Monday, December 14, 2015

Mary Flanagan Web Lecture Review

Mary Flanagan had a lecture talk in 2004 and it was posted onto Columbia universities YouTube page. Listen to Mary Flanagan give her talk it was interesting. In her talk she started by talk about he history of other artists and what they did. Flanagan mentioned Yoko Ono and her construction painting and how she saw Ono’s work like pseudo code and how it is like a basis before moving to more of the digital aspect. I thought that this was interesting on how she likes to relate coding into her work.
Another artist that she mentioned was Tony Conrad and his work called flicker. Flanagan said that when you watch make sure that you don’t have epilepsy. I looked up Conrad’ s work and it definitely has a lot of flashing lights. I thought that it was interesting how Flanagan liked his work because it was evoking some kind of response and that is what she wants to do in her work.
One of Flanagan’s works is her project called: The Adventure of Josie true. I looked it up and found it to be something that I had never seen before. I found that it was really interactive and that most of the projects that she works on are interactive videos. She likes how things can be interactive like computer games and observing how they have evolved and can continue to evolve throughout time.
She talked about some of her other projects that she is working on. She mentioned one project that she is work on with someone about how people send emails. She wants to map the emails that people send to people and create a sound projects based on what people are corresponding with.  In her projects I feel like she really makes her projects be personal and I think that it really shows in her work. As an example one of her projects she said was about a story from her childhood.
While watching Flanagan talk I found it hard to concentrate because she was kind of all over the place. One minute she would talk about one thing then remember something else and start talking about that. When she did start talking about her projects halfway through her talk was very interesting and enjoyed listening to it.

Overall I am glad that I listened to her talk and got to her about the artists that influenced her work and to learn about her projects that she has worked on.

Dexterity Exhibition Review

Dexterity is an Art Exhibition that is for students only. All students can submit their art pieces to be considered to be in the Exhibition. This year there were many students who entered their work for consideration.

Among some of the work was Art 345 Sound and Image diptychs. It was really cool to see our works in the Exhibition and I thought that it was nice to see the hard work that everyone put into their video and have them be able to be viewed by other people.

I thought that it was really cool that we got Kevin B. Chen the San Francisco based curator and artist to come to our campus to curate and judge the works. I have researched some of his work and he is extremely talented, we were lucky to have him come.  

One of my favorite works in the Exhibition was Jena Valenzuela’s piece. I really enjoyed it because it showed how people on Instagram really care about what they look like and they watch these videos on how to apply certain makeup. Jena really embraced the aspect and tried it herself and made her own videos. I like how she displayed the piece with the two iPhones right next to each other, and having the audio heard only through headphones I also liked because it made me feel like I was more immersed in what I was watching and didn’t get distracted by the people around me.  I was really impressed on how well Jena was able to match up the two phones to be in sync with each other it definitely made it flow well. I was really excited to hear that Jena won a $100 award for her piece of art she deserved it.

Throughout the exhibition there were other types of art works besides digital media. There were many paintings and sculptures and it was exciting to see how the art students on campus were so talented. I also liked the dinosaur made put of cardboard at the back of the exhibition I thought that it was cool and different.

Overall I really enjoyed the exhibition and was glad that I got to see all the amazing talent at the school.


Sunday, December 13, 2015

Click Pops Exhibition Review

The Click Pops Exhibition is title Sound Art New Only in Name and includes works from the artists Clint Sleeper, Jean-Paul Perrotte, Robert Morrison, Tohm Judson, and Carol Burch-Brown. The first piece you notice when you walk into the exhibition is Clint sleepers. It is a video where is throws dirt onto different instruments and creates a unique sound. This piece was interesting and nothing that I have ever seen before. I liked the display of the piece, the dirt and speakers where displayed in front of the video. It gave it more of a 3D effect.
         The next piece was a combinations of videos done by different artists some of the artists where students from the school. Luckily mine was one of the videos in the collection. The students videos where chosen because they where created in a combined class with John-Paul Perrotte and Clint Sleeper which class I was able to take. These videos where fascinating to watch, I have never seen them without audio before. In order to hear the audio you had to listen to the headphones.
         Following the last display is an interactive display created by Jean-Paul Perrotte and Robert Morrison. Morrison had created these metal bowls that when hit they would each create the same noise but at different pitches. Morrison asked Perrotte to help work on it with him and Perrotte came up with a way of getting the bowls to be hit randomly, while some of the other bowls could be hit with the viewers observing the display.
         The final display piece in the exhibition was by Tohm Judson and Carol Burch-Brown. This piece was a video of marshlands and the animals in it. The video had different effect and the audio was interesting as well. The thing I liked most about this piece was the display and how there was three panels of cloth that the video was projected on. It gave it a very different perspective and unique illusion.
         Overall I enjoyed this exhibition and thought that is was well executed as to the pieces in the exhibition and the arrangement.




         

Click Pops Lecture Talk Review

The Click Pops Talk had the artists talk about their career and their work in the exhibition Click Pops, Sound Art: New Only in Name. The first artist to talk was Brett Van Hosen and talked about different artists throughout history. Next to talk was Jean Paul Perrote and he talked about the reason why he named the exhibition Click Pops. The reason why he named it that was because while he was working in Germany his friend asked him to describe to him what his works sounded like, and Jean Paul explained that it is a bunch of clicks and pops.

