Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Marclay/Tinguely Project

Teaming up with Erin McMahon for this project, we tossed around a number of ideas. Due to constraints on time/money/skill-sets, we simply going to tackle a motorized machine. Instead, the end result was a hanging, mobile sculpture composed of fragmented records.

I cut up 16 total records with a Skil saw and then we placed them into our desired pattern. The idea was a deconstructed or explosion of a record, but on a much bigger scale. We kept the outer most pieces rounded, while the center was dense and full of the color labels, leaving a small space where the hole would be.



We then hot glued each fragment to a piece of twine (there was variation from right to left, with the most piece being close to the center). Due to the placement in the hallway, the pattern we originally designed wasn't as obvious, but we really loved the final product.



The feedback we received was also positive and great; their ideas ranged from a more contemporary art piece to a type of rock and rock chandelier. All of the projects were so different, so I'm glad Erin and I stuck with the idea of making a large-scale mobile.

Broken Records

Since the original intention was to play our fragmented records during the BYOB party (in combination with any additional sound from our physical projects), I decided to keep my creation as simple as possible--no pun intended.

The main record I used played the infamous track from the film The Breakfast Club: "Don't Forget About Me", by Simple Minds. I made one straight cut across the bottom so that the song would still be recognizable. The piece used to make the record whole again was from the soundtrack of another popular movie, James Bond's "Live and Let Die" from 1973.

The end result was quite fun and it definitely got stuck in my head!

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Lecture #2

Paola Antonelli believes that “design is the highest form of creative expression”. Antonelli works for MoMA as a senior art curator in the Department of Architecture and Design. While she doesn’t want to label all design as art, she wants to make it known that design is much more than just “cute chairs” and wants to make it known that there is a movement towards digital appropriations of art.

Antonelli brought fourteen classic video games to the MoMA collection and was criticized heavily, as many naysayers stated that simple children’s games didn’t belong next to the works of Picasso and Van Gogh. Antonelli’s intention was not to qualify video games as art, but rather as a major accomplishment in coding and design. Comparing the two is basically idiotic, as they don’t even belong in the same category. Antonelli’s intention was to put forth interactive designs that can have an emotional effect and video games fit her niche perfectly.

Although, just because it’s a video game doesn’t mean that Antonelli thought it could qualify as good design. She specifically left guns out of the collection, since the negative and violent connotations are very literal when it comes to design—which is very unlike art. Computer games like the Sims, which allow the user to create and maintain a virtual reality, involve high levels of human interaction, personalization, and were very attractive to the curator. Overall, Antonelli wants people to understand that video games are an important part of design and not just a nostalgic form of entertainment.

While Antonelli curates art, Amit Sood found a way to share curations like hers online with the world. Wanting to be able to tour famous museums and see works of art from his home, Sood created “Art Project”, which is essentially an online gallery. He worked in conjunction with famous museums (The Met, MoMA, etc.) in order to provide virtual tours of their spaces and was able to upload copies of their specific artworks.

Some of the online files are 10 billion pixels and grant the user the ability to zoom in on the pieces, which isn’t an option when viewing the paintings in person. The details are exceptional. Brushstrokes and small fissures in the paintings are made visible through Sood’s project and the online space is completely customizable; users can save their favorite paintings and add personal notations to them in an effort to fully experience the artwork. Sood made the project as an equalizer and a way for people from any corner of the earth to be able to experience the museums and interact with these infamous portraits and landscapes.

Both Antonelli and Sood talked heavily on the idea of the move towards digital art and the exceedingly important role of human interaction. While they have vastly different projects under their belts, Antonelli and Sood are opening the eye’s of individuals to design and art all across the world.

Works Cited

http://www.ted.com/talks/amit_sood_building_a_museum_of_museums_on_the_web.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/paola_antonelli_why_i_brought_pacman_to_moma.html

BYOB

For the Bring Your Own Beemer party, my video was loosely based on the iconic New York City during Christmastime. Scenes of the installation and lighting of the massive Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center were segmented with some of my favorite scenes from the popular holiday film Elf, by Jon Favreau. Buddy the Elf is new to the Big Apple and wanders around like an tourist in search of Christmas cheer--hilarity ensues.

While edited in full color, the projector connected to my video filtered the footage in black and white. This alteration actually made the piece a little more cohesive and lended a vintage feeling to the more modern movie snippets. The twinkling lights and ice skating scenes window displays looked just a good!

Below is the video in full (the DVD has a looping feature) and the song used is "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone, from the Elf Soundtrack:

Lecture #1

Cory Arcangel is not a very eloquent public speaker, but the passion he has about computer art and his own creations is extremely visible. Arcangel mainly focuses on “disassembling” existing programs or deconstructing physical pieces and recreating them so they become something entirely new. His themes typically touch on the relationship between technology and culture and the artwork is mostly computer generated.

Having been featured in famous museum’s (including the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim), Arcangel’s video game inspired artwork is not to be overlooked. In the piece Super Mario Clouds, he hacked the coding from the Nintendo game Super Mario Bros. and easily removed all the scenery, characters, and just left the plain blue sky, so all the user would see during his installation was the projected image of floating, pixilated clouds.

