Video Art

Here is my video art submission. Enjoy.

Art In Motion (and Sound)

In a natural progression from performance art, we have recently been studying modern video and audio art. This subject is of great interest to me, as it is the ultimate culmination of art and modern technology, providing a truly immersive, and in some cases interactive, artistic experience for the viewer. Much of what we've covered in class has been on the experimental end of the artistic spectrum, which makes it that much more interesting. Aside from a few of the experimental audio peices, it has all been very enjoyable. In keeping with the other media we've covered in class, we were also assigned a project requiring us to create our own video art piece, or video installation. After presenting mine in class, I will post it here as soon as possible. If I were to describe my piece in a word, it would be "trippy." Or maybe "psychedelic."

Performance Art Piece

After having explored, in some depth, various performance artists and the medium as a whole, we were assigned the project of creating our own such work. While I'm not the biggest fan of performance art, I took this assignment in stride, and I think I came up with a performance piece that incorporates two of my favorite things, traditional art and music. Throw in a little bit of quirkiness for the sake of a memorable performance, and that's exactly what you have with my "work of art." Below are several pictures from the performance. The person being painted is my roommate Andrew, who graciously offered his services.

Hands up!

Our latest class project involved photocopying body parts, and using these low-quality images to create a collage of sorts. At the heart of the concept is the idea of decomposing the traditional sense of the body parts, and making something bigger out of them. As the saying goes, the whole is greater that the sum of all its parts, and this definitely rang true in all of the works presented in class. For my entry into this medium, I decided to stick to just my hands, as I found them to be the easiest body part to reinterpret. Here is the design I came up with:


P.S. If you'll notice, I've tried to recreate a very famous work of art from the Italian Renaissance.

Light the Grid

Hooray!!!!!! I've finally finished my gridart project. It took a week of painstaking measuring, cutting, assembling, and an amount of gluing that borders on insanity, but it is finally complete. And I have to say that it turned out even better than I originally imagined. Overall, I'm extremely pleased. Before I even turn it in, I'm posting a bunch of pictures, from different stages of the construction process, to give a better appreciation for the work that went into the piece.

The cardboard grid fully assembled, without the paper cover or lights

Again

And again

The holes for the lights, taken from the front

The holes for the lights, taken from the back

The light wiring on the back of the grid; everything's been glued down

And finally............. the finished product. I made the pattern first in Microsoft Paint, then transferred it to the grid. A difficult, but fun process.

One last shot: the back of the grid, with the lights turned on

Again, I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and will definitely be putting this up somewhere in my dorm room. I think it is a perfect representation of what we are studying in class. It perfectly blends traditional, hand-made art with the magic of modern technology. I also like that it looks so clean and simple from the front, and yet so complicated in the back. It is a great example of how much goes on behind the scenes to produce nearly everything we enjoy in our daily lives.

P.S.
I'm considering adding, at a slightly later date, blue lights in the smaller, unused cells around the edge of the grid. I think it would add a nice contrast to the plain off-white lights, and serve as a sort of virtual frame.

A View to A Flipbook (and Gridart)

As far as the main subject matter of our most recent Art & Technology classes goes, we've been mostly looking at the history of radio, television, the computer, and most recently, the internet. However, my focus in this post is on the projects I've been assigned.

Firstly, as promised, I've posted some frames from my flipbook animation to give you a taste of what mine is about. Check them out below. I will talk more about it when I get the whole thing assembled as a proper video to upload.


Now that the flipbook project is out of the way, I'm working on a "gridart" project. This is pretty much what it sounds like. It is essentially any piece of non-digital art that is based around the notion of a grid. I won't reveal exactly what I'm doing yet, as I don't want to ruin the surprise, but I will say that it involves copious amounts of cardboard and a little electricity. Once it is done, I will definitely upload some pictures.

Dreamscapes and Flipbooks

Well, in class recently, we've been delving more deeply into highly conceptual films, most of them much more modern. One of my personal favorites was the Stanley Kubrik classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I've loved the movie since the first time I saw it, about five years ago. Everything from the realistic vision of the future, to the psychedelic final scenes, it is a clear scinematic masterpiece. We also watched another Kubrik hit, A Clockwork Orange. Of course, it's widely known to be a very intense, and at many times, vulgar film, but the overall message is definitely one of anarchy and world change. Definitely a visionary film in the same way 2001 was. In addition to these Kubrik classics, we watched other interesting takes of the future, Bladerunner and Videodrome. We followed up with the musical oddity (a classic though), Rocky Horror Picture Show. All are great films in their own rights, and should really be seen especially those by Stanley Kubrik.

