Screening Critique

For my lecture screening I chose to do Brett Gaylor’s Rip! A Remix Manifesto. Going into the film I had no idea what to expect, I didn’t even know what it was about in the slightest, no genre, no actors, nothing. So my expectations were non-existent. To be honest when I first began watching the movie I was quite shocked. Knowing that this film was approved as a movie that our class could critique I was confused as to why. I thought it would be all about art and techniques and things along that nature, but watching the film made me realize that there are existent problems with our world and the limits they put onto art, and more importantly, artist’s ability to create art. I had no idea about almost any of that information about copyrighting that the film portrayed. I remember once hearing about the illegal downloading of songs, but I never thought that people were actually prosectuted and hunted down by these major corporations. I thought the film was beautifully done, as the overall point and evidence was extremely clear. I thought it was a huge success especially for the purpose of the movie. From the very beginning the viewer sees the intentions of the film-makers, which I thought was key. The irector gets right to the point and does so successfully with vivid and crucial evidence to support his claim. My favorite part of the film was the Disney aspect. How Disney got so many of its ideas from things in the past and his now copyrighting them to no end so no one else can profit off of the artwork created in our century. The director proved to me that we are spiraling downwards in our culture and our art, music, etc. Copyright laws are killing the modern day artist. When the movie was over I enjoyed it so much that I emailed the director and thanked him for doing what he is. I think copyright laws are an extremely touchy subject and by showing the viewer different countries, and important and powerful people, it truly got me thinking of how big of a problem this truly is and that there is something that we all can do to stop this. I thought the evidence supporting was its best overall feature, along with interviews, opinions, but most of all, factual evidence. In all, I thought the movie was beautifully done and well constructed. Hats-off to the entire crew.

2nd avatar

-i just want to say that i hate the scumbags in second life, i bought 1013 linden dollars to get a darth vader outfit and all it sold me was the fucking object box. bulllshit. anyways this is the avatar i have made for our final project.

for the parts i built, i did the 2 red little lights, one on the front and one on the top of my robot. I built were small red circles and somehow found a way to make them fluorescent. I really like my second avatar, here are the 2 pictures of what i built.

Visual Presentation: Artist Evaluations

            For my chosen artists I decided to pursue and research individuals whose artwork is outside our daily spectrum, outside normal artwork in our society. I wanted art that is tailored towards bending and pushing the extent to which their work can even be called “art.” As I researched numerous candidates I came across two different individuals who fit the criteria I was looking for: Kenneth Rinaldo and Stelarc. As a basis to begin looking I wanted artists that were relevant to today, and used 3-dimensional imaging in some way or another. I decided that regular computer images were not enough for the project, and so, I found these two artists under the category of electronic art. I chose this area because it differentiates and adds another element to the normal regular 2-Dimentional artwork. Luckily enough, I was able to find artists who stretched the boundaries of life itself into art. Kenneth Rinaldo focuses on the nature of animals in our world, and ties the idea and process of ecology into his artwork. Stelarc focuses on the same aspect only with humans and stretching the boundaries of anatomy and combines that into his artwork.

            Kenneth Rinaldo is a professor at Ohio State University. He is a first generation American from New York City. He practiced many other jobs and professions such as an electrician, a sewing machine operator, jazz, steel factory worker, and pursued dancing and business programming applications before realizing, at age 27, that art was his calling. Ken is fascinated with the idea of twisting and manipulating ecology to learn an organism's true capabilities. Currently he is working on a piece that allows fish to control the movement of the bowls in which they reside at the hands of a feather that controls the motor. Kenneth has numerous works that replicate an animal’s lifestyle augmenting  his research from just science and duplicate it into art forms, specializing in emergent systems.

            For my chosen piece of his work, I decided to select his piece titled, Farm Fountain 2008: Edible Ecosystem Sculpture

             This piece is a phenomenal art structure designed to manipulate the ecosystem of the ocean. After I read a little of Rinaldo and his work I emailed him to get more details. I must say he was extremely nice and appreciative that I liked his work, and gave me links to help out with the project. The piece is located at the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in New Zealand. When I first saw the piece I was in shock to see such a beautiful structure, and then to find out its intention I immediately was inspired by the work. The piece had a definitive aura bleeding from the picture. I truly feel like this type of artwork must be seen in person rather than through another medium.

