Project 6: Reality and Fantasy

Statement:  The goal of this project was to take objects found in reality and create a duplicate version of it through 3D modeling - in this case google Sketchup.  Two seperate pieces were considered for this project.  The first was a single piece - I used a PS3 Controller.  This little guy is representative of my passion for video games.  I chose the PS3 controller specifically because out of the consoles I have owned over the years, this controller design has stayed faithful over the generations.  It has become a symbol of the newest gaming has to offer while at the same to retaining respect for the games of old. The second piece I chose was a chessboard.  This chessboard sits on a table right outside of my room in my apartment, and I see it almost on a daily basis.  Although I'm not exactly the biggest chess fan, I have always appreciated the look of game and the individual pieces.  I hold added respect of it as it is essentially the ancestor of one of my favorite genres of video games - the strategy genre.

All in all this project was quite enjoyable.  However, I did make the mistake of leaving the objects with the most required contour for last.  I found that each of the individual chess pieces came out especially well, except for the knight.  Where-as the  previous chess pieces were radial for the most part in design, the knight had a lot of weird rounded contour that made it very hard to model as perfectly as I would have liked it too.  Whereas the other pieces were created and modified in a timely manner (about 2 hours each), the knight by itself took at least 5 to get to a point that I was happy with.  The same similar issue happen with the PS3 controller.  Getting the base design and shape down for the controller seemed to be easy, and I didn't quite think the shape of it was anything to hard to deal with.  However, after looking at the back of the controller, I found that the contours and shapes were a lot more difficult than I originally thought.  Additionally, the small details also complicated the piece more than needed.  Also, texturing on round or circular objects is the devil. . .

Digital Nation Discussion Question

1.)  Digital Nation accounts the opinion of the top college professors on the use of laptops in their class.  One comments that even though the students are present and all the answers to a test are given prior to the test, they score terribly due to the access of laptops.  These professors mostly blame the laptops.  However, the students of the class argue that the laptop is not the issue, and that they are well capable of multitasking.  Who do you believe to be right?  Could this be evidence of a larger overlying issue?  (Focus, Priorities, an education system not up to snuff to the newest trends of technology/society)?

2.)  Technology has progressed with little resistance in terms of communication advances.  There was little dispute over the advent of the telegraph, telephone, fax, email, etc,.  What about laptops and smartphones do you believe to be so much more controversial?
     -) Consider a person who spends most of his time on the computer vs a person who spends the same amount of time reading books.  How do you suppose society would view the two differently despite both haphazardly living vicariously?  What does that say about our society?

Project 4: Grayscale Lesbian - Maybe if You Hit it Harder

Statement: Project 4 - Shooting a movie~!  This project involved picking an already made video and emulating the style.  For this one, I chose to use Chris Mann's "Maybe if you Hit it Hard" (http://www.ubu.com/film/mann.html).  Why, because Sean, that's why.  This video was shot at home with the use of a camcorder borrowed from the @ONE. Editing was done via VDSC Video editor.

The video in question was actually quite easy on the editing side, as the video itself was shot with little to no dynamic camera movement or techniques.  By the looks of it it was done strictly with a tri-pod, which is the route I used.  I added in a blur every now and then to simulate refocusing, but other than that it seemed that the more nifty editing used on the vid the less it emulated the original work.  That said, Chris is a weirdo.  Trying to mimic his patterns was quite annoying.

Busting the Tube: A Brief History of Video Art - Response Questions

1.)  The reading suggests that "as technology advances, so does the human sensory perception needed to receive it."  However, technology continues to advance beyond the normal capabilities of human perception.  For instance, video resolution is becoming almost indistinguishable from the real thing, and frame capture is available above a standard human's rate of 60 fps.  If human sensory perception does evolve jointly to technological advances, do you believe humans to be able to break this visual limitations naturally without the use of surgical augmentation?

2.)  Since Sony making the first portable video camera, the regular population has been given more and more power to influencing and generating media.  It was no longer a right almost exclusive to the government or larger news networks. Today, it can even be argued that to the average American, government and large news network media is actually overshadowed by "at-home" generated media.  An average American may not know what the big headline is in the news, but may be familiar with the latest meme trending the web.  Between government and local/national news networks and the general population, who do you believe has the bigger media influence overall?  Whereas in a government or local/national news network dominant culture censorship and other media manipulation is the main problem, what do you believe the problems of a people dominate news culture?

Animation w/ Audio

Statement: This is my third work in Art 245.  It is the previous animation with sound added and a couple other minor changes (Red Blood Spats and Kanji).  The audio was mostly taken from Soundbible.com or Youtube.com with the help of listentoyoutube.com.  Audio was added through the use of VSDC video editor and Audacity.

I found bringing this animation to life with audio was quite easy.  The animation was originally designed with many cliches and parodies to familiar works, so adding the sound was no problem at all.  Without sound, I felt that the video wasn't quite as silly as I wanted it, so being able to add in sound clips from artists such as OneyNG and some of the GI Joe PSA Parodies really helped with that. 

OneyNG - http://www.youtube.com/user/OneyNG
GI Joe PSAs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4OPr_QxoFg&list=PL48743DA668B53AF7

Project 2: Animation

Statement: This is my second work in Art 245.  The title of this work is Virtue.  I pulled all the media from Google.com, mostly reusing images from my last work.  Like the last project, this was done exclusively through Photoshop CS6, mostly making use of the timeline feature to make a video.

The inspiration behind this work is the voodoo Pikachu thingy and the Marine dude from my last project.  Those two seemed to stick out the most, and I loved toying with the idea of gun vs sword.  I had the idea that I wanted to slice an object in pieces, so I centered my animation around that detail.  The Japanese Temple, rising sun sky, and sliding doors were added to complement the way I animated the slicing scene, as it had a very anime vibe to it.  The work is called Virtue to hint at some deeper meaning in this video.  There is none.  It really is just as silly as it is and if you try to find deeper meaning you are an idiot. 

Reading #1: Walter Bengamin Reading Critical Questions

Question 1: Walter describes a term aura as "that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction."  This is the loss in a work of art from the original.  However, this is all dependent on the human perception of this work.  With the strides in technology, it technology can now capture certain objects with even more complexity and depth than what can be viewed with the human eye.  For instance, a human can only view at 60 frames per second, however we now have cameras that can capture at 100+ fps.  In cases like this, do you believe the "aura" to actually be positive gain instead of negative loss from the original?

Question 2: In section VIII, Walter discusses the differences in a stage act and a film.  He states one of the main differences is with whom the audience will associate with.  He states that "The audience’s identification with the actor is really an identification with the camera".  Both representations, film and stage performance, limit the scope to which the audience sees the work.  Film shows the work through the eyes of the camera, which tries to capture the idea viewpoint as per the director's will.  Stage deletes the middle/camera man, and allows for personal view; however, this is done strictly from only one static viewpoint as opposed to a dynamic viewpoint found in film.  Which method do you believe allows for the most personal interpretation from an individual?  Is there even a difference?