Animation Artists Statement

The animation is extremely simple and is supposed to deal with what an average, simple day contains: methodical tasks.

Even as I watch this piece I can come up with more than one meaning for each aspect of this, and I do not want to force the work to be saying something, so I will be (much like the piece, simple and vague).

The main focus was to dictate daily life. Getting up, going out, coming home etc... The reason i chose the ads for the background noise, was because in many spheres that really is lifes background 'noise' either visually or auditory or both. The every day items that lead the character around symbolize daily tasks or routines that he must fulfill throughout the day. The character must follow them because for one reason or another they hold more importance than the character, and thus lead him around.

Wake Up

Repeating, Abundance, 4-14-99

Based on 3 articles:

'Why do I Keep Repeating Myself"

Abundance and Redundance

4-14-99

These articles raised interesting questions on man's relationship to technology. Are we as the first article said, indulging in "machine Karma"? I have now begun to ask myself how incorporated i am with my own technology. I am using a computer to write these comments on the article, i even used my computer to read the articles. In a sense i have become enmeshed with my own technology, i recently downloaded programs to facilitate actions between me and the computer even more quickly and easily. I think i honestly do "spend more time organizing my desktop than organizing my desktop"

I don't think that the concept of 'information hiding' is really a true event. I do know and understand that developers and hardware providers try and protect their technology, but innumerable amounts of technology has come out of 3rd party users adapting and tweaking pre-made hard and software.

The redundance article mentioned artist's responsibility within our overly digital culture saying that artists show "the value of difference". Apparently in our digital age, "There is little difference, Reality is a format". After having worked within different formats of images, video, and audio I can understand this comment much more. Flipping through tv or youtube or anyother media outlet, i can experience an unlimited variety of programming, but thats true, I rarely see anything that I can't understand or that causes me some confusion, because i can readily receive the 'reality format'. I agree with the author's statement, about art and 'art'. Its true. I see many fabrications that seem 'artsy' or eclectic and enjoy them thinking 'this is so unusual' but really, there is little to no true art contained within the work.

All this said, I agree with the author of 4-19-99, "art and technology have come together to forge a new humanity." It does seem so. Fake art is being prodcued by the same means as real art. People are becoming enmeshed in their machines that not only are used by artists, but can contain some form of artistic value. A trained artist could just as easily produce the 'reality' of TV as well as confrontational art, utilizing the same tools for both!

Falling

Artist's Statement

My piece simply titled "Falling" shows the process of me falling in two different situations. The first image tells the story of me waking up and falling out of bed and then proceeding with my morning routine. The second image shows me supposedly walking to class or the library, but at the top of the stairs (for one reason or another) i lose my balance and fall all the way back down. Each process of both these actions is part of the image so that you can see the stages of 'falling'. This piece doesn't carry too much meaning, but showcases the interesting positions humans assume when they are not in full control of their bodies or acting off instinct. Specifically the mid air shot, and the regaining composure on the chair as well as the whole set of rolling down the stairs. I just find it entertaining how absurd we can look sometimes.

You Tube on the Boob Tube - Wired Magazine.

First of all, i love this guy's method of writing. It sounds as if i'm sitting on a couch with a computer near by and my friends scattered about the room making remarks and speeches on the crazy workings of our society. Also, i love the puns: "descartes before the horse" - lame no doubt, but gives the author a bit more credibility (in my opinion) that he could make an educated pun.

Truth be told, i never thought of YouTube as tearing down or 'exploding' the old ideas of television. I mean, i still use my TV to watch shows...when i can. If i can't well i used to be able to watch them in 3 or so installments on youtube. Once youtube hit it big companies began to sue because their property was being broadcast commercial free. Well now if i miss an episode of the Office i'll either go find it on NBC.com, or if i'm feeling the need to spend a few bucks, buy it on itunes. This may not be directly connected to the boom of youtube but it has definitely been aided by its explosion and its promotion of web based viewing.

