Current Projects
Below are a list of current projects in the works, some are purely for research purposes and others are "live" projects.
Joseph Lopez: PhD Candidate
How it all began.
I have been involved with multimedia since I was a toddler, my dad bought us an IBM jr. when I was 4 years old. I do not remember growing up without some type of computer. I am from the information age I guess. However it was not until high school that I began thinking of digital technology in terms of creating social and cultural change. Durning that time I was president of the computer club where we would host writing contests to give away donated computers to families in need.
Then as an undergraduate I jumped in full force working with Joseph Straubhaar studying the digital divide in East Austin, as well as working with Sandy Stone on new media technologies.
Then as a Masters student, under the guidance of Sandy a fellow graduate student (Brandon Wiley) and I started a specific project to create social change by giving the means of media distribution back to the people. This was in the form of ACTLab TV, an initiative that is trying to bring the copyleft and opensource community together. I also dedicated my masters project/report to exploring the idea of personal multimedia production.
Now as a PhD. studnet I continue to work on various projects, such as these listed below. I enjoy find out new and clever ways of thinking about using media. I learn most of my tools and ways of thinking through my students and peers. They offer wealth of information. Sometimes ideas spur from simple interactions with my nieces through the digital medium.
Alas this is just a short discription of my work, for a more indepth description of the myself, please visit my personal site at: www.jtlopez.com
Gallery: a working image database Started in the winter of 2005, the "Blackbox Gallery" is a project to preserve and share my own as well as friends and families photo's and videos. It has been a huge success with thousands of visitors each year. The core of the system is Gallery, an opensource php based photo management system. Like many of my personal multimedia initiatives, this project is run off my personal debian server from home. This allows me to not only administarte the system easier, but manage space issues in a more dynamic way then other hosting solutions. |
Gallery2: a search for a movie database system Gallery2 is an initiative started in the spring of 2007, using the latest version of Gallery, I have created a database of videos searchable by keywords and other dynamics features. It is currently in a testing mode. |
Joseph's Multimedia Jukebox: a look at multimedia technologies on the web Joseph's multimedia Jukebox is a project that took place in the fall of 2006, it was created for an Audio for the Internet course I took, I used it to host multiple audio/video formats, again off of my own home server. In order to make this project work I had to install debian "testing" an experimental version of Linux.
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Praveen and Friends: a working example of glocal distribution Praveen and Friends is an effort to change the way people think about media distribution. Along with Praveen Ayyagari I setup a CD relase of his greatest hits that would be under creative commons licensing. The release was not only over the web, but also in local stores. We used our own home tools to design, test and produce a CD design. Over all we released over 200 CDs and have had requests for even more.
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ACTLab.tv is an effort by Brandon Wiley and myself to bring copyleft media together with opensource software in such a way as to bring awareness to the way in which media distribution can be put back into the peoples hands. With the release of not only software, but how-to guides, film festivals, CD releases and other activities, ACTLab.tv has played a big role in the rethinking of media in the 21st century.
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Personal Multimedia Production Video This video was created for a Multi-Media course I took in the spring of 2007, it documents a couple of projects I have under taken using my ideas of personal multi-media production. Specifically it looks at the Praveen and Friends CD release, a KKK protest and using Skype for communication over large distances. Run time: 7 minutes.
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Masters Report This report contains my first attempt at exploring the idea of personal multi-media production in academic/written form. While admitidly crude, the report contains an excitement I hope many people share about the possibilities of what we are capable of in terms of creating social change.
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