Second Life

The image on the left is obviously my "real" self. I'm pretty dull with my clothing choice in reality, so I translated it here too. My fantasy self is an explorer because I have loads of wanderlust inside of me. I want to travel around the world once I am able to. I have the box on because it looks funny.

Project 6- Google SketchUp

With this project, I was intimidated with the whole process of 3D modeling. Admittedly, I did not go into this project with much ambition because I was aiming pretty low. In the end, I decided to go with pretty challenging objects anyways because I wanted to do justice to the month-long working period and the complexity of the project. 

The collage consists of my Kryptonite bike lock and a Frisbee disc because those two things are central to my life. I use Ultimate Frisbee as a physical and social outlet. My bike lock is also vital because it relates to my only consistent source of transportation. I love and use my bike a lot for commuting, and his name is Roger. If I didn't have it, my quality of life would diminish. This collage dealt with organic shapes, so that was a little challenging before I used the Follow Me tool to the fullest extent.

The single object is of my Konica C35. Unlike my collage project, this was a very geometric model with many edges. The Push/Pull tool was a really good friend for me. I actually didn't want to do my camera because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to create a very good representation, but I was pleasantly surprised and proud of the final project. There was so much detail on the camera, and I thought I would hate it but ended up enjoying it. I liked to make all the detail, and I felt proud I could do it.

Video Emulation

 
Title: The Eighties with a Pumpkin
The original video is "The Eighties" by Stuart Home. He created it with the idea that young men getting their hair cut was typical of the eighties. I wanted to originally use a balloon, but opted for a pumpkin since it was available. The bad film filter was used used to create a lower quality effect used in the original.

Readings

1. Do you think Radical Software's ideology from the 1970's is still relevant today? How is the control of mass media and tools even more important in an age where the internet and social media is so much more accessible?

2. Can you think of a way that video art is still very influential politics, arts, and social movements? Has the use of video actually created a different type of culture that has become more mainstream?

Animation Project

Title: Moving Sun

I liked the idea of the sun image to be rotating throughout the animation. To do that, I duplicated a number layers and rotated each in the frames. Only on sun layer is moved while the other copies are fully transparent. 

Also, the main objects that moved were the spades and the diamond images from scanned playing cards. I used a lot of twinning to get the diamonds to move around more fluidly, but I moved the spades manually frame by frame. 

The animation itself emphasized the sun while downplaying the running man. I made his doppelgangers eventually fade away to show this.

Walter Benjamin Reading

1. In section IV Benjamin stated that art predicted crisis well before anyone else through reproduction. He stated that rather than ritual of past ideas of tradition, art and its uniqueness is based on politics. Could the same kind of sentiment about photography be applied to digital media?

2. Benjamin talks about the importance of exhibition being equal to the work itself. Do you think the exhibition entire change a piece if presented one way or another?

Digital Triptych Montage

 

Location, Location, Location

Statement: With CS4, I scanned images from the Nevada Brushfire, Reno Bike Project flyers, art gallery cards; designs by Victo Ngai found online, an image from Kevin Wada, and other images found on Tumblr. I didn't have a real idea about what I wanted to do, but I figured color would be a big component in this montage. I used a lot of color darkening and lightening to match the colors more. I tried to be more creative with Photoshop since this is the first time I've used the program to this extent. The theme behind the triptych itself is of a man, flamboyantly dressed, trying to find out where he is. This doorway is a portal that leads him to crazy worlds. In the background, an image of a map and the word "Location" are used to reinforce the sense that this man is trying to find is way. The last piece shows that the man is closer to finding out his location because each image is sectioned in a piece of the map.