Poster

Here is my poster designed in Photoshop to advertise my short film!

Narrative Video Promotional Website

Here is a link to the website I made for this class to advertise my narrative video!

 Click Here to View My Website

 I went for a high-tech aesthetic featuring my video, the crew, behind the scenes, and a page that features another webpage I made with a myriad of videos I made which you can play in any order, or all at the same time if you wish.  Please check it out if you so desire!

Jane Livingston, I Presume.

There is a dialogue from Jane Livingston on page 271 that discusses the relationship between artists with creative endeavors and advancing technology.  The beginning paragraph sums up her topic very astutely: "One of the fundamental dualisms inherent in the question of technology's uses in a humanist context has to do with the conflict between the belief that, in a word, technology is the metaphysics of this century, and therefore has to be accommodated from within, and the view that technology is somehow self-perpetuating, implacable and essentially inhuman, and that therefore humanist and artistic endeavor must function separated from it and even in opposition to it."  This seems to be an issue relevant today, still, even though this dialogue is from 1971.  Perhaps even more so as technology continually advances and rises in prominence everywhere around the world.

Sculpture Art Feature: LOTR Meets Kitty Scratchpost

I wanted to show this amazing rendition of famous movie sets that have been used for something completely different, changing the meaning, perception, and appreciation of the original works because of this new creative art piece.

Above is a replica of Bag End, the famous hobbit hole from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the tower of Sauron with a catnip-eye of Sauron on top.  These replicas were specifically designed for cats to play with, the hobbit hole serving as a hideaway/litter-box holder, and the tower as a legitimately intricate scratching post.  These items were undoubtedly built with the help of computers, printers, paint, various materials, and references to the real sets from the movie.  The tower's shape was designed with foam, which was then wrapped in a tremendous amount of rope that was painted black.  I think this would be a really interesting project to learn how to do.     

Nam June Paik, Art Satellite (1984)

On page 233 of our book there is a dialogue of Nam Jun Paik, and he referenced an interesting quote about discovering new things.  "Yes, it was the midst of so-called material progress and the discovery of new Things...Poincare pointed out that what was being discovered was not new THINGS but merely the new RELATIONSHIPS between things already existing."  And I thought it was interesting how he went on to say "we are again in the fin de siecle...this time we are discovering much new software...which are not new things but new thinks...and again we are discovering and even weaving new relationships between many thinks and minds...we are already knee-deep in the post industrial age."   

Youtube Artists

While an obvious and possibly redundant topic,Youtube certainly cannot be ignored when it comes to artists portraying their work through video platform.  Youtube has allowed everything from singing, blogging, dancing, instrumental music, sketching, and a myriad of other subjects to become career opportunities solely by using Youtube videos as the launchpad.


This artist, Taylor Davis, plays violin because it is her passion.  Her other passion is video gaming.  She mixed the two into a distinct career making video game soundtrack violin covers on Youtube.  Because of her success as a Youtube violinist she is now starting to tour around the world so she can play live concerts for the very people who support her on Youtube, while making more fans, recognition, and most likely income.





I think we can conclude Youtube can be used to jump start just about anything.  Therefore, we should always be keeping it mind as we go about our DTC lives...also Patreon, Vimeo, and others are pretty neat too if you are biased against Youtube or want to use multiple platforms.

Reading Response (202-228)

Reading parts 1 and 2 of an interview with Gillette and Ira Schneider let me to see some personal insights on what it was like to work with film and tape recorders when they were just emerging as a medium.  When Frank was at Fordham university he gained access to video equipment including two studio cameras, two portable cameras, two playback decks, and two moniters to do with them whatever he wanted and this served as his introduction to videotape.
      Ira's first experiences with videotape came out of the desire to get "sync sound", which I am not quite certain what that is, but Ira expresses that videotaping was a much better option to achieve it.

Reading Response (193-202)

The American Museum of Natural History collaborated with NCSA to create The Search for Life, Are We Alone?  The Search for Life piece is basically a virtual tour of the Mily Way galaxy, utilizating one of the biggest computers at the time (2002), a virtual software team, using flight paths through data to create tours users can experience.  I think art with a definite purpose is usually really engaging.  In this case people can learn about the position of elements in our solar system, even if they don't find life on other planets!

Reading Response (166-193)

On page 170 Shanken highlights an installation called Breath.  Breath measures the viewr's breathing regularity and speed by using sensors.  The information is then fed through a computer and displayed on a screen as a wall of polygons that morph according to the patterns.  Steady breathing allows the polygons to expand and grow, while inconstancy causes them to retreat back to original size.  This piece apparently analyzes the biological functions and forms of the human body and how most functions work unconsciously.  They observe that when we do try to focus on those functions, like breathing, it can through us off a bit which means it is great they function on their own.

Reading Response (111-166)

Page 144 features a piece of art that was actually made a computer programs to make art based on the process an artist goes through in their mind while creating art.  This program, AARON, is deemed to be an artificially intelligent artist that continually creates its "own" art.  Though this is an extremely interesting concept, I don't see this as a step towards real "artificial intelligence" as people define it today, like you'd see in sci-fi movies.  This is because in the end, someone had to have created the initial code, the algorithms, the hardware, everything that goes into a computing device no matter how intricate.  I mention this because the artist is calling it the "artificially intelligent artist", which, while it works for the piece and is fascinating, I wonder how long people will be using this term in art and technology?

Reading Response (96-140)

An interesting art piece is found on page 125 of Art and Electronic Media.  It is called La Plissure du texts (The Pleating of the Text).  This was a collaborative effort conducted in 1863 where artists in Australia, Europe and North America each logged into a computer network called Artex over the course of three weeks and contributed to a an unfolding story.  By doing this it is determined that the authorship of the work is split between multiple artists and that it was the "only medium really capable of of breaking the barriers of time and space".