Hello world. My name is Jeffrey martin, and I hope we can get along.
I consume a lot of media; I also try to create some of my own. I am a white male and I am about as average as it gets, straight, no handicaps; I don’t lean to far in any direction politically. My political compass score is -1.25 economic -2.36 social. Some people might say that there is no middle class in America, I don’t know if I agree, because I feel pretty middle class most of the time, I drive a used Volvo 240 (1992) and I change my own oil. So class wise I’m pretty normal, I think most people are much more normal than they give themselves credit for. And there’s nothing wrong with being normal, some of the greatest people who ever lived were normal.
The primary media that I ingest is and is about one thing, videogames, and to a lesser extent art, graphic design and music. But ever since I was young, for some reason I don’t know, videogames have had a hook in me that I cant get out. I love the psychological part of video games, the way that they differ from any other art form, and I wish I had more time to play them. So I read blogs, listen to podcast and subscribe to magazines all to get news and conversation about videogames. Maybe I just never grew up, and maybe I don’t want to. Videogames are pure fun and their made to be enjoyed. I consider myself to be very sarcastic, much too sarcastic, and videogames keep me evened out. When people wine about “realism” or “plots” in the stories they watch or play, I do it to, it just makes us seem spoiled. In a video game all sort of sophisticated technology and design went into it for one purpose, so you can have fun. And at the same time a game can pull many emotions out of people, and many more than a movie or book can too. In other mediums one watches or reads events taking place, all sorts of cool or thought provoking thing happen, but that’s it, they happen. In a game I do them, I am the main character, and all of the events are MY doing, so any emotional response is because of the consequences of my action or inaction. It’s a fundamental shift from a book, or movie.
I am also a graphic designer by trade and went to art school, so I keep up on artistic and design trends, which also helps inspire me for making my own work. I work digitally, but I also draw and screen print t-shirts.
One of my main ideologies is that I love to make things. Yet creation can be hard when it seems like everything has already been made. Any drawing you try to do, tons of illustrators and animators will already have made that drawing and many better ones already. And slogan or song or rhythm or picture one tries to make will always be similar to something else without even trying. So what does an artist do? Is there really nothing left to create for my generation? The answer I think is Girl Talk, if you have ever heard Girl Talk, he is a DJ that mixes parts of tons of different music together to make something new. Beats from one song, guitar from another some rap lyrics with choruses by alt rock singers, all thing we know and are familiar with all mashed up to make something new, to make something beautiful. So that’s what I want to do with art, take all these things that I see and hear, and mash them altogether to make something new, something designed, and something fun to look at. So anything I ingest as media, I am always thinking, planning, how can I put this into something else. Does the shot of this movie make a good composition? That will work well with the typography of a line from a song? Mixed in with the details and texture from the cells I’ve seen in bio 109? And how can I scan all this stuff to get in my computer and then in Photoshop? These are the questions I filter most of my experiences through.
I spend more time with the Internet than I do with many other media outlets, I don’t watch a ton of TV, though I do enjoy movies. I listen to music, mostly with lots of screaming. I find it a very manly thing to like aggressive music, I guess I’m over compensating for being a dork and an artist, not the mostly manly professions. Going to live concerts is something I do, and I love watching the crowd as much as the band. I don’t have an ipod, and I have the secret desire to be the last man alive without one. The communal aspect of listening to music is really an amazing thing. At any other sort of gathering it can be really hard to get six people to all focus and participate in one thing, but at a concert, hundreds of people will all focus and sing and stand much to close to together and perfect strangers will feel like family all because of the joining power of the music. This is especially evident in smaller club shows, which are far superior to large venues.
Seeing people moved by media to me is just as fun as experiencing the media itself. A creative advertisement is great, a scary poster at a bus stop, but seeing some one look at it and curl their face in disgust, or pump their fist in excitement for that movie or whatever, that is what is really amazing. A piece of paper, a lit screen, a few pixels, these simple things are able to pull emotion out of us, and elicit a response.
So because I’m really just a nerd, and don’t listen much to politics, I wasn’t really sure what blogs to pick. I’m going to start reading the Baltimore Sun, since I live close to Baltimore, seemed like a good choice. (www.baltimoresun.com/) And I’m going to read the Rolling Stones blog (www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/) since it seems like a good place to start and I enjoy a more light hearted take on politics, so I’ll watch more John Stewart too.
