Project 4

Fatuma's Journey Out of Poverty

Chapter 3 Response

Chapter 3 discusses the different themes that digital art explores. A few examples from the book include artificial intelligence, telepresence, database aesthetics, mapping, the body and identity. Digital art explores many of the same themes that traditional art explores but they also have their own themes specific to digital art.

As the book states artificial intelligence and Artificial life have been an area of research and speculation in the scientific realm for a very long time. Now artist and and scientist are creating projects that combine aesthetics and science. Karl Sim's installations Genetic Images and Galapagos allow people to influence a simulated evolution of images/organisms by making aesthetic decisions. The participant choices two organisms. The organisms respond by mutating and reproducing. The offspring are a combination of genes from the two parents with random mutations by the computer. Creating a simulated evolution by combining human and computer interaction. This project sounds very interesting. It combines the human reaction to images and aesthetics to scientific applications. It would be an interesting learning tool and just something fun to play around with.

People are also looking at the evolution of digital organisms. Rebecca Allen with a team of collaborators have created a project, a software system, titled Emergence. It creates a three dimensional, computer generated environment that is geared towards the exploration of social behaviors and communication through gestures and movements. This is an interesting project. In the physical world we communicate more through our body movements than with words. However it seems that people are more bold in the virtual world which I think would translate into different gestures and movements in the virtual world. It would be interesting to study the difference between how people react to the same situation in the real world versus the virtual world.

The book also discusses telepresence and how it influences people and communities. One of the projects talked about in the book, which was very interesting to me, was The Telegarden installation created by Ken Goldberg and Joseph Santarromana. The project had live plants that could be viewed through their website and people could water the plants and plant seedlings. It is reminds me of a virtual community garden. I wish the project was still around I would love to participate. Telepresence projects allow people to insert themselves into a distant environments and communities. They also allow people to create their own online communities. With the Telegarden people were not actually in the room with the garden but through the Internet they created their own community and created a physical environment along with a virtual environment.

Another interesting theme included in the book is mobile and locative media. Julian Bleecker explores locative media by creating the WiFiArtCache. An access point for digital art consisting of a free-floating WiFi node which has been deliberately disconnected from the Internet making it necessary for the user to be within physical range of the node to retrieve information. Once people are close enough they can download Macromedia Flash animations created by the artist. This is so interesting, it is like having a digital museum or gallery. This gives more people access to art and exposure to new artist.

Digital art explores artist themes in a different way. I believe giving more people exposure to art, different artist and ideas.

Digital Narrative

Shakespeare Sonnet 81

Chapter 2 Response

As the chapter said digital technologies as a medium can mean a variety of things, an interactive installation, software, internet art, or any combination. Digital art is described as participatory, dynamic, and customizable.

The beginning of the chapter talks about creating environments and immersion. The author connects these ideas with architecture, something that has always been of interest to me. Reading about digital architecture was intriguing. Architecture is a combination of art and function and all about immersion. Digital architecture can be create in many different ways, it about the relationship between physical space and virtual space.

One project that really interested me was The Legible City. There were several components that I really liked. First the interactivity of the project, having the viewer ride the bike to move around in the digital environment. Second, the way the artist created the cities with text using historical events and monologs. As the book says the artist created “an informational architecture.” He is literally creating a link between the physical and virtual world through hypertext and hypermedia.

The project Displaced Emperors also uses architecture to create an environment. It was also an interactive project. The artist projected the Habsburg Castle and when the audience points to places on the façade of the castle a large hand appears and reveals the interior however you do not see the interior of the Habsburg Castle but the Chapultepe Castel the Habsburg residence in Mexico City. The artist is connecting strands of colonial history. Using art to tell history is not a new thing but using an interactive installation helps people to connect to the history creates a new interface for studying history.

The architect Marcos Novak has described cyberspace as liquid architecture, where all structures are programmable and thus fluid, capable of transcending the laws of the physical world. This is an appealing idea. In physical architecture the designers are always looking for the fluidity, how to make the space flow. With digital architecture you are able to create whatever flow you would want and if need be change the program.

