A while back I wrote a post about how I imagined Creative Commons might play a role in our project over the long haul, particularly in regards to how we might contribute to building community. As I often tend to do, I imagined on a grand scale, outwardly hoping that people, both locally and around the world, would find our media useful and merge it into their own works of art.
Well, I’ve yet to hear back about anything as grand as a French mashup, but on the local front, I do get calls, quite often, regarding the use of DMP media from the artists themselves. Can we send a photo to a newspaper to run in an article about the band? Can I use this image on our upcoming album? My answer is simple: give attribution back to our independent photographers and you’re good to go.
Earlier today, I stopped by The Green Bean to get my mid-afternoon drink of choice and I caught the following on the upcoming events wall:
This was the first time I caught one of our shots being used in a local show poster. Check out the solid attribution for Kevin Belton, added as an element of the poster design itself.
No calls to me, no direction needed.
It doesn’t hurt that Dan Bayer (of The Raving Knaves) is part of DMP’s core team, I’m sure he influenced the process, but how about that CC license love?
We’re still wheeling about, doing shows when we can, figuring this all out as we go, but it’s nice to see part of the plan of local artists cross-promoting local artists coming together here and there.
I’d just like to take this moment to thank everyone who came out last night to The Blind Tiger to check out the Leeves, my band the Raving Knaves, and The Goodbye House, the new project from Matty Sheets, James Marshall Owen, Dave “Driveway” Moore and Randy Seals.
The Goodbye House is a great band, combining elements of all the members’ previous musical directions, but coming together in a real organic way, kinda like one of Elvis Presley’s mashed banana and peanut butter sandwiches.
Here’s a taste:
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And of course the Leeves’ brand of jazz/punk can’t be underestimated either. It was simply a rockin’ night all the way around.
The reason I’m thanking everybody is because, as a local musician, I’ve come to realize that community will get you through times with no money better than money will get you through times of no community. As part of the dotmatrix project, I’ve watched a community grow around local original music, seen more people coming out to shows — despite (or maybe because of) the bad economy — and I’ve watched musicians collaborate on some really great music.
Photo by Paula McLean
Usually I’ve seen this from behind the soundboard, but in the last few months I’ve seen it from the stage, playing with the Knaves, alongside bands such as Switchblade 85, Come Hell or High Water, the Brand New Life and so many others.
In the midst of uncertain times, to be able to get up and play your music in front of and alongside appreciative people is truly a wonderful thing.
As far as the exhibit goes, we have 29 large format photographs on display, shot by 9 local photographers across 8 monthly shows, which will stay on the walls until September 27th.
Friday night, the entire month… it’s our way of both celebrating and promoting the talent found within our own community.
We do hope you can come out and enjoy it with us.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t introduce our featured photographers, so here they are:
Kevin Belton flickr account Email | Voice: 336.816.8571
Kevin is a professional product photographer for the High Point furniture industry, second camera for John Leonard Photography for weddings and special events. He has been shooting themed based ideas in the last year or so featuring addiction, fashion, and music. Art is his passion and the camera is his medium.
Stephen Charles CharlesMedia Photography Email | Voice: 336.682.9517
Stephen Charles began taking photographs in 1983 with a 35mm Canon Sure Shot. With the advent of Digital SLRs he has pursued photography as a growing passion, with a desire for letting candid captured moments tell the story.
Jessi Hagood Jessi Hagood Photography Email
Jessi Hagood is a native of Eden, NC and works primarily in the Greensboro area as a Wedding and Portrait Photographer. Recently her work has involved photographing Bodybuilding and Figure Competitions, soon to be featured in Muscle and Fitness Magazine and in an upcoming episode of MTV Made.
Doug Klesch Doug Klesch Photography Email | Voice: 336.542.3071
Doug is a refugee from the cubicle farms of corporate America. Failing to have sapped all creative energy from him over more than a decade, his overlords released him back to the world. He gratefully returns wielding a camera.
Elizabeth Lemon Elizabeth Lemon Photography Email | Voice: 719.244.3518
A recent graduate from the photography program at Randolph Community College, Elizabeth is adjusting to life outside a classroom. She is pursuing fine art and documentary photography with rediscovered inspiration and a tool box of new knowledge.
Alex Maness Alex Maness Photography Email | Voice: 336.707.6121
Alex Maness, local boy done good, likes to travel and explore, but keeps Greensboro, NC as his center of gravity. He runs a photography business shooting for magazines and advertisers, as well as his own documentary projects.
Mark Smith flickr account Email | Voice: 336.414.4721
Mark’s first inkling that photography could be fun was when his parents brought out the dreaded slides of their jaunts overseas. Once Mark could afford it, he bought a Pentax ME Super and “that was that.” These days, Mark happily takes sports and beach pictures as well as the live music events at DMP.
COMMUNITY PHOTOGRAPHERS
(Talented, local photogs who came out to shows and documented the evening)
Carolyn de Berry Carolyn de Berry Photography | Email Monkeywhale Productions | Email
A Connecticut native and graduate of Guilford College and the Commercial Photography Program at Randolph Community College, Carolyn is a freelance photographer and assistant living in Greensboro, NC. She is also the production photographer and studio manager for Monkeywhale Productions.
