Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Today's Art World....
Today's art world is utilizing recent advances in technology to it's fullest extent offering completely new and interactive ways of dealing with the art.
Journal Reading #2
For my second article report from the on-line journal I’ve been following, “Vector Magazine”, since there wasn’t a new issue, I went back to an older issue called, “Perception.” One project stood out in particular from this issue and that was “The Virtual Window Interactive” By Anne Friedberg and designed by Erik Loyer.
The main idea of this project was to show the development of visual stimuli over the past 8 centuries or so by allowing viewers of the project to create different viewing scenarios by bringing up a tab of different ways the scene can be altered. When a scene is created, say a family on the couch watching a T.V., keywords that are derived from the scene start scrolling across the bottom of the screen allowing you to click on them and learn more about the subject. There is also a timeline allowing you to narrow what era the modules are available from.
After interacting with this article, I honestly got hooked and couldn’t really stop experimenting with different ways of combining modules. For so long have I heard the terms used in the project but never really took the time to understand their meanings but this project allows you to do that while seeing them in a more relatable and personal scene created by you the viewer. An example of this might be the different aspect ratio’s that are possible when creating the size of the viewing window. After dragging it to a certain size, you can click on the aspect ratio keyword to see why it’s used and what it’s used for, two things I would have never really spent the time to learn.
The main idea of this project was to show the development of visual stimuli over the past 8 centuries or so by allowing viewers of the project to create different viewing scenarios by bringing up a tab of different ways the scene can be altered. When a scene is created, say a family on the couch watching a T.V., keywords that are derived from the scene start scrolling across the bottom of the screen allowing you to click on them and learn more about the subject. There is also a timeline allowing you to narrow what era the modules are available from.
After interacting with this article, I honestly got hooked and couldn’t really stop experimenting with different ways of combining modules. For so long have I heard the terms used in the project but never really took the time to understand their meanings but this project allows you to do that while seeing them in a more relatable and personal scene created by you the viewer. An example of this might be the different aspect ratio’s that are possible when creating the size of the viewing window. After dragging it to a certain size, you can click on the aspect ratio keyword to see why it’s used and what it’s used for, two things I would have never really spent the time to learn.
Art Encounter: Haggerty Mueseum of Art
For this round of blogs we are to write about two pieces or events that we’ve encountered and explain and interpret how they use sound (or silence). To start off, I’d like to talk about a piece I saw at the Haggerty Museum of Art, Mircea Cantor’s single channel installation Deeparture, made in 2005. The piece is a silent piece which may make it difficult to understand how it’s sound, or lack of there of, really is involved with the piece as well as others.
In Deeparture a deer and a wolf are shown in an isolated white room, walking around together while minding their own business. At the exhibit, the piece was projected onto a large white wall so that the ratio of the picture size was about equal to that of the size of the animals in real life granted this was not the same for the close-up shots. The silence of this piece however was what really made this piece allow the viewer to become so involved. As I watched the piece, I was forced to create the sounds in my own mind. This is where I found the empty space the animals to be in to be quite provoking. Since there were no external noises or ambient sounds from the empty room containing the animals, it became very easy to focus on the individual sounds that the animals could only create in that space, allowing me to hear every little detail in my own head giving many more realistic characteristics to the piece.
I thought this piece related well with one of the points made in the writings of Aaron Ximm saying, “Composition is (tautologically) constrained by the range of sounds (and their properties) that we can produce, control, or affect, and by the limits of our ability to transfer or encode (inscribe) those things” (page 42). I found that when you applied it to this piece, that when you take away everything in the piece that does constrain our inner ability to hear these sounds, it becomes much easier to produce them, allowing the installations to be silent like this one.
I also want to talk about Aaron Ximm’s The Quiet American and how many of his pieces can relate to another point in Ximm’s writings. Ximm says, “Doors opened as I discovered what my tools could do; they closed according to what seemed the natural source of judgment: my ears. What pleased them I kept; what displeased them I discarded.” If there was one thing that I noticed right away was the steady progressing and layering of sounds. In the track titled “Malaria”, I think Ximm’s style of composing was very apparent. It seemed as I listened to the track I could sort of tell where Ximm was going to add a new sound or change all the sounds completely which I think is due to the underlying rhythm Ximm creates when making these compositions.
In Deeparture a deer and a wolf are shown in an isolated white room, walking around together while minding their own business. At the exhibit, the piece was projected onto a large white wall so that the ratio of the picture size was about equal to that of the size of the animals in real life granted this was not the same for the close-up shots. The silence of this piece however was what really made this piece allow the viewer to become so involved. As I watched the piece, I was forced to create the sounds in my own mind. This is where I found the empty space the animals to be in to be quite provoking. Since there were no external noises or ambient sounds from the empty room containing the animals, it became very easy to focus on the individual sounds that the animals could only create in that space, allowing me to hear every little detail in my own head giving many more realistic characteristics to the piece.