In other news, we've been working diligently for the past two weeks on flipbooks, as a way of exploring traditional animation techniques, and I have to say that, though I've made the simple flip-animation here or there in the past, this was a much greater undertaking, and I very happy with the final result. In the very near future, I will post pictures from it, and eventually I hope to get the time to compile it into a digital video of some sort, probably an animated gif or something. So look forward to that.

The Glorious Silent Era

We're progressing nicely in our Art & Technology course, making the sensible move from the origin of moving pictures and film to the first silent movies. This is especially exciting for me, as about two years ago, I started purchasing various silent films on DVD, and have really enjoyed most of them. Among those that I've seen are The Golem, a famed 1920 seudo-horror film of German origin (I was a bit let down by the ending.), Nosferatu, the orginal horror classic, and The Lost World, a real showcase of the stop-motion special effects of the day. In fact, one of my favorite movies of all time is the silent film The Thief of Bagdad. Its overall atmosphere and special effects make it stand out clearly among other films of its era, and even make it somewhat comparable to modern films. (It was one of the most expensive movies ever made, costing around $2 million, which in the '20s was unheard of.) Watching clips in class also reminded me of how much I really want to see Metropolis, the first true sci-fi film. Sadly, I've never seen a copy in stores, and haven't gotten around to looking for it online. It's been my experience that many people find that silent movies just don't grab their attention, due to the dirth of dialogue, but I've been surprisingly compelled by most of them. It seems that musical scores and acting (Which was then a necessity, and now, not so much.) more than make up for the lack of dialogue, aside from the odd text blurb here or there. So, needless to say, this particular class topic is extremely enjoyable to me.


And I almost forgot to mention that we watched A Trip to the Moon, a movie I'd long waited to see. For many years, I've known the iconic image of the man in the moon with a bullet-like object in his eye, but did not know from what movie it originated. Now, not only do I know its origin, but I have had the pleasure of watching the movie with English commentary, and enjoyed it immensely.

The Dawn of Motion Pictures

Most recently, we've been exploring the beginning of photography, which is extremely interesting in and of itself, both historically and technologically. However, more interesting to me is what that led into: the earliest of motion pictures. Beginning as nothing more than a series of still photos strung together into a sequence, this practice quickly evolved into something much more closely resembling modern video (analog video, of course). There really is something about century-old video that speaks in ways that photographs of the same vintage cannot. It's one thing to simply look at the faces of people from long ago, but to actually see them in motion is almost haunting. Even more haunting than this early video is the beginning of audio recording. In class, we watched what is the oldest known synchronized audio/video recording, the Dickson Experimental Sound Film. Oddly enough, this past summer I had taken an interest in early film, and had discovered this same short film clip online. Viewed as just an old video clip, it isn't impressive, but when you know exaclty how important it is to the history of multimedia, it takes on a whole new air.

A Night At the Opera

We've been watching excepts from quite a few operas in class, and recently, a few musicals as well. While I can certainly appreciate the talent and hard work that goes into the production and performance of an opera, and I fully understand why it is an art form held in high regard, I'm just not a real fan. Sure the stories are often very good, whether they're tragic or uplifting. Sure the sets are often very ornate and real wonders to behold. However, it's the singing that ultimately turns me off. While I'm not a huge fan of musicals either, I can better tolerate them, as the singing that they feature is much more traditional. Operatic singing feels to me like it is more style than substance. It is characterized by an obligatory and unique technique (the drawing-out of syllables and direct transformation of words into vocal demonstrations). It just seems that the technique gets in the way of the performance, and causes me to lose interest quickly. I'm sure many others would completely disagree with me, telling me that it is that technique that makes opera what it is. They are probably right, but I just don't go for it. Well, that's just my two cents on opera.

Looking Forward

Going into my Art and Technology course, I'm not entirely sure of what to expect, but I have heard a few things here and there. From what I've been told, the course will deal with a wide variety of interesting subject matter, some of which could be considered controversial. This doesn't bother me at all, as I'm quite used to subjects that many others would shy away from, and am in fact interested to see exactly what sorts of topics we will be discussing. I have always tried to stay as open-minded as possible with regards to all things in life. (I still have my limits, of course. To this day, there's very little that would convince me to get on a roller-coaster.) As for my generally hopes for the course, I mostly want to widen my artistic views and gain a better appreciation for the nearly endless gamut of subjects that can be called art.