Allen Martin MartiniVision Email | Voice: 917.687.1912
Greensboro native Allen Martin is a photographer and designer who has recently relocated back to his home town after 18 years in NYC. A camera owner since adolescence, for the last several years Allen has focused on fashion, fine art and entertainment photography.
SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Katie Southard, Owner of The Green Bean
Elizabeth Lemon, for matting, framing and curating the show
Laurelyn Dossett, Mr. Rozzi and Eating The Invaders, for generously donating their talent at the exhibit opening
Don Ravon for running sound at the exhibit opening
Don Ravon & Dan Bayer for mixing the music video tracks
Ioannis Batsios, Blake Faucette, Michael McQueen and Bret Jones for scrambling to produce their music videos on time
Andy Coon for helping prep the music video DVD
Allen Martin for the beautiful show poster
All of our talented photographers, many of whom aren’t represented in this show. You can see their all of their work at our flickr spot
We’ve packed the house many a night while exposing the talents of kick ass local musicians playing their originals — no matter the perceived popularity or status of the act, we get them on. Within this process, we’ve also been able to create participatory opportunities for local photographers and film makers and sound engineers to do what they do best; documenting and crafting the world around them in ways that only they can.
While music is absolutely where the heart of the project lies, as the people come out first and foremost to both hear and see the musicians cut loose, the active involvement of the media crew does serve as an experience layer of both professionalism and intrigue to our audiences.
It really is something different.
Once the stage is broken down and the crowd goes home, the documentation of the evening’s performance serves as a memory seal of sorts, keeping the freshness of the night intact for all to experience down the road. And whether a music video is discovered by a teenager surfing YouTube on South Elm Street or a lawyer who stumbles across a sick shot while accessing flickr at his flat in the UK, the talent within a small venue in a small town receives the legs for global discovery.
As exciting as the concept of documentation and exposure might seem when community begins to form around artists, such a degree of community still only speaks to a linear exchange of bytes and bits across the web. Or to be metaphorical, similar to the download of experience from performer to audience.
Now, what if the audience could join in on the performance itself?
With the current advancement of this internet — where “2.0″ has already become a ubiquitous descriptor for the sharing and re-contextualizing of data across brands — and with access to media creation tools at an all-time high, such a binary metaphor as above only serves as a first definition of “community” within a netizen-driven dictionary that’s still being written.
So where to next?
Creative Building Blocks
The most interesting angle of this project, as far as I’m concerned, is the potential for building community (i.e. fans, interest, attention, etc.) around these amazingly talented creators in ways that you or I would never even dream of. That said, my interest isn’t in defining how that community forms or ensuring that the building occurs in a specific way… or even at all.
We make DMP media available at specific spots around the web for download, but our control ends with that point of accessibility.
By licensing all of our work under a Creative Commons (CC) license — one that allows non-commercial share-alike reuse and remixing with attribution — DMP participants are continuously contributing creative material, with structured data of attribution, location and subject matter, to the commons; material that is optimized for discovery (check out the results for a “greensboro music” search on flickr), to then be enjoyed and potentially shared and/or re-purposed out of a person’s connection with both the media and its subject matter.
If you’re not familiar with Creative Commons, this short video will fill in the gaps:
Essentially, we’ve designed the parameters of our project to allow 16-year old Billy Nelson in Austin, Texas to mashup a track by The Bronzed Chorus with one by Laurelyn Dossett, while using DMP show pictures to use as b-roll for the music video.
Now will that exact scenario ever happen? I don’t know. But why on Earth would we want to license against such creativity, especially when the newly crafted creative work would point more people in the direction of the original musicians and photographers involved in the piece?
I want to welcome a “Billy” with open arms into the DMP collective without even a hint of stodginess or protectionism. The same goes to a blogger who embeds our media in a post to expose the talent of the artists involved.
As a result of such an open approach, we have two primary rules for participating with DMP:
All media (photographs, recordings, music videos) must be made available somewhere online — in high-resolution form, downloadable and for free
All media must be licensed with the aforementioned CC terms to define usage rights and to protect our creators’ rights
This doesn’t toss out the right of the media creator or band to sell their work, but it does give the rest of the world the ability to share the work within different contexts.
And The Audience Goes *Snap!*
Some people — especially those who have have made a living shooting over the years — tend to find these two rules to be game stoppers of sorts. They consider everything they shoot to be a monetized effort, so there isn’t much middle ground when it comes to redefining copyright, freeing up access, etc… which is actually ok.
We’re more than happy to see photographers who hold these beliefs come out to shoot shows without participating in the upload part of the project. We consider them to be “audience plus” — music lovers and media creators who are benefiting themselves and everyone involved. While we can’t include them in on the promotional perks that participating photogs enjoy, we welcome them just the same.
As a matter of fact, we encourage everyone at a show with a cell phone to a DSLR to participate and spread the media love within their own networks. We want as many people as possible shooting and uploading to the web, making it clear that Greensboro has a music scene to check out.
Because, in the end, what else do we have but the communities that we are a part of?