The other part of the chapter that intrigued me was the impact of digital technology on sound and music. I particularly like the project by Toshio Iwai who created an audio-visual installation called Piano-as image media. He created an experience that incorporated audio, visual, physical and virtual. You don’t get a much richer experience.

There is a lot more information discussed in this chapter but the above are a few of the things that really stood out to me.

Project 2: Anti-AntiAging

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4soEvvuHrG0

When we first started talking about this project I was thinking about what we fabricate in life. One of the first things that came to my mind was Joan Rivers and plastic surgery. As I was researching plastic surgery I kept coming across ads for anti-aging products. There were a couple of articles discussing how these ads are being aimed at younger and younger women and some even at children. (http://stilettorevolt.com/2009/11/anti-aging/ ) So I thought it would be interesting to make a commercial spoofing the 20 billion dollar anti-aging industry and their aim at younger women. This project is a small extension of my first project. My first project focused on the fabricating of women's bodies using photo-shop. This project is commenting on women trying to use anything they can to fabricate or alter their own bodies to look younger.

First I found a commercial for Olay Total Effects (an anti-aging product) to use as a model for my project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDt4OCVwEzE I then found a YouTube video of a baby babbling/talking to use as my spokes person in the commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-J6Gqzq2CE Using this video was harder than I thought because I wasn't sure how to download it to my computer. Because of the difficulty of downloading the videos I tried using the programs Crazy Talk and Natural Reader to make my own video. Which did not work because you have to buy the full version to save the video that you create. However, I eventually found a free program to download the YouTube videos. (http://download.cnet.com/YouTube-Downloader/3000-2071_4-10647340.html?tag=mncol ) After I downloaded the video of the baby talking and the Olay commercial I used Adobe Premier to combine and edit the baby and Olay videos. I recorded the audio with my iPhone and did my best to line up the video with the audio. I do think that matching the audio with the video was the most difficult part.

The following are the different scripts that I came up with for the audio:

How come my skin looks so young? I started caring for it before the signs of aging appeared. Only Total Effects from Olay fights lines, wrinkles and in fact all seven signs of aging. Start using Olay Total Effects today and stop the battle of aging.

How come my skin still looks so young? I started caring for it before the signs of aging appeared. Olay Total Effects offers 7 anti-aging skin benefits including fighting lines, wrinkles and dark spots. Start using Olay Total Effects today and stop the battle of aging.

Response to Chapter 1

The first chapter of Digital Art is about using digital technologies as tools. The majority of the chapter discusses different ways that artist have used digital technologies as a tool. It states in the beginning of that many people speculate that all forms of artistic media will eventually be absorbed into the digital medium one way or another. In my opinion this is most likely a true statement especially as young artist emerge since they are are much more comfortable with the digital world. Also I think that artist in general are always looking for new ways to create and expand what they are already doing.

The idea of boundaries eroding between different medias is very interesting. They give the example of Casey Williams work that merges photography with painterly color fields and industrialism. It creates a new interesting work of art. I feel that the boundaries are not only eroding between mediums but also between artist creating a bigger community.

I was particularly interested the work by Jochem Hendricks the “Eye”. I love the concept of tracking what the artist is seeing and translating that into art. As the book says “it is a precise record of the root of the artistic process and visual perception.” Specifically I thought it was interesting that viewer could make out the face that was on the front cover of the paper. The book brings up the argument that some people believe that there is a loss of relationship with the mark and discusses how the concept , the composition of elements and the writing of software are all a mark left by the artist. I do agree that concept and composition of elements are a mark of the artist however, I think this project has more of a mark then concept and the writing of software. You are getting a view of the world through the artist eyes. We are able to track what he saw and read which tells us so much about them. This may not be a physical mark but I feel that this visual mark is more substantial.

This chapter had some interesting ideas and brought out some conflicts that can arise with the introduction and merging of digital technologies. Digital technology will eventually be integrated entirely through out the art world. The eroding of boundaries that creates new art, new ideas and I feel a bigger community. The author also brought up the conflict of whether or not a physical mark is necessary and how that effects the individual piece and the viewer. We each leave our mark when creating one way or the other.

Celebrity Overpopuation

This is an example of Parody using satire. It's a comment on society's obsession with celebrities, reality TV and everybody flocking to Hollywood to get their 15 minutes of fame.