Arcangel is extremely interested in “open source culture” and likes to recycle, reuse, and steal coding or aesthetics from preexisting materials. Some believe this method is controversial and lazy, since he isn’t exactly making his own totally original content, but the outcome is actually very original. Arcangel plays with simple programming and makes creative videos of leftover RAM taken from the users who have logged into public computers. The pieces are showcased on his website and they turn what he calls “garbage” into compelling and outsourced works of art. People respond to images that they are familiar with, so his work with video games and computers is very popular.

Unlike most artists, Arcangel also draws inspiration directly from other artists (including Douglas Gordon and John Simon) with pride, rather than shame or embarrassment. He loves the artwork that these individuals have done, so he applies their techniques to his own outlets and is able to create very comical, tongue-in-cheek videos productions. Adding to the controversy surrounding Arcangel’s art, this type of replication can be deemed unoriginal. However, in his talk, Arcangel attributes where his ideas come from with complete earnestness.

Arcangel’s outlook on digital art is very positive and he says near the end of his lecture that “I like it…you can’t get mad when people appropriated what you appropriated”. In a competitive world, it’s refreshing for him to be so open and not possessive over his art work and make demands over copyrighted material, etc. Artists should take note of Arcangel’s humble attitude to make the world of digital media a lot less stuffy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzHq7PzQWEE

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Exhibit #1

Reno Little Theater presents Intellectuals, a contemporary play by Scott C. Sickles that centers on the budding, touching, and often hilarious romantic relationships of three main characters: Margot, Philip (a married psychologist and professor, respectively), and Brighton, their dearest friend slash flamboyant film professor.

This play was done in the round, so the audience could see the actors at all times and from any vantage point as soon as they stepped into the arena. Since the audience was seated on all four sides of the stage, there were a few moments that weren't visible to everyone, but it wasn't that distracting due to the projection and volume that the actors used to deliver their often hilarious lines. The staging was very particular and circular, moving the audience’s focus clockwise—essentially in a spiral over the course of the first act, ending in the center, and then in reverse order until the “curtain” closes—by utilizing careful blocking, lighting, and Spartan props.

The lighting typically focused on the small portion of the stage where the dialogue was going on. There was no backdrop to rely on and the production was forced to be more creative in the lighting department. Limiting any flashy colors really helped put all the focus on the acting and crossing story lines, which was very considerate. Essentially, all the effects were used just as the lighting, plain and simply in order to really show off the script and actors. Such a bare stage can sometimes be boring to look at, but the entire audience was howling with laughter and could really experience the emotional portions as well.

Intellectuals was a really excellent production. Touching on heavy topics with comedy and sincerity is not an easy task, but the cast and crew pulled it off almost flawlessly. The setup of the stage and definite blocking choices helped unravel the story with great clarity.

Friday, November 8, 2013

Audio Tour

My audio tour took place on the bridge that faces Manzanita Lake and was designed to transport the listener across the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. A good portion of the sounds were recorded at my house and on campus, while the unattainable sound effects were found through sources online. The one constant throughout the piece was the sound of trickling water--except during the Winter segment when there was no ambient sound, as the water would be frozen or drained. I also edited all the traffic sounds so that they would be consistent with the setting and were heard only through the left speaker (the closest street is to the west of the lake when the listener is facing north). I originally had a track of descriptive dialogue, but decided it was way too distracting and would be more effective to listen to only the sounds of nature.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Video Stream

For this live performance, Erin McMahon and I co-produced a soundtrack of our childhoods during the 1990s. For the visual portion, we gave in to our nostalgia: popping bubblegum, playing with our favorite toys, and reminiscing over once-popular paraphernalia.



Here is the result of the live stream during class:



Sunday, October 20, 2013

Video Triptych

Here is a video compilation of the triptych that I filmed and edited with Erin McMahon. We were inspired by a Lewis Carroll poem "How Doth the Little Crocodile", found in the novel Alice in Wonderland.

Each video sequence is directed towards the theme of the poem, which is how dangerous things may be masked by beauty. The left video depicts a female primping and applying makeup to look pretty, but is holding a knife. The center video is a lip reading of the poem with a musical track and the video on the right shows a fancy meal being prepared and poisoned.

The video was edited in Adobe Premiere CC and shot with a tripod and handheld, Panasonic video camera.



Recorded Sounds

Below are my three favorite 30 second recordings. The first two are snippets from The Social Network, which received a well-deserved Oscar for Best Original Score in 2010, and the third is a recording taken while typing and browsing the internet.

1. Social Network


2. Social Network, Rowing Scene


3. Typing


The next two sounds come from the final version of my video triptych and are iconic. The crunching of garlic bread and exceedingly familiar glug of pouring a glass of wine.

4. Garlic Bread


5. Wine


Monday, September 9, 2013

YouTube Mixer

Here is a screenshot of the absolute final edition of my YouTube Mixer, "Breakfast at Emma's". The videos were edited with Sony Vegas over several hours. It was inspired by my unwavering love of all things breakfast.



Thursday, September 5, 2013