Thinking of a theme for this week, it occurred to me that I may be forcing myself to get very creative in the future if I decide that I can’t repeat themes. But, perhaps that defeats the purpose of letting these themes emerge from the weekly stream of public posts on the Commons, anyway. I guess it’s something I’ll have to work out along the way.

Anyway, this week I noticed a lot of posts responding to music and film,  or presenting digital art.

• Net Art is a gallery of sorts of animated graphics created by Ryan Seslow. They are often mesmerizing as a result of their looping pattern. I’m quite fond of the most recent, the endless A-train that reminds all at once of ride I once had, the view of an oncoming train when you’re at the front of a station, and the cheesy PowerPoint transitions we all like to use between slides.
• Phillip Weiss has been setting up sites with dozens and dozens of pictures of sites around the U.S., each site has its own digital site. The most recent site is the Eastern State Penitentiary, subtitled “Pictures of an American Ruin.” Interesting if you want to glipse Al Capone’s cell…
• Many classes make use of the Commons and as a result you get to see students working on some fascinating projects. In this example, David, a student in a Music since 1945 class blogs about the Latin Jazz song “Spain,” by Chick Corea.  Listen to the music while you read. It’s worth it.
• The Queens Community College Documentary Film class has been featuring student responses to weekly documentary films. At the very least the site offers a pretty remarkable list of films to go out and stream (if you can’t see them live at QCC, of course) but also recreates, in a way, the shared experience of viewing a movie in a theater. Reading how others respond to films is to have a shared experience.

Until next week,

Paul