Up in Tok Alaska + our class doings here at NYU

Oct 6
Our class teamed up with Professor Tom Beyer this last Tuesday evening for a trip through hands on video setup. I learned many things. In the past, I roomed with several music tech people who went out on the road - touring with productions yet, after these several classes, I never realized how much goes into working as a tech..( I was just happy to have the apartment to myself-), however...Lighting tech, video tech, sound tech...it's all very specific stuff- time to get ones brain organized...

We were to be there early - this class was the first of three, where each would take his or her turn dealing with the proper cables, inputs, adapters, cameras,tripods,and a small mixer as well as trouble shooting when/if certain connections did not go well. It is this I think: we, the class members could take time,but in real life, a professional, has a set up schedule until show time...and then his/her set up must be perfect.

Video editing and video conferencing are phrases I have known and that have passed through my own lips, yet, the hands on "doing" is quite another thing. So,I went searching though the web to find "just a practical scenario " for justification of all of the new technology and how middle aged people who are not in a progressive eastern university setting up for an artistic collaboration project...how and what they are doing with video, now that it has become a regular household item.

And this story popped up- "Co working in Rural Places" A woman in Tok, Alaska writes of her new thoughts using Skype and using video conferencing :

My understanding of co working is to create a space — rent, build, borrow, co-op — where people who work remotely and solo can work in close proximity with others, usually people in similar industries, but not always. The purposes for doing this vary, but it helps diminish the isolation, provides networking opportunities, allows cross-pollination of services, and generally builds community where there otherwise was not one because of the inherent separation of working remotely.

SHE SAID: When your options — or even suitable coworkers — are so limited, video conferencing seems a viable option for creating a pseudo co working “space.” Just the other day, my Denver-based business partner and I wound down our video chat but didn’t hang up. We both just started doing our work while still connected on Skype.

When I realized, I laughed and pointed out to her what we were doing. But do you know what? Before I had paused to mention the fact that we had both started working while our video chat windows were still open, I actually had felt for those few minutes that we were working in the same room. We were independent, yet together. That feeling is what co working offers, so why not do it via video when you can’t actually be there?

What a medium-- and as people spread out over the globe, it means great things from
different corners of the globe at the same time..being an audio visual geek ain't so bad!