            With the elements of artwork on display, from color to texture, to space to form, the evaluations are endless. Considering the size of the piece the texture and space take more than the mass of an entire human being, the feel and look of the piece must also be felt through the medium intended. The structure is built to support the life in the oceanic ecosystem, allowing for replication of all species involved, including the plants, for edible use. The waste from the fish is recycled through the plant roots by gravity and a large pond pump, so even the laws of nature play a role in the construction of the artwork; Art and science are fused phenomenally. In return, the bacteria and plants covert the fish waste into purified, cleansed water for the fish to survive.

            The work is not just for the scientific aspect of duplicating an actual ecosystem in the middle of the ocean, but it is also intended to please the viewer. The sounds of the running water serve as a peaceful audio track to accompany the pleasure for the eyes of the beautiful fish, and colorful yet intricate light structure that powers and fertilizes the living organisms in the ecosystem. The structure even producers fresh oxygen for the humans walking through the room. The lights use complimentary colors to attract the attention of the human eye, since the piece has no specific area that the eye is drawn too the piece is observed as a whole, creating the entire piece as one causing the viewer to pertain it as a whole instead of viewing the work as two separate images. When observing this piece I couldn’t help but think of the way this piece stretches the boundaries of not just life itself but art as well. I looked at the work and noticed the scientific aspects right away, but after further research and evaluation it’s the artwork that makes the piece a masterful. With so many features and elements at work from an artistic and scientific aspect it’s difficult to criticize the piece. The work leaves old media far behind, making it look something that has been outdated for centuries. From the Manovich reading, I observed just how far this piece falls under the category of “new media.” From the three-dimensional aspect to an entirely new medium of an art form, the piece truly separates itself from a computer and digital media.            

            From the work I have since begun thinking about the endless possibilities of art. Art has expanded tremendously from its origin and arguably is combined with anything in the world today, if one can fuse art and science together, than what other things can art be fused with? A question I would like to see explored on a scale to which Mr. Rinaldo has done so. After reading all the details of the piece my mind thought of the idea of an entire city duplicated, to meet the needs of an ecosystem.

            For my second artist, Stelarc, I was quite shocked at what I had found. He legally changed his name from Stelios Arcadiou. After researching Ken Rinaldo and thinking about the possibilities that art could be stretched too, or what subjects it could be combined with, I found the perfect artist to follow up on. Stelarc is an artist who focuses entirely on the interfaces of the body and what possibilities can be entangled with it. He has done countless abrasions and additions to his skin, replicating existing body parts. He has used art and technology to duplicate human body parts that function and portray them as a visual piece of work. My fascination with his work is the fact that the duplicated body part, whatever it may be, has different use than normally on a body. For example, Stelarc created a prosthetic head that speaks to the person in conversation with it. I instantly thought of how remarkable this is and how I would love to witness the artwork with my own eyes. Stelarc has won countless awards such as a two year New Media Arts Fellowship and Honorary Professor of Art along with others. He too, has worked for the Ohio State University. For the project, I chose to do his piece titled exactly what the piece represents, Ear on Arm:

The idea behind the work seems like blasphemy but to Stelarc it is the complete opposite. I felt the same reaction when viewing Rinaldo's piece as well. In comparison the ideas are quite bizarre but executed to perfection. I feel the artists truly express themselves fully in their type of work, i.e. who they are as artists, what their goals and missions are, etc. When I saw Stelarc's work I immediately emailed him about it and his ideas but he never replied. He states that by surgically attaching something the human body will in tact, cause a rising of the sense in one way or another; A heightening of awareness. Both artists conduct the work to prove a point, with Rinaldo's inducing the idea of the intelligence of the ecosystems in our world. In Stelarc's work the identity of the human body after such a procedure is not entirely for the visual aspect but for the interface of the new part on the body. After the artist created a third arm powered by electromatography, he concluded the idea of another ear of the body is possible as well if powered by electricity.