Hardware is even beginning to adapt. My family recently invested in what is called a 'slingbox' in a sense it acts like a youtube for your home cable, satellite, or tivo recievers. My dad can log on to the slingbox located on top of our home tivo and watch a golf tournament he tivoed from that afternoon while he is sitting in the on call room in the hospital or in an airport or hotel. I have been able to access it and watch The Office when i missed an episode. Its extremely convienent and only recently been introduced, i would say, because of the success of youtube and such sights as NBC, Fox, and Comedy Central (to name a few) who place their shows online.

Is this scary? I think so, even though as a consumer i promote it. This media obbsession provides ours of destraction and brain meltingly stupid entertainment. Sure these can be used to promote learning, art, etc... but more often than not, they just give a stage for copycats, self promoting fools, and the already substantial U.S. media system.

The New Yorker - Damn Spam

I've never thought of spam as 'Free Speech', but the type of spam i get can barely be considered speech. I can understand the computer advertisement as being protected, its almost like a billboard. Its simple, Polite, Grammatically correct. The stuff i get is barely intelligible.

Wow, thats a lot of spam. I would agree though, any limitation on the number of content of emails would seem to violate free speech. I think we'll just have to learn to live with it. Now the spiderbots and viruses that make spaming easier, thats definitely illegal so i have no problem ridding the web of those, but how? I have no idea.

Commercial Break - wired?

In my opinion, Chevy's idea was a bad one. First of all they shouldn't have had a completely open way to view ever uploading. Of course malignant entries would be submitted. If they controlled what entries showed up on the website they could pick the good ones and it wouldn't have been a huge problem. Also the idea of pre made clips is nice, but if thats all the users had to work with, thats barely interaction. Converse, though they had substantially fewer entries, handled their ads correctly (in my opinion).

The idea of user made ads is intriguing. Some times i enjoy them, but still a good superbowl ad just can't be beat. If i want to see something the guy down the street made i'll go to youtube. If i'm going to have to watch commercials i want them to be 'good'.

Lonelygirl15 - Wired Magazine

I went to the Lonelygirl site and watched some of the videos. Maybe it was just that i didn't want to start homework, but i was sucked in. It was so simple and seemed extremely plausible. Sure this 16ish year old girl could set up a video blog. Even her mentioning Hawking and the other physicist seem realistic enough because she spoke about them in simple enough language that she didn't seem too smart for her age and personality. In short, the facade was extremely believable and i can understand why so many people were sucked into the 'show'.

If the this seemingly completely realistic cosmos can be created, does that mean it should be massed produced as THE 'web medium' I'm not sure. I believe that the web is definitely a huge medium, but not necessarily in the fashion of Lonelygirl. Not that Lonelygirl is, in itself, bad, but that the web allows for so much freedom i would hate to see hundreds of Lonelygirl copycats. Maybe just the aspect of audience participation could be spread across web films, but the idea of this created but believed reality i fear would have the same affect on the web as 'reality tv' did on television. The web allows more freedom than any other medium, and i think that should be the key to web films, creativity. Red vs. Blue promoted the art of "Machinima" to a wide audience (video games serving as the tool of film making). The many popular Flash based videos of the early 2000s and 2004 especially with "our land" were huge hits. Innovation i think is key to the web film, not necessarily interaction.

The Medium is the Massage

This is a response to "The Medium is the Massage" (film)

The film "The Medium is the Massage" by Marshall Mcluhan is a very interesting documentary, if it should be called that, on how society exists with all the current and past mediums "massaging us" or "roughing us up". To quote McLuhan "a medium is not something neutral, it roughs you up" Mcluhan makes a claim which i found very true, when ever a new medium arises, a medium that tends to interact with the public frequently, the public tends to live in the recent past. McLuhan's example was when suburbia started to come into existence all across the nation, people "lived in Bonanza" land.

