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?

Project 5

For this project I choose the photograph collaborative projects because photography is an important part of my artistic life. Photographs are important to people in general and I enjoyed looking through old (and new) photographs.

Collected Visions project: http://cvisions.nyu.edu/mantle/info.html

This is the first day that we got our first family dog, Jessie.  She lived for 12 years and died in 2013 we miss her 
everyday and this picture brings back memories of when we first got her.

Originally I was going to use a photo of my parents getting married but then I wasn't sure if they would appreciate it if I posted a photo of them on the internet like that so I chose this photograph instead.

 Young Me/Now Me project: http://www.zefrank.com/youngmenowme/




I chose this project because I've seen these around and I've always wanted to do it. I think it's a good idea and portrays how much a person grows and at the same time how they still stay the same.  I went through a lot of pictures and I always thought, "I still make that expression in pictures today."  And yes I did eat that "Silly Sandwich".

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Dear Photograph: http://dearphotograph.com/

Again I chose to do this one because I always saw these around the internet and loved the concept.  I chose my dog again because I thought it was a good picture to use to show how much has changed in just my backyard.  Besides the fact that my dog is now gone we have changed the wood paneling in the back to rock, and the grass and the swing set is long gone.

Part two:

Another thing that is important to me is writing.  My idea is writing books collaboratively and then printing them out and sending them to the writers. For me one of my dreams is to write a book and I think this could help people that have the same dream.  It might not be an actual published book but it might help them hone their skills and get a chance to work with another writer.

Project # 4

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

When I saw Nauman's Walk with Contrapposto I immediatly thought about ballroom and Latin dance.  In Latin dance there is a thing called cuban motion which is exaclty what Nauman is doing in his video.  It's the straightening and bending of the knees and in dance it takes a lot of practice to get it right.  So for this video I danced the different dances that I have learned, even if it didn't have cuban motion in it.

Questions #3

"The new media," he (McLuhan) went on to say in 1969 "are not ways of relating us to the old "real" world; they are the real world and they reshape what remains of the old world at will." What does this quote mean to you? Do you think that McLuhan is right? The author writes, "Art lies in the intentionality of the artist: to make or conceive of something without the constraint of some other purpose." Do you think that this is true? What is your definition of art and how is it different or the same from the stated definition.

Discussion Questions #2

1) Bishop writes that in the 90's digital media was on the rise and it was because of "old media" that it did so. Just how we went from film photography to digital photography the video media has gone from film to digital. Even though it was rising during the 90's do you think that it is still rising now? Or is "older media" still alive today? 2) Bishop also talks about how, with digital technology, we can have "days of art" in a gallery. Most people will not be in a gallery for days just to see all of the video that the artists produce so what is the point of making that amount and entering it in a gallery if most of it isn't going to be seen? Does this high amount of content take away from the art?

Project #2

 For this project I wanted to show how my apocalypse world slowly started to develop so I made certain things slowly appear or fall out of the sky.  The objects are also interacting and reacting to each other and how they moved.  Certain problems that I ran into had to be side stepped in strange ways so I really had to think about how to fix the problem which was challenging.

Benjamin Questions

1. When Benjamin is talking about the "aura" of an object what do you think he means? And in reproducing this aura how do you think it "destroys" it? Do you think there is a way to reproduce an object without destroying the aura?


2. Benjamin writes that photography and film started arguments about their status of being true art.  He then says that the true question is how these medias changed art.  How do you think that photography and film has changed art?  Do you consider them to be art forms or do you think that traditional forms of art are the only true forms of art?

Project 1

For this project I wanted to go more in the direction of post-apocalyptic and how nature would be slowly overtaking humanity or human structures.  This might be after humans have died out or that there are only a few stragglers.  Animals would become mutated and plants would start to overtake the cities.