Second Life

For the fantasy me I decided to recreate a character from an anime called Black Butler named Angela. I made the wings, which were kind of hard to make. I almost couldn't figure it out but with a lot of tinkering I was successful. I then took a already premade dress and hair and changed the way the dress was styled and colored. Then I bought some purple eyes.

 It was really hard to make the face look like my face.  Even though I followed the guidelines when I put the face on it didn't look like me. I still think it was a fun experience, and there are things to work on.

Extra Credit

Project 6/7

So for these two projects I made a book.  I chose a book because I like reading and the purpose of the project was to make something that could be considered a talisman of sorts that is part of our lives.  Some of my most prized objects are my books and being an English Literature major I have a lot of them.  I would want to save some of my books if they were burning in a building.  Books are important to society also, because they hold knowledge and everybody loves a good story.
Some problems I had with GoogleSketch Up, It was hard to move some of the pieces around and there were certain things that it wouldn't let you do, like make something taller.

Galleries

Two by Land: Nicole Donnely & Katherine Sandoz co-curated by Megan Berner/Ahren Hertel

This exhibition consisted of paintings done on canvas and wood. There was a mixture of abstract and surrealistic paintings.  A lot of bright colors, and color studies, were used. For some of the abstract paintings they were painted on square blocks of wood and were usually a set of four.  They were very pleasing to look at and were very clean.
The more interesting ones were the surrealistic paintings.  One of them looked like pastel clouds that had rope or something holding them down.  It looked like somebody was trying to capture them or maybe to keep them from floating away. Another one had a background that looked like it was on fire but there was an outline of a ship.  All of these paintings are rather large but very impressive. The surrealistic ones seem to tell a story while the abstract ones are simply nice to look at.
Overall this gallery was great and very interesting to look at. The way they set it up was nice and the art itself was great quality.

McNamara Gallery: Exhibition 3: Priscilla Varner
 They say that a photograph is worth a million words but a person can interpret a photograph differently than somebody else.  In this exhibition the artist was playing around with words and photographs. She placed words, usually three, before or after a photograph to influence how the viewer perceived the photograph.  If viewed correctly the words would influence the thoughts and feelings the viewer received from the photograph.
The photographs themselves were good photographs that could have different feelings and words associated with them. When looking at the photographs with the words before the photograph the viewer was expecting the photograph to represent those words and when they looked at it realized that it did.  For the photographs that had the words after the photograph itself when the viewer first looked at the photograph they made their own thoughts and feelings about it. Then when they looked at the words they probably either changed their minds about what the photograph is representing or they did not think that the photographed represented those words.
Usually in an exhibit there are no words, only the photographs, so including the words with the photograph can help the artist get their point across. It can also help the photographer shape the thoughts of the viewers. in all this is an effective exhibit in which makes people think about what they are seeing and proving that words can influence people's thoughts about a particular photograph.

Artists Paper

Both of my artists focused on videogames but instead of making a video game as an art form they took photographs of people playing videogames. Both received very different versions of what a person would be called a “gamer”.  The two artists that will be discussed are Philip Toledano and Shauna Frischkorn.  Toledano’s work is called Gamers while Frischkorn’s work is called Game Boys. 

            Toledano says in his artist statement,

                        I’ve never been very interested in straightforward portrait photography. I often feel that it reveals nothing other than the photographer’s intentions, and a topographic record of the effects of time.

But what of hidden emotions and feelings? Characteristics that are usually secreted from the world? How do we record those?

I wondered if there was a way to unconsciously tease out aspects of people’s personality, and capture it on film. So I had them play video games. (Toledano)

By wanting to capture emotions and feelings through video games is really interesting.  Although the pictures in Gamers do not seem realistic, it is possible that a gamer would make this face. The faces seem to be exaggerated and possibly staged.  Toledano did not reply back to my questions. Despite the possiblitiy of the pictures being staged, it is still a good art piece. 
In comparison Frischkorn’s work Game Boys features only males, while Toledano included females in his work.  Frischkorn did reply and said that she had photographed females but they did not fit her vision so they were not included in the final cut (Frischkorn).  In Frischkorn’s work the gamers have a dead look, they are fully immursed in the game and are concentrating on it.  Even though this work seems more realistic it is not as intriguing as Toledano’s work. 
            Both of the works are very similar in that they are both  taking photographs of people playing video games. Both have dark backgrounds and the faces of the gamers are lit up.  Another interesting thing is that the audience does not know what kind of games they are playing, which could contribute to facial expression.

 Works Cited

Frischkorn, Shauna. Personal interview. 17 Apr. 2013.

Frischkorn, Shauna . "Shauna Frischkorn - Game Boys." Shauna Frischkorn. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2013. <http://shaunafrischkorn.com/section/14920_Game_Boys.html>.

Toledano, Philip . "Mr Toledano : Gamers." Mr Toledano : home. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr. 2013. <http://www.mrtoledano.com/gamers>.

Questions

1. We can say that there is new media and old media but the subject of a piece of work that is created with both old media and new media is never touched.  Do we still call it new media even though traditional art was also used to create the final product?  What would it be considered then?

Questions

1. In Crowdsourcing: The art of a crowd, it seems as if most of the projects mentions are inspiring or used for "universal understanding" but could this be used as other means?

2. Do you think that crowdsourcing is art? Explain why or why not? Do you think that crowdsourcing brings art to a higher level because of the "interaction" with other artists and the audience makes it, in a way, better? Do we still get a "reaction" from it even if we were the ones helping to create it?