I thought this piece related well with one of the points made in the writings of Aaron Ximm saying, “Composition is (tautologically) constrained by the range of sounds (and their properties) that we can produce, control, or affect, and by the limits of our ability to transfer or encode (inscribe) those things” (page 42). I found that when you applied it to this piece, that when you take away everything in the piece that does constrain our inner ability to hear these sounds, it becomes much easier to produce them, allowing the installations to be silent like this one.
I also want to talk about Aaron Ximm’s The Quiet American and how many of his pieces can relate to another point in Ximm’s writings. Ximm says, “Doors opened as I discovered what my tools could do; they closed according to what seemed the natural source of judgment: my ears. What pleased them I kept; what displeased them I discarded.” If there was one thing that I noticed right away was the steady progressing and layering of sounds. In the track titled “Malaria”, I think Ximm’s style of composing was very apparent. It seemed as I listened to the track I could sort of tell where Ximm was going to add a new sound or change all the sounds completely which I think is due to the underlying rhythm Ximm creates when making these compositions.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Journal Reading
The first article I read and interacted with on the Vector on-line magazine was "The Virtual Window Interactive" by Anne Friedberg. It immediately reminded me of the Korsakow system we used in previous film classes or one of those create-a-scene on-line flash programs. The biggest difference with this piece however is that their are 4 different variables to control but everytime you pick one, different combinations of keywords float across the screen, allowing you to click on them and actually learn about the different apertures or screen sizes.
The second article I interacted with was "Malperception" by Perry Hoberman & Donald Hoffman. This interactive project proposed that visual disorders are just different perceptions that only few people have. The project also had visual demonstrations to go along with the disorders to help you understand the disorder and it's effects.
Concerning what type of media this is, I think both these articles run along the same lines that the Baghdad in No Particular Order did. It's this idea that instead of presenting information in a predetermined way with little to no involvement or interaction, you can allow the information to be available in a way that people want to see it presented. It's also the idea that by clicking something in a module you can learn more about it almost instantaneously giving you that instant satisfaction of seeing and learning about what only catches your eye or interests you.
The second article I interacted with was "Malperception" by Perry Hoberman & Donald Hoffman. This interactive project proposed that visual disorders are just different perceptions that only few people have. The project also had visual demonstrations to go along with the disorders to help you understand the disorder and it's effects.
Concerning what type of media this is, I think both these articles run along the same lines that the Baghdad in No Particular Order did. It's this idea that instead of presenting information in a predetermined way with little to no involvement or interaction, you can allow the information to be available in a way that people want to see it presented. It's also the idea that by clicking something in a module you can learn more about it almost instantaneously giving you that instant satisfaction of seeing and learning about what only catches your eye or interests you.
Act/React Show
After visiting the Milwaukee Art Museum's Act/React exhibit, I was quite amazed by all the exhibits but there were two I found most intriguing. Daniel Rozin's Snow Mirror as well as Scott Snibbe's Deep Walls were easily the two pieces I found to be the most interactive and provocative. Since the exhibit was basically empty except for my two friends and myself it allowed us to get more comfortable and creative in interacting with the exhibits.
Deep Walls was the second piece we ran into and my personal favorite. We soon realized that the screen held the most recent sixteen scenes in it's frame and from there tried to make overall themes of the piece, such as by making alternating rows of videos of us running left to right or right to left directions. I think a line from the information card for this piece best captures one of the greatest underlying ideas of this piece saying, "We may no longer believe that photography captures our soul, but having our shadows trapped is an experience that might give us pause." In my opinion the piece really did this and in a way made me somewhat think of the pictures in fantasy novels that were moving images of their friends and families.
Snow Mirror was the next piece we interacted with and were a little thrown off at first. Unlike the last one, we had to stand still to bring out the best in this piece. We were soon positioning ourselves so that our heads were taking up the entire screen and allowing the snow to fall and create beautiful portraits of our faces. I found this piece's true meaning to be that it's like watching the progressive building and creating of a piece in an almost instantaneous time. After standing in front of the screen for only few seconds, a snowy portrait is created that is 100% original and never been done before.
When asked to compare these pieces I immeadiately thought they were very different. In Deep Walls it requires movement, in whatever form it may be, to create the piece whereas in Snow Mirror you need to be standing still for full interaction with the piece. However they were both similar, as with all the interactive exhibits, because they both created pieces that were like I said before, completely original and can in no way be identically duplicated.