            The main purpose of the ear, like the duplicate head Stelarc constructed is not simply to hear, but to transmit from the internet as well. From an artistic viewpoint the project seems like quite the opposite, simply scientific, but that, to me, is the beauty of art of both the artists; Twisting science into art. Kenneth Rinaldo proved there could be a relationship of science to art previously. Art can be anything and everything, and Stelarc is taking the image of human identity and adding into it in a way much greater and deeper than a tattoo ever could. The aura of the piece is mind-boggling. When I look at surgical procedures and duplication of skin I think of the movie Hostel, and Mike Tyson biting of an opponent’s ear. The auras of both pieces is difficult to understand as it too, must be seen in person. In contrast, the both attack science's relationship to art, but in much different manners. Artistically, however, there is very little to critique here, unlike Rinaldo's piece which has numerous visual and artistic aspects. I feel the idea behind both artist's work is the art itself, stretching the boundaries of the norm; However, the procedure and results seem of a different critiquing category, such as presentation. Granted, the visual aspect is intriguing in both, changing one's own ecology, and an animal's, as we are accustomed to acknowledging them in every day life.

            I feel that their artwork is ground breaking for further practice in the subject matter. Cloning on a much smaller scale, but still proving to the world their specific type of work is possible. As I research the pieces I can’t help but to agree about the media representation as I did in Rinaldo’s work. The piece here is not displayed in a museum. It is not painted, drawn, digitized, but sculpted into a medium that has never been done before. I love the idea of taking art when it cannot be followed, and to where it has never been before. Stelarc and Rinaldo have done so beautifully and flawlessly.

            The beauty that makes the artworks what they are is their similar features and how they stretch art to places never done so before. They are pieces that cannot be duplicated or repeated, in any way that the original artists have done. Their boundaries push my mind to think of possibilities that I have never thought possible. To replicate an ecosystem so perfectly, and create another human body part in such an artistic way is remarkable. Both artists work in a three-dimensional fashion, with absolute originality. I feel I couldn’t have chosen better artists to critique and compare too. Both are phenomenal artists whose limits are non-existent.

Works Cited:

http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2006/08/interview-of-ke.php -Interview with Kenneth Rinaldo. This is where I got Ken’s background information and his ideas and intentions behind the work.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150549168906253.444406.209156896252&type=3 - Ken’s Facebook page. This also helped me see a more social aspect of his work.

http://stelarc.org/?catID=20242 - This is Stelarc’s website. This is where I got all my information about his works and biography.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stelarc - This is the website where I was able to obtain a more personal background of Stelarc.

evaluation

avatar me

this is my avatar of me, it turned out to be pretty difficult, but i did the job. here is a sample

I hope you enjoy, i tried numerous times to get myself to be what i wanted but i don't know what happened.
This set turned out to be the best, in my opinion, of me.

Crowd Sourcing Project

This is my crowd sourcing project. I would love to see it made into an actual website, which would be of course much more thoroughly done and perfected but for the assignment given i feel it fits the requirements and works out beautifully. It was a fun, and comical project to work on and i hope all enjoy!

Photoshop gave me some difficulties but it turned out the way i projected it too and i am satisfied with the project overall, let's hope my classmates feel the same way!

CrowdSourcing Participation

1) -Man With A Movie Camera: The Global Remake http://dziga.perrybard.net/ 


i uploaded my video of my first video project here in my ART 245 class. It is a video reproduction, and it fit with the hash tag of putting up a poster, here is a screen shot with a link. Scroll down to view my upload, it begins with the picture of "What if?"

2) myamazingbutt.com, this website is one a fellow classmate made, portraying many different butts. I uploaded a picture of my girlfriends to participate, i felt that her butt would be much more attractive than mine. Here is a photo of the image i uploaded with a link to the website.

