a different, outside observer, who views Thoreau and by extension humans on the same scale as humans view ants. Humans are small when compared to the vastness of the universe. I tried to convey this by zooming out one more time after the scene returns to Thoreau. It was easy to accomplish using Legos because of the different sizes of pieces. Plus, I really like Legos.

Revolution 99

Here's my English project.




Revolution 99
For my creative project, I chose the recent protests, known as Occupy Austin, which are going on at City Hall. I see the protests as the leftist answer to the Tea Party movement, a movement that will bring about long-deserved changes in government. The title of my project, Revolution 99, is both a reference to the Beatles song Revolution 9, from which I got a bit of inspiration for this project, and to the slogan “We are the 99 percent,” seen commonly throughout the protests, and referring to those who are not in the 1 percent of massively wealthy Americans.
The key to my creative project is the juxtaposition – by mixing the music in with the audio from the protests, I equate the two. All the music that I use was specifically chosen for the rebellious and, in some cases, revolutionary content. The project starts with a sample of a numbers station, which is on its own not considered music, but when put next to the other music can only be considered avant-garde music, similar to the Futurists of revolutionary Russia. Numbers stations are used by governments to transmit messages to spies – “delta foxtrot delta zwo eins” could have been a message from East Germany ordering agents to kill the president of some far-off country. However, just as the protesters reappropriated City Hall, a government site, as a site for protesting government, I reappropriate clandestine government orders as music. Other parts include samples from the Rite of Spring, noted for causing a riot upon its premiere; the Concerto Spirituale by Arthur Lourié, which, among other works, got its composer purged; and the song “Love Lies Limp” by Alternative TV, one of the bands that kicked off the punk rock movement. Just like these songs, the protests are kicking off a movement too, one that has become a “global movement of change, of people realizing that they are no longer in charge of their government,” as one woman whom I interviewed at the protests put it. Occupy Austin, along with the other Occupy movements, will certainly bring mass change and reform into the United States.
The diversity of music chosen and the relative fragmentation of the project is a reflection of what it was like to walk around the protests. Some people are actually serious about change. Some of those serious people want change in a libertarian manner, and others want it with government oversight. Some people are there because grassroots organization is chic to them, regardless of whether or not they actually believed in the movement. Some were there playing music for others - a benefit show was being organized, and Kaz was there a few hours after I went listening to a band. There were also LaRouche cultists. All of these people, packed into the green around City Hall, made for a bit of a chaotic experience, one of vastly different messages being broadcast. Regardless, though, they came together as a unified protest, just as this project brings different works together as a unified work.

In order of appearance, the music is as follows:

Dfd 21, The Conet Project
Concerto Spirituale, Lourié
Love Lies Limp, Alternative TV
Voiles, Debussy
Rite of Spring, Stravinsky
The protests
Piano Sonata no. 2, Mosolov
New - Stock, Hausen, and Walkman
Opus Clavicembalisticum, Sorabji
Nixon in China, Adams
Verklärte Nacht, Schoenberg
The People United Will Never Be Defeated, Rzewski
The Tides of Manaunaun, Cowell

Traffic Patterns - Walden Pond

Check this out from the City issue of Lapham's Quarterly

San Francisco, Infinite City

Cartography Art

Creative Assignment

You are not restricted to using digital media in creating your project. However, you are required to share your work. If you work on an art installation, for example, that you cannot bring into the classroom either because your piece is immovable or because the context and landscape are essential to the meaning of your work, then you must document your work. You might want to take photos or film your installation while providing an audio narrative or introduction to the piece. You may want to create a "podcast" either to document your process or as a project in and of itself.

Consider composing audio essay based on field research at a site somewhere nearby. It could be the same site you wrote about in your landscape essay.

As with your landscape essay

First, you need to think of a place that might be interesting to visit and write about.

Next, you will visit your chosen site and collect audio or visual data.

Then, you may want to outline your project based on your field notes and any additional research that is helpful including the landscape essay you already handed in.

Finally, you will mix a voice recording of this essay with audio or visual data captured at the site you are writing about.

The most difficult part of this assignment will be the editing of your audio or video essay, because this is a technical skill that many of you will have little to no experience with. I will be learning how to create podcasts along with you and so my hope is that we can share our growing knowledge as we go. Time will be devoted in class to various "how-to" tutorials.


Here's a link to the Beijing installation from an urban sound art project called "Invisible Cities"



Mixing in musical intros or interludes will only make your presentation more professional.

Time-lapsed video can be an especially evocative way to capture a sense of the dynamism of a place:


The Beat of SHIBUYA from darwinfish105 on Vimeo.

The Beat of SHIBUYA from darwinfish105 on Vimeo.

To begin, with you will need to choose an appropriate editing software. For audio Audacity and Garage Band are two popular ones. I can't help as much with video. I would like all projects posted to the blog. I'm still working on being able to embed mp3 audio and not just wav. I will help you with this on a case by case basis.

You can find Apple's "Support" for Garage Band here.

Audacity's "help" pages are somewhat dense, but here they are as well.

Note: this project is not technically a "Podcast" because I am less concerned about the "broadcast" portion of the project than about the creation of a Podcast-like audio or video essay.

Sample audio mix.




FM: No big supernova, no end of the universe, just a little puff and you're gone.

Thoreau: Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and delectable places in some remote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia's Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part of the universe. If it were worth the while to settle in those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or Altair, then I was really there, or at an equal remoteness from the life which I had left behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonless nights by him. Such was that part of creation where I had squatted . . ."