Jean Paul also talked about a piece that is in the exhibition and it is a composition that he worked on with Psychologist Dr. Gideon Caplovitz. They worked on a composition that was completely composed with an EEG machine. He explained that they hooked up an EEG machine to someone and the computer would map the brain waves and send signals to two computers in order to randomly create the sounds that were composed. They performed that composition live on stage and I thought that this was very fascinating that they creative this individual composition based on someone’s brain.

The next artist that talked was Robert “bob” Morrison, he has been teaching for 47 years and his primary work is wired sculptures. He focused on the objected quality of the occupied space with dimension and perspective. Morrison said that his Brother had an influence on his work that he created. Morrison was looking for his pieces to have a sound that would surround the space that he wanted. He talked about one of his pieces where he had 36 beds in a huge space and used that as his piece.

Dr. Louis Niebur was the next to talk and talked about the history of sound and how they were created to make certain sounds. He talked about the BBC Radio workshop and how Delia Derbyshire was the pioneer of that special sound. I really liked what Niebur talked about he played us sounds that I didn’t know how they were made. He even played the Doctor Who theme song, I was not expecting to hear that and to discover how it was made was very interesting to me.

The last to talk was Tohm Judson and his talk was very interesting. He definitely had his own opinion on what he thought Digital art should be. He was very blunt when he talked and he explained that if you enjoy it for 10 seconds or 8 hours than it is art. He likes his viewers to enjoy themselves so he likes to have his pieces be somewhat interactive. I will say that his work is interesting and I do like the ambition that he has but I feel like it was a lot to handle.


Overall the talk was very interesting and I feel like I learned more about sound art that I did not know before the talk.



Update #12 on Final Project

On Monday Dec. 7th the class had an exhibition on campus and this is where I got to display my video.

I think the the exhibition went really well and it was very interesting. Everybody's work was placed all over campus. 

People came to my display and I think that it went well. I took some pictures of people watching my video. However since my video was 27 min. long nobody stayed for the whole entire video. 







Overall I enjoyed making this video and it was interesting to have people watch it on display. 


Update #11 on Final Project

Since finishing the video I have uploaded it up onto youtube. I don't know why but it took over 3 hrs just to upload it onto youtube. Once the video uploaded I had to work on making the video interactive. The interactive part of the video is in the beginning and middle of the video. I wanted to originally include more interactive features however I feel that it would have made the video to long. I think that there is an good amount of the video being interactive. The viewer can choose which level they want to start at hard, medium, or easy. The way I edited the video is that if the viewer does not choose a level then the video will continue to play and will start with hard then medium and then easy. The next interactive option is in the medium level where the viewer can choose if they want to go to the movies or to a football game. The interactiveness of the video is there but it is not to overwhelming to where it takes away from the plot of the video to show the struggles of Rheumatoid Arthritis.

I have decided to name the video : I want to but...

I named it this because it basically describes the video and my life. All the time I want to go somewhere or do something but I can't because it might be to painful or difficult to do because I have Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Here is the video:



Update #10 on Final Project

I have finished editing the video and it has come to about 30 min. long. I worked on the music for the video. I decided that I don't want any audio from the original clip. I want the audio to be just a nice music in the background. I want the music to go with the mood of the video. I think that this will help the video and the emotion that I want people to feel when watching it. After completing the music I was able to get the video down to about 27 min. I still think that it is quite long but the flow of the video and the transitions between the different levels works really well.

Update #9 on Final Project

I have recorded all of the footage that I need for my video. I am working on editing it and making it a length that I think will be acceptable, something that is not to long or to short. All of the footage is over an hour long and I think based on all of the difficulty levels that I want in the video I am hoping that I will be able to get the video to be around 30 mins or less. So far the 1st level of the video is about 10 min. long. I am thinking that it should be shorter and that it might be too long but I really want the video to be real and authentic to the time that it takes to do certain things with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I am still trying to figure out what I want to do with the audio and if there should be background music or not.

Update #8 on Final Project

I have been contemplating on a location as to where I want to put my video on display and I want to have it in the glass area in the CFA building right next to the outdoor stairs. I think that this will be a good location because it is in the middle of campus and it is also in a obscure space that gets some foot traffic but not to much that people won't be able to stay and watch. I have looked for a plug and unfortunately there is not one in the room however there is one outside so I will need to bring a long extension cord. Since my project will be on youtube I will need to plug in my laptop and a projector. In the room I will be projecting my video onto the white wall in the room.

Update #7 on Final Project

I have continued to work on the project collecting more footage and trying different effects. I added some red effects to the video to show that it is painful to do certain things. I though that this would help to emphasize the pain that I am feeling in the video. However after trying this out on a clip I realized that it did not flow very well and made the video seem less real. I realized at this point I want the video to be real and raw with no effects that might hinder the realization of what is happening in the video. The only effects that I will include will be the speed effect of the cars and plane so it does not become boring and distracting from what I want the video to be about.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Update #6 on Final Project

To display my video I want it to be projected onto a wall or screen. I want the computer, speakers, and projector to be hidden in a box type stand. On top of the stand I want there to be a mouse so people can interact with the video. Here is an outline of what I want it to look like:




I think to get the stand I am going to go thrift shopping to see if I can find anything that could work.