3) Young Me/Now Me project:http://www.zefrank.com/youngmenowme/, this website displays 2 photos of a timeone of an individual young and old imitating the younger picture. I uploaded my pictures from 8th grade to now well into college. Here are the 2 photos i uploaded with the bottom one containing a link to the website.

Disc Q's 4/16

1) According to the Participative Systems reading, because new media changes the process and the systems we use to make our art. Does the medium in which the audience views it change their role in the audience of the art? Or is it the same as old media, in which, an artist creates their piece of work, intending for the audience to view it whichever way intended, without the thought of the medium used? In other words, I feel that an artist creates their work through a medium they choose to correlate efficiently with the type and structure of the art constructed, not thinking that just because a piece is a painting vs. on computer will change the effect the creator had in mind. I am confused as to the overall role of the audience from the author.


2)  With a new emphasis on the audience and their role in artwork, are these categories truly descriptive when it comes to describing artwork? The author did say that the audience has always played a role in art, so why has it changed now due to a new, possible medium?

YOUTUBEmixer

I hope you all enjoy. I did everything i wanted to do with it. While i wish i could have adjusted some of the decibel levels a little more i am still proud of the assignment and its outcome. The project is self explanatory, i love music so thats why i did it. i recorded the yellow, white, orange, purple, green and a portion of the blue videos.

Visual Lecture #2 Kevin Kremler 4/5/12

Kevin Kremler gave a lecture on April 5^th 2012 that I attended. This is the second lecture I decided to write about because I thought his artwork was intriguing. The lecture room itself was extremely packed come presentation time. Kevin had lots of friends and colleagues come, which I thought was pretty cool, but also nerve-racking. I thought for the attendance in the crowd Kevin did a great job. Public speaking is extremely difficult especially in front of family, friends, and other important spectators. For his presentation, I thought he was a little uninformed on his examples of the work he used to describe the type of artwork that he participates in. I felt that he did not know the names of each and every piece he showed and their authors, which I understand because it is a lot to remember and again, the public speaking factor always tends to show. Plus I saw him read from a card a lot, as if he froze up constantly, but again, quite understandable for someone in his position. Despite that, I really enjoyed his presentation. He discussed his process, which, as a beginning artist I appreciated because Its very helpful to see another artists form for his success. Kevin was also extremely funny and entertaining with his lecture. I enjoyed the comedy aspect, and so did the crowd. He was able to keep the crowd very engaged and open to his work. Overall, he presented for about 50 minutes and showed some great examples, but before I saw his gallery I did not understand whatsoever. I found it confusing that he did not show any of his artwork and just examples of other people’s that he went off of. This was until we went up to the gallery. He only had about 4 pieces but each one was pretty cool. I really enjoyed the shovel and colored sand. I thought it was a very complex design but beautifully mastered. As soon as I saw the gallery his presentation made complete sense. He was getting the audience hyped up to view his artwork. I’m sure most people felt the same way that I did about it and truly enjoyed the presentation and Kevin Kremmler’s artwork.

discussion q's 4/2

1) - what exactly is analog media? did the changing of digital representation change media altogether, in that, analog media was now more easily accessible and portrayable?

2) - Manovich says that numerical representation made media programmable, How exactly does this change the nature o media? Media is still media, now just used in a more accessible way

New Intervention website remake

After getting the help i needed, here is the following finished product of my website