Relating this to the essay by George Fifield I thought of the part where Fifield talks about the introduction of the projector. Fifield says, "With the projector, the installation could become an immersive environment. The projectors immersive capability allowed interactive artists to create virtual stage sets." Both of the installations I talked about utilized the capability of the projector, to what I believe is to some of the fullest extent.
Deep Walls was the second piece we ran into and my personal favorite. We soon realized that the screen held the most recent sixteen scenes in it's frame and from there tried to make overall themes of the piece, such as by making alternating rows of videos of us running left to right or right to left directions. I think a line from the information card for this piece best captures one of the greatest underlying ideas of this piece saying, "We may no longer believe that photography captures our soul, but having our shadows trapped is an experience that might give us pause." In my opinion the piece really did this and in a way made me somewhat think of the pictures in fantasy novels that were moving images of their friends and families.
Snow Mirror was the next piece we interacted with and were a little thrown off at first. Unlike the last one, we had to stand still to bring out the best in this piece. We were soon positioning ourselves so that our heads were taking up the entire screen and allowing the snow to fall and create beautiful portraits of our faces. I found this piece's true meaning to be that it's like watching the progressive building and creating of a piece in an almost instantaneous time. After standing in front of the screen for only few seconds, a snowy portrait is created that is 100% original and never been done before.
When asked to compare these pieces I immeadiately thought they were very different. In Deep Walls it requires movement, in whatever form it may be, to create the piece whereas in Snow Mirror you need to be standing still for full interaction with the piece. However they were both similar, as with all the interactive exhibits, because they both created pieces that were like I said before, completely original and can in no way be identically duplicated.
Relating this to the essay by George Fifield I thought of the part where Fifield talks about the introduction of the projector. Fifield says, "With the projector, the installation could become an immersive environment. The projectors immersive capability allowed interactive artists to create virtual stage sets." Both of the installations I talked about utilized the capability of the projector, to what I believe is to some of the fullest extent.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Field Report #1
This past Saturday, I was able to attend the screening of Charles Burnett’s film, “Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation”. Since we watched another one of Charles Burnett’s films on Monday in class, (“Killer of Sheep”), it offered me a new way to view the film and take into account previous recollections of scenes and styles from the previous film. First, I will just give a brief summary of the screening.
Burnett’s film “Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation” follows the story of Samuel Nujoma, Namibia’s first President. The movie follows him from when he is a teenager all the way up to his formation of the political movement, SWAPO, which in turn “Liberated” Namibia. Through watching this film I found many similarities in style of the two films.
Overall, this film had a much more modern day Hollywood feel to it, obviously because of it’s more recent production, but still carried over that same style of timing of Burnett’s. In “Namibia”, I found that many of the sequences of shots seemed to draw out a little longer than normal with more varied framing of shots just to convey more detail in what was happening in the scene. This reminded me of the scene in “Killer of Sheep” with the men carrying the motor down the stairs and out to the truck. Most of the scene could have been cut out but Burnett seems to do this to illustrate the rigor and strain going on in the scene.
Also upon seeing this film I had this weird perception of the film as if it were nothing more than a Hollywood narrative style version of the “Baghdad in No Particular Order” Video and website that we interacted with, except instead of Baghdad it’s Namibia. I think that something like a narrative film could actually be a third tier or level of something like the “Baghdad” duo.
Burnett’s film “Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation” follows the story of Samuel Nujoma, Namibia’s first President. The movie follows him from when he is a teenager all the way up to his formation of the political movement, SWAPO, which in turn “Liberated” Namibia. Through watching this film I found many similarities in style of the two films.
Overall, this film had a much more modern day Hollywood feel to it, obviously because of it’s more recent production, but still carried over that same style of timing of Burnett’s. In “Namibia”, I found that many of the sequences of shots seemed to draw out a little longer than normal with more varied framing of shots just to convey more detail in what was happening in the scene. This reminded me of the scene in “Killer of Sheep” with the men carrying the motor down the stairs and out to the truck. Most of the scene could have been cut out but Burnett seems to do this to illustrate the rigor and strain going on in the scene.
Also upon seeing this film I had this weird perception of the film as if it were nothing more than a Hollywood narrative style version of the “Baghdad in No Particular Order” Video and website that we interacted with, except instead of Baghdad it’s Namibia. I think that something like a narrative film could actually be a third tier or level of something like the “Baghdad” duo.
Introduction!
My name is Max Larsen from section 602.
I will be following the on-line journal at http://www.vectorsjournal.org/index.php?page=2|1
I will be following the on-line journal at http://www.vectorsjournal.org/index.php?page=2|1
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