Intro to Visual Practice / Fall 2010

Our assignment in class was to experiment with mirrors and technology throughout the Link.  After first learning how to interact with the exhibit displayed on the screens on the walls with the link, we were each given a mirror to place as a mask over our face.  This experience was interesting enough in itself, but also changed the way the student interacted with the exhibit.

An interesting part of the day for me was experimenting with the masks that had horizontal strips of mirror.  One student wore this mask, while I wore a full mirror one.  It was intriguing because I did not see my reflection fully while looking in the other students face.  I saw a combination of things, and it reminded me of the concept of fragmented identity.  The postmodern notion that a subject is constructed using multiple materials has always resonated with my beliefs, and this experience in the link supported my thoughts with what I consider concrete evidence.  We see ourselves reflected in the eyes of society, and that reflection is developed through numerous sources and experiences.

This day in the Link made me think about my social structure project.  I was considering doing a video about Facebook, but now I am thinking about moving in the direction of a video that represents how I think different fragments of the world around us helps construction me inside the social structure I believe to live in!

1.  I researched many definitions of probability, but the one that I found most accurately described the term was from wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn.  They define probability as : a measure of how likely it is that some event will occur.  In my own words, I would describe probability and chance as concepts that describe the likelihood of an event happening and that are calculated using a mathematical reasoning method.  In artwork, this term could be applied in projects that depend on chance – such as my drawing machine project.  My design allowed a user to draw a card at random that then determined what they would have to draw.

2.  According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, printmaking is defined as the production of images normally on paper and exceptionally on fabric, parchment, plastic or other support by various processes of multiplication; more narrowly, the making and printing of graphic works by hand or under the supervision of the artist.”- http://www.worldprintmakers.com/english/pmdef.htm.  When I think of printmaking, I think of the possibility of multiple originals.  There can be no pure original, just like a camera that uses a negative.  Copies are made from both the negative or the item used for the print, but each is considered an original work.  Printmaking has been around since the 15th century and began as a communicative method, but since has developed into a luxurious art form.

I tried to upload pictures – but I kept getting HTTP error!

My idea for transforming a site into a piece of art stemmed from such discussion in class about other artists.  I wanted to create something dealing with nature, harmony, and friendship.  I went through several ideas and decided on using different color streamers to transform a tree.  I decided on playing a song to inspire the movements of throwing the streamers.  The song Earth and Sky by Tea Leaf Green is a piece that describes the harmonious forces existing between the ground holding us here, and the heavenly divine spirits in the sky.  The lyrics are as follows:

I don’t plant crops and

I don’t build fences

I don’t ride on railroads
And I don’t dig trenches
I’m living in between
The earth and sky
I don’t go to school
I don’t go to churches
I don’t visit graveyards
I don’t know the purpose of ‘em
I’m living in between
The earth and sky
Following phone lines
To good times and bad times
Under the starlight
Under the moon
Shining down on me
Shining down on me
I’d write letters
But i’d never send ‘em
The post script on ‘em
Is never ending
I’m living in between
The earth and sky
I’m living in between
The earth and sky

I thought the song captured the harmony that I wanted my art project to be about.  I played the song in a room with 3 of my friends 3 or 4 times while I told them to think about the lyrics and what it meant to them personally.  I then told them that I wanted them each to take a streamer and go outside to the tree I had picked.  I played the song on a loud speaker.  Then, we followed an orderly but harmonious pattern to create the design on the tree.

I told my friend Megan to throw first, then Kelsey, and then Kristy, and then I threw last.  Then we each retrieved our end of the roll and all threw again until the end of the first chorus.  We repeated this pattern until the end of the song, or if someone ran out of their roll.

At the end we observed the work and thought the overall design was fun and original. It was an exhilarating experience for all of us together, and created a source of conversation for people asking why the streamers were on the trees.  I would like to repeat this process in the future but on a much grander scale – like in one of the old trees on East campus and with much larger streamers or strips of colorful paper.  Also by involving more people, the harmonious aspect would be greatly amplified.

Simmons was commissioned by the curator of the Nasher to create a complex, multimedia piece for the exhibit The Record.  Her collaborative effort was a crucial component of the exhibit, and was one of the few works to receive it’s own, housed in space to house the piece.  She traveled across the varying topography of the North Carolina landscape and photographed inspiring renderings of how she interpreted the state.  After taking the photos, she collaborated with famous musicians such as Jim James from My Morning Jacket, who then wrote songs based on the individual photographs.  The songs were merged into one record, which plays on repeat while the viewer observes her photographs in the secluded location.  I chose this work because I found the work inspiring and innovative, especially after speaking with the artist herself when she visited for the release of her record.  She loved the idea of blending different art forms together, and she was a very influential person when it came to working with others who were moved by the arts the same way she was.  Observing her work moved me in an indescribable way, mainly because I felt the spiritual and emotional talent that was so important in creating this collaborative work.  I think we can all learn from her inspiring way of melting and blending different forms of media.

The work of Asa Roos falls under the category of procedural generation.  She creates complex codes for the computer to read, interpret, and then decode and render as images in the form of video games for the consumer.  Her knowledge of codes and the way to manipulate the text to depict a realistic image in a virtual world is the beauty of her artistic skill.

My drawing machine is similar in that we both use a method that is independent of our own body’s doing to create a visual that we want to display as our art.  Her machine is the computer and she then uses codes to tell the machine what to draw.  She invents the way to manipulate the machine and have it render what image she desires.  My machine uses a set of rules to tell a player what to draw.  Both Roos and I are dictating what can be drawn, but the rest is up to the machine.

Our machines are different in that Asa Roos is more active in her manipulation than me.  I cannot control when a player draws a card and during which composition, but Roos can insert code into her piece that will hopefully produce a result she desires.  Also, her machine is electrical and much more complex than my game consisting of notecards and chalk.

However, the concepts are the same at a basic level.  My drawing machine is a precursor to more advance models such as that of Roos’s.

Procedural generation is composed of the codes that designers use to create virtual realities and artwork through the machine that is the computer.  The artists design a code that a computer reads and then renders the image it decodes.

This article relays some info on the background of procedural generation: http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/1055693.

An artist who is well adept at this technique is Asa Roos at Avalanche Studios.

http://www.futuredesigndays.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=628&Itemid=152

She has helped design many aspects of their video games.

The Just Cause video game used procedural generation to design the topography of a large and varied group of tropical islands.  

While many of our drawing machines were very basic, procedural generation is an example of a complex way to interpret the term and use a very complex process to create extremely realistic and virtual images.

1. A hierarchy of light and colors.

2. A diagram of drawing a shape using proportions.

In class we have been talking a lot about how the effects of using contrasting colors.  In my composition, I chose to position a dark red vase against a blue-green background and play around with the reflection from the flash of my camera when I photographed the object.  After several different positionings of the vase and the blanket, I decided to choose the image of the vase lying on its side against a blanket I hung against a fireplace.  I like how the reflection makes the inside of the vase seem obscure and unknown, while the outside is still clearly defined and visible.  I used the macro setting on my digital camera to create this piece.

In class we have been talking a lot about how the effects of using contrasting colors.  In my composition, I chose to position a dark red vase against a blue-green background and play around with the reflection from the flash of my camera when I photographed the object.  After several different positionings of the vase and the blanket, I decided to choose the image of the vase lying on its side against a blanket I hung against a fireplace.  I like how the reflection makes the inside of the vase seem obscure and unknown, while the outside is still clearly defined and visible.  I used the macro setting on my digital camera to create this piece.