Visual Lecture #1

Bret Holmes

Digital Media ART 245

Visual Lecture #1

3/6/12

            For my first lecture I attended a visual one by a University of Nevada, Reno graduate of 2003 named Ariana Page Russell. This lecture was extremely interesting for it brought new aspects of thought into my life. The entire presentation is about her artwork, which is done on no ordinary canvas/medium but rather her very own skin. Ariana has been diagnosed with an extremely severe skin disease called Dermatographia in which the skin is highly sensitive and red, swollen lines appear at minor injury. Most cases of the disease are very minor but her condition is of the top severities. Since the pain is not an issue Ariana decided to play around with the disease and as an artist combine the two. Use her skin to make art. Some of the work was fascinating but others I did not like at all. She began by first writing texts on her skin and on all areas. Her disease spread all over making the possibilities of what her skin can do infinite, I personally enjoyed the texts she wrote. Out of her 40-picture slideshow two of them were of texts and close to my favorites. She also began by connecting certain points on her skin to create what looked like mimic constellations. I was intrigued by her skin, amazed at the fact that she can draw and scratch such an irritated skin condition without any pain. I thought that the idea of her work was marvelous but something was missing. I believe it was color. She used every shade of skin color possible and all tints of red that skin color can appear. However, during the presentation I thought of an idea. For the ending to the lecture she portrayed a movie in which she took a sharp object and made designs on her body showing the audience how fast her skin swells up. I thought to myself, it would be extremely interesting if a professional painter painted her body first, leaving areas alone that, when aroused, would create the perfect shade of red to complete the piece. The parts I enjoyed the most were her wallpapers that she created from skin and pigments of skin. Plus I truly enjoyed her making of temporary tattoos with her artwork. In the pictures she displayed the artwork looked well done, with much effort and time put in. The part I enjoyed least were the videos she put up. They were both rather boring and seemed to me quite meaningless. I thought the ideas she put onto her stomach were creative, but overall some parts are missing to her artwork.

Disc. q's 3/26

1) - Why is relating war and tactical media so important? WHat tactics can be used to exploit tactical media in warfare, and if so, how are they utilized to be "successful?"

2) - How do certain tactical media techniques relate to war as a whole, or to individual frames and aspects of warfare itself? What role and how big is the role that tactical media represents in such warfare in the wave of technology driven by our era?

First Video project 2nd Edition

After the creation of the first video (in a previous blog below) i wanted to tweak some things and make it better to my satisfaction. While this version is not the completed one i intend to create it is still a solid reference point in the overall process of the project. Enjoy

First video yee 2nd ED

Intervention Website

I Chose to remake "The Dirty.com" I hate this website and everything it stands for. So i took the time to make the complete oppoisite and what i believe it should be, "The Truth.com"

I am not very satisfied with the finished product for the simple fact there are countless tricks i could've used but am unaware of so this is the best of my abilities. I am unhappy that i am given such an assignment and not taught the tricks and accessories to Photoshop.


Original website :   The Dirty

Art is Art as Art

Pre- I was extremely nervous for this project. I had no idea what i was doing and how/if this would work. I have to admit i was pretty excited to finally be able to create a video of some sort completely on my own.

Post- I am very satisfied with the work that resulted. i was able to do almost everything i wanted too, except for a few video transitions and filters. In the future i would love to edit the video and fix/adjust these minor obstacles and make my first video work exceptional to my standards and expectations. I hope you enjoy!

-For the audio i used Robert Irwin's documentary called "Primaries and Secondaries." It was the first 1:27 seconds of the video.

http://www.ubu.com/film/irwin_primaries.html


"I feel that Art is everything, art can be created on anything, and art is why everything is here. Art is art as Art and everything else, is everything else... But those two are 2 closely related in my eyes for this statement to be 100% true."

Discussion Questions #2

With so much emphasis on the mediums artist must be faced with, does the fact that the forcing of having to use these new mediums jeopardize an artist work? and if so, how can this be conquered? i see that the use of painting can be much different if needed to travel through television.

PowerOfLove, 1st Animation

This is the finished product to my first animation project. If i could have used different images i would've but i love what i did create. It came from the inside and i hope all enjoy.

discussion questions

1 - If reproducing a piece of art almost 100% thoroughly, than why is so much emphasis placed on the original copy in terms of value?

2 - What exactly is a work of art's aura? and is there a definitive definition?

Triptych Montage

 -1

 - 2

 - 3

 

Pre-
I have known about Photoshop and other related programs for quite some time now. However, i am completely unaware of how to use these programs and the full potential they can reach. I have a strong desire to learn and i feel that this project is a great beginning. 25 images, three different pages, and a new experiment.. lets do it.

Post-

Extremely long preoject but for sure a fun time. im satisfied that toying with some of my favorite pictures in my own way is considered homework. Can't wait for the next project