Million Dollar Homepage Held for Ransom

A brilliant idea: sell each pixel on your website for one dollar each. Also, beautiful to look at-- a kind of internet ad quilt.
Then after the last pixels sold, a ransom note for $50,000 or else a denial of service attack. The FBI is on the case.

Made by Alex Tew, a 21-year-old student from a small town in England.
Also available, 20 cents a pixel.

Two Classes offered for DAC credit by Rappaport

TOPIC: Video & Audio Strategies for Visual Artist & Multimedia
Art 427 LAB 801 11903
3 cr
1/23-5/11
MW 4:00pm-6:30pm
MIT B43
Rappaport, Mathew J

DESCRIPTION:
Studio art course in which students learn about video and audio as a fine art tool to be used as a medium applied to gallery, installation and environmental works, as a tool for documenting art projects and as elements to be integrated in multimedia works. Students will be taught basic camera use, lighting technique, editing, recording, mixing and distribution.

FORMAT:
Class time will include demonstration, in class work/technical activities, work days and critique. Students will produce a series of short works that include short length creative projects and the documentation of preexisting art projects.

Graduate Students and advanced undergraduate art majors w/o video experience are encouraged to take this course.

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TOPIC: Visibility, Security & Strategies of Control & Resistance
Art 427 LAB 804 25496 cross listed with Fine Art 351 lab 804
3 cr
1/23-5/11
MW 12:30pm-3:15pm
MIT B43
Rappaport, Mathew J

DESCRIPTION:
This course is based on the premise that visual art can be used as a means for processing and visualizing complex ideas and can intersect and inform academic discourse.

Throughout the course we will be exploring systems of social and individual control which are predicated on making one aware that they are being viewed [like video cameras and tvs at the entrance of many retailers] or through the capturing of seemingly invisible information [like web based tracking technologies] and making the process known to influence behavior. We will investigate how theorists and artist frame and respond to these critical issues. Students will respond to this material with individual creative projects. The class will culminate with a collaborative art installation to be presented at the annual Center for International Education conference.

FORMAT:
In general the course is split between seminar style days and studio days. During the seminar periods, students will be required to prepare readings [from the syllabus] and short presentations for in class discussion. The studio days include demonstrations of basic media techniques in digital video, audio and imaging to assist students in developing visual art responses to the material discussed in the readings and seminar periods. Students must attend the conference which is held on campus over a Friday and Saturday late in the semester.

No prior technical experience is required, but curiosity and enthusiasm for a challenging and dynamic work environment are.

Taking the Lead: Women and the Changing Face of Television Drama

From Elana Levine:
University Satellite Seminar Series
Museum of Television and Radio

Taking the Lead: Women and the Changing Face of Television Drama

Thursday, December 8, 2005
7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Bolton B-60

Today’s television landscape is fertile ground for female-led prime-time dramas; a cursory glance at the schedule yields the likes of Veronica Mars, Medium, Commander in Chief, The Closer…

Such was not always the case. In the era before the groundbreaking series Cagney & Lacey, hour dramas with female leads were rare indeed, the occasional escapist fare such as The Bionic Woman or Wonder Woman notwithstanding.

This seminar will trace the evolution of the female-led television drama, from its embattled past to its current ascendancy. What was the rationale for the network’s historical reluctance to launch such shows? What accounts for their current ubiquity? How have audience expectations changed? And where does the genre go from here?

Panel:
Barbara Corday, Cocreator, Cagney & Lacey
Susanne Daniels, President, Entertainment, Lifetime Entertainment Services
Jill Hennessy, Crossing Jordan
Jane Seymour, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Jenji Kohan, Creator, Weeds

Moderator: Cynthia Littleton, Deputy Editor, The Hollywood Reporter

This seminar is part of the Museum's She Made It initiative.