Another wonderful point made by Mr. McLuhan is that most new medium's tend to use the old mediums as content. For proof, just look at the majority of our class's Frankenstein monsters, they almost all incorporated older paintings of people or limbs.

McLuhan mentions how "everyone is involved in everyone" and that recalled our earlier reading on the railroad. The railroad allowed physical connections between cities states and countries, and following closely behind that the telegraph which allowed for an information connection that eventually stretched over the atlantic ocean. It seems that as time goes on we humans enmesh ourself more and more with these systems of interaction and information. Now we have phones, cars, planes, the internet etc... that seems to put (as advertisers love to say) 'the world in the palm of our hand' Everything is here at the touch of a button and the flip of a switch. McLuhan says that "the world is made of simultaneous relationships"- everything happens now. All we want is the result, we have cut out the process (in many situations).

I never really considered Television to "require participation", but then the example of President Kennedy's funeral and all of a sudden i had to agree. It does make sense, why do people get so addicted to tv shows? They invest themselves in the experiences and the characters. In a superficial way, they are experiencing a different life than their own.

McLuhan's film brings up many issues that alert the public to the trends and realities that new media's especially television have on our lives.

Artist Statement

My piece (which is as of now untitled) is a large messy collage of modern technological, mechanical and media based items forming a large ape-ish creature. The foremost hind leg is compiled of mainly consumer transportation. The other hind leg is composed of watches, timers, and clocks. The foremost front leg is made up of personal computers, cell phones, headphones, cables and circuitry. The other front leg is composed of military items such as rifles, tanks, submarines etc... The body is composed of many layers including pills, newspapers, small advertisements, microscopic images from an ESM, and if you look closely close up shots of gears. The head is contrastingly very simple. It consists of a scanned face from a banner, then over-layed with a filtered plastic bag and close ups on the underside of CDs for the eyes. The creature itself is walking on a temperature map of the United States.

My thoughts going in to this were how we as humans are almost modern 'frankenstien-ian' monsters. Before we leave the room we check: for our cell phone and car keys. Before we go to bed we take our pills. Our tool for telling the time as well as communicating with others has become a fashion statement. Our media is drenched with images of war and the machines that enable it. In a sense these are the external devices or ideas that i 'wear on my sleeves' every day and they impact my life one way or another. Here they have joined together to create a monster that roams the US as we do. It is as if everyone through up one item that they keep on them and it built this creature over the nation. The Face is contrastingly simple because though technology increases the ideas behind it remains simple. We want to communicate faster. We need to get from A to B. We need to protect ourselves. We need to know what time of day it is. We need to survive. Simple needs with complex tools.

Intention and Artiface

The article 'Intention and Artifice' focuses on the reality or lack there of in the world of Photography. This article was extremely intriguing and discussed a lot of important questions. On page 3 the writer makes a statement that i really loved in referring to what photography actually is, calling it "fossilized light." That phrase just stuck in my mind and i thought it perfect. Usually we think of photographs as solid objects but it is really just a freeze-frame of how our eyes absorb the light of a certain scene.

Later the author mentioned that for many conventional artists (painters, sculptors, etc...) "truth had really been another word for convention" That statement works perfectly with the still images of the horse running. The popular opinion of horses being completely off the ground at moments of their run was destroyed by the high-speed still frames of a horse showing at least one foot always on the ground. Does that really make the paintings of horses suspended in the air any less beautiful or realistic? My opinion is no. Sure it is not actually possible, but thats one of paintings strong points. It can make images look extremely real even though they technically are not possible.

Along this lines of 'what is real', the story about how a cement factory explosion was passed off as the russian nuclear reactor. With the ability to capture real images in a sequence that displays events happening (film), the human brain is able to be tricked again. Very few people know what a nuclear plant really looks like especially when its exploding. I think its interesting that in the age of film and broadcast news the necessity for the visual information is so great that if the real image can't be found another one will be substituted. 

