Exit Through the Giftshop

In the movie Exit Through the Gift Shop, the movie portrays an artist and his own vision of art which happens to be street art. The documentary shows the artist Thierry Guetta who was a french man who had immigrated from france since the early 1980's. He owned his own Bohemian clothing shop which he did rather well in. He never went anywhere without a video camera and claimed he could never let it down and decribed it as an obsession. When he picks up the camera he finds that he must film everything and even had a camera set up in his own home. In 1999 on a family holiday to france he discovered something that sent his dicoveries in a new direction. His cousin Vector who was an international street artist. Street art was blowing up in today's culture Thierry decides to follow his cousin in his work as well as his friends filming his art work.

Thierry mentions in the video that he can really see a gallery discovered in the future of his cousins work. Invader decides to visit Thierry in LA and arranges a meeting with Shepard Fairey and continues to film his work even after his cousin has left for France. Thierry mentions that he wishes that he could film other artists but doesnt decide to make a film. Guetta then decided he wanted to hear about the artist Banksy who was a secreative artist and masked his voice and his appearence in the film. Thierry wanted to meet the famous artist but was refused in entering the United States. Banksy decides to contact Fairey. Fairey then contacts Thierry who tells him about Banksy's stay in town and becomes his tour guide throughout LA eventually following him back to England. Thierry was able to film the artist and have the oppourtinunity to film his street art. Over time and constant filming of Banksy's art, the two become friends. Soon enough Thierry had to return to La and became and soon started to produce his own work of art of stickers and decals placing them all over the city of LA.

Banksy had a show that is being prepared in LA and had an idea to develop a doll and put it in Disneyland. Thierry decides to film Banksy taking the trip to the location where the doll is located. The parks security system catches them and soon Guetta is taken into questioning while Banksy changes clothes and blends into the crowd of people. Thierry does not admit to doing anything wrong and decides to destory any evidence in his camera that he prevousily had filmed. He managed to secretly put the video tape in his sock and was let go. Later on the film Barely Legal opens and becomes a huge over night sucess and street art prices sky rocketed in auction houses which surprised Banksy. Thierry after seeing the success of the video, decides to edit all the footage of his fim called Life Remote Control. Thierry final product wound up being 90 minutes long. To keep Banksy occupied he suggested that Thierry make is own art show and Theirry did just that and his nickname become Mr.Brainwash. He put up street art all around the city and months later created his business. He rents a CBS studio to prepare for his first show called Life is Beautiful. This production was on a much larger scale but unfortunatly Thierry breaks his leg falling off a ladder. Banksy helped Thierry out by getting professionals to help him while Thierry spends more time on the publicity aspect eventually making billboards with quotes and wound up on the cover of LA weekly. Shortly before opening, painting are missing from the walls and the crew decides to take over of the overall layout.

Even though preperation was very stressful the show wound up becoming a huge success and after a week Thierry sells over a million dollars of art work and his pieces wound up showing over all over the world. Thierry beleives that his artwork will shine through as time goes on.

Re creation of Vector Image

Vectorized Image ( Auto traced Image)

Vector Art

Keen and Rushkoff

1. From the readings as well as the internet videos Andrew Keen is very against today's form of internet and how it is being used. He defines democratized media as the ability that everyone is able to contribute something to the internet. Anybody can go on the internet and say whatever they want to whether it is ideas, thoughts or comments. Keen thinks that today's culture is being destroyed by the internet by creating new issues which includes lies, blogging, and false informative sites like wikipedia. Keen also states that artists aren't getting full credit for there work and income when there things are "stolen" and put on the web. Sites like limewire allow users to get free songs without paying for them.

2. While both Keen and Rushkoff are both concerned with the way social media and the internet is today both of them have different aspects on the subject. Rushkoff talks about how the internet is ran corporatism. Keen discusses how because of the internet art is either being ruined or stolen and how outraged he is that anything can be said on the web. Andrew Keen really speaks to me in the sense that artists are losing there jobs and sites like wikipedia are full of lies and can give the public false information. Many celebrities are losing money from people illegally downloading music or selling things on the web.

Whither the Individual

Samantha Seigerman





Face book has become a new technology that has become almost a part of us. Some of us can’t even go one full day without logging onto our Face book account. As we join these different social networking sites we expand our identities. By creating our facebook friends we allow ourselves to create a profile and an image for others to view. We also expand our horizons by finding new and old friends. Social networking allows us to connect with others via the internet whether its with old friends or new ones.
I personally have found people from my kindergarten class that I never thought I would keep in touch with or even see again. It is nice to have a site that allows you socially to connect with others via the internet. Facebook also offers features like having your own photo album which to some can be an invasion of privacy.
Myspace and facebook a two very different social networking sites in the sense that facebook is more realistic in the way that facebook allows you to put more personal information like what college you go to and can set people up with different networks. Whether it’s a network of your college or your highschool you can join these networks regardless of what race, ethnicity or type of person you are.
There is however the issue with privacy and the loss of personal space. Facebook while it can be private if the user desires to do so, it is on the interent and can be viewable to whoever has access on the net. Sometimes we can get a little to comfortable with what we put on our Facebook like pictures or what we say to other people. This can be somewhat of an invasion of privacy to others being that people have accesses to all your information and photos. This can include different things whether it’s your mom being nosy or your boss looking to see if you’re a serious enough person by judging your photos. We put so much information ourselves on our face book that although our privacy is invaded we allow it to be that way.

Web 2.0 and Digital Nation

1. While it is very true that in today's generation tv shows and ads try to look more home grown and copy what is on the web, I think that it will continue to be this way due to the fact that people are so "obsessed" with today's media in the web. For example etrade is a good example of home grown but the public enjoy it even though it is somewhat of a botched up advertisement. Over time amature user generated contenet will improve over time because the web keeps chaning over time as well.

2. I use Facebook as my most viewed site and it is surely addicting. It allows me to have pictures of myself from other friends and can give me capablilties of finding new friends and keeping in touch with my current ones. One of the reasons why Facebook is so much more popular and sucessful is because it is less of a "sketchy" based sites. There are more petifiles and america posts different pictures of themselves as if they want to be friends with random strangers. Facebook allows you to connect on a more college based level finding friends, tagging pictures and who you want to have as your friend or who you dont.

3. Transparency in the social media world is important because people need different things and different sites in the web and diverse things. It's also important where the information comes from. I also don't think it is any less important when it comes to the online world and the offline I think they both are equally the same when it comes to transparency.