The story about the russian farmers substituted for vietnam POWs shocked me. I didn't know it was possible at that point in time to manipulate photos so extensively. What really shocked me though was that i could tell the picture was messed up some how. It just didn't look write, the middle man's face was not proportional. I suppose thats a testament to the age i grew up in that i can look at a photo and tell 'i think that has been doctored'.

Near the end of the article George Lucas makes a statement that both scared and excited me (I also really like George Lucas). Anyway, he mentioned that we won't be able to comprehend now what will be happening to still images in the future. First thought: 'Wow, there could be some really cool things', but on second thought:'the line between reality and what is shown could be so blurred that they become indistinguishable, and that scares me.'

The Railway Journey

These few sections from The Railway Journey primarily focus on the change in culture and society due to the invention of the passenger train and the emergence of mass transportation.

I, having grown up in cars and airplanes, never thought about how much of a change that would be to all of a sudden be able to travel long distances without much effort. To imagine what they felt like i tried to envision 'teleportation' or some other sci-fi type transportation being possible. The traveling would be almost instantaneous and as convenient as that would be, I would miss the experience of 'traveling' as i know it. I would not be able to see the road unfolding before me or look down and count the swimming pools or city lights as i flew in a plane. I guess, if those experiences didn't happen any more i would feel like I lost something and that the distance between my point A and point B didn't exist. Now i would know intellectually that yes there is space between my home and the university. But experientially, i would have no real proof, understanding, or feeling of that space.

In the second chapter, the author discusses the new way of seeing life and nature through the train's window. Though travelers are not fully experiencing the natural world, that doesn't mean the experiences they are having are any less Real. These high speed trains allow citizens to view nature at high speeds. This can be both good or bad depending on the viewers particular tastes and attitudes. 

What i really liked about this reading was how it questioned technology. Yes, being able to get from A to B or C quickly and with relatively no effort can be a great aid to many human endeavors. But that also has a huge downside. As stated, towns lose their secluded nature, domestic products shipped abroad are no longer a key attraction for your specific town, etc... Technology has immense effects on society and culture, but we as humans see any innovation that makes life 'easier' as 'progress' and that must be good. This just makes me think, is my life truly better because of technology? I don't know.

reading 1

I liked this summary of the artistic side of the dot com and silicon valley boom etc… of the 80s and 90s. I knew little about the events from a standard historical prospective, but the article filled me in enough on that subject as well so i could better understand the artist’s side. I was surprised that video games were mentioned as much as they were in the beginning of the text. The relationship between pop art and ‘new media’ art was very interesting. Pop art used the designs, symbols and techniques of the main stream media. That then reversed itself with the new media artists they used the web to create abstract and web based art. The web and imaging programs etc to create art: http://brandon.guggenheim.org/ the web has become not only a tool but a medium as well. One of my favorite pieces was the hack of the video game. The mention of the magnet on the t.v. explained (at least to me) the meaning behind the project. Watching this technology that we have learned to live with and sometimes need, struggle for life due to interference or corruption is an interesting concept, like watching an animal struggle to survive or escape a predator. These devices have become so ingrained in our lifestyles that they are a type of ‘pet’ and watching them struggle and malfunction evokes a certain pity. http://www.eai.org/eai/tape.jsp?itemID=7984 

New media art being used as a protest tool as well as interactive art in ‘Floodnet’ was very interesting. Art has been a form of rebellion and protest for ages and floodnet’s concept though i don’t fully understand how it functions seems like a more force-full protest style than say performance art on the street or traditional painting/drawing/sculpting.  https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/display/MarkTribe/Electronic+Disturbance+Theater 

By far my favorite piece mentioned in this article was Shredder 1.0. Chaos has long been a standing tradition in art and breaking down society’s standard web pages with shredder showing and super imposing codes and simple images from the site is to say the least a great release. Breaking down a websites order and utility even if its through a program and not really harming the site, allows the viewer to see the frailty and even the complexity of the all respected ‘web’.  http://www.potatoland.org/shredder/shredder.html