Here's a link to one of my web pages

Art Event Three

The Mandrake. Well, it was bizarre, and I must confess that I really did not like it. It was sort of all over the place as far as the plot line is concerned, and it did not paint a flattering picture of women. The main character allowed herself to be manipulated (and with very little struggle in the process). The leading man (whose name I have forgotten because it has been so long) decided one day that he wanted to sleep with a married woman, so he comes up with this ridiculously complicated plan that would never actually work (it had something to do with telling the girl that in order to get pregnant she must drink a deadly potion, sleep with another man and allow him to die, then sleep with her husband who will impregnate her at that point). However, shockingly, it does work. The girl completely allows it to happen. Other than that, the costumes were strange (the old man's phallic codpiece O.O), and the little demons were unnerving (the one that kept laughing very strangely). I did like the nymphs and their musical numbers though (mostly because the music was good, and the nymphs were graceful; they played their parts well). The set was amazing as well; it was well done, brightly-colored, and whimsical. It reminded me of a scene from the video game Kingdom Hearts, and I really wanted to play around in it; so, it matched the mood of the play, I suppose.

My Collage

My New Website!

Here's a link to my new website which was made in class today

5 Possible Websites for Project

National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/
American Eagle: http://www.ae.com/web/index.jsp
The Metropolitan Opera: http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/
Harvard University: http://www.harvard.edu/
Hard Rock Cafe: http://www.hardrock.com/

I can't get it to work!

I've been trying all morning and all last night to get the homework assignment to work, but I can't! In any case, I think I get the gist of what it does regardless. This piece primarily uses the internet as its medium; it could've been done in other ways, but they would have been exponentially less effective. For exmaple he could have chosen a store and replaced all the prices with "oil prices." This would not have been as pervasive, and it also would not have involved the consumer at all. With this version, the consumer has to actually download the software out of curiosity. Without the internet, the audience may not have known what they were looking at or why; they may not have had any real interest in it. Finally, the internet is available to almost everyone in almost every country, so that makes his project that much more available. This ties in with the internet article because it reflects the internationality of the internet (the fact that anyone can access this piece for little or no cost). It also reminds me of the first internet users, who turned it into "an electronic mailbox" essentially, and this piece seems to embody that in a way. It's downloads are sent out in little packages to anyone who is curious; it's like a more modern version of the mailable art we just finished.

Art Event Two

For my second art event, I attended Fereshteh's lecture on her work. My two favorite pieces shown here were Saddam's Birthday and Dance Dance Revolutionary. I liked these two works in general because they seemed very light-hearted while carrying with them two very serious subject matters. Both projects seemed to involve passers-by on an entertaining as well as intellectually stimulating level, and I liked that. Saddam's Birthday seemed to be a statement on the effects of terrorism on American public opinion and attitudes towards the Middle East and politics in general. The fact that it was supposedly Saddam's "66th" birthday was the initial indication that we were looking for some sort of ironic statement on the demonization of the Middle East. I was amused (in an ironic sort of way) that there were these tourist-type people taking photos of themselves in front of strongly American institutions while wearing masks made to resemble America's supposed arch nemesis. The best part was when they got a talking to from the authorities; that just proved the point that American authorities are vindictive and self-righteous in the worst way. We have no sense of humor when it comes to international relations, especially with Middle Eastern countries. For that matter, we don't have much of a sense of humor when it comes to the realistic depiction of anyone who doesn't share America's ideals; they must all be demonized, apparently. As for the Dance Dance Revolutionary project, I liked all of it because I play DDR religiously, and I thought it was a wonderful idea to involve the audience so directly with the subject matter.

Art Event One

Over Spring break, I visited the Hirshorn museum in Washinton DC to see a few different shows: Virgil Marti and Pae White (who decorated the Museum's lobby) and a collection by John Baldessari, as well as a special black box video installation. I loved the Marti and White decoration of Hishorn's lobby. There were two huge, mishapen couches at the center of the lobby. They were made of that Swedish squishy mattress-type material that forms to your shape, and they were covered in a fabric that was printed to look like giant newspapers. They were amazingly comfortable, and I kind of wanted to take one home with me! Each one could accomodate maybe 4 or 5 people each. They also used two (or maybe three?) huge bead curtains. The beads looked almost like golden pieces of bones strung together with metal chain links; although, the way in which I'm describing it seems rather industrial, it was really vewry pretty. Upon closer inspection, however, the golden beads looked like bones. There were also two chandeliers above the installation; they were intricate and very unusual (to me anyways). It looked as if the artist had made glass deer antlers and arranged them in a circle of 8 or so. The antlers were presenting lotus flowers with little light blulbs in them, and the whole thing was strung up with striped rope. One lamp had black antlers, green-blue lotus flowers, and purple and neon green rope, while the other had golden-orange antlers, yellow and pink lotus flowers, and aqua and yellow rope. All together, they were lovely. The elements of said room, then, were very eclectic, but somehow befitting to one another. Although these were all art-objects, the whole installation managed to very welcoming and comfortable: a formidable lobby. Aside from that, the Baldessari show was impressive as well. My favorite piece was a statue of a nude young woman lounging on a Victorian-type couch. She was wearing thigh-high stockings and holding three roses, and the whole statue was orange-creme colored except for her shoes, which were a bright, buff white color. The sculpture itself was fluid and realistic, and I liked the white shoes for some reason. I think it was making a statement about femininity, but I can't be sure. I was also doing research for our Postcard project (mine was partly on Poe), and I had found that, on the anniversary of Poe's death every single year, a mysterious person puts three red roses and a half-empty bottle of alcohol on Poe's grave. That may have been why I was so struck by the sculpture of the young woman holding three roses.

Here's
a link to my contest, vote for me!
And here's my photo shop image...it's a zombie sloth! enjoy

Cut-Ups Reading

Regarding the cutting and pasting of words and images, I've always been a fairly strong advocate of the right of an artist to use sources. I like the idea of not neglecting those things already in existance rather than creating new things. It's also quite important in understanding your source: disecting it in order to reverse or change its meaning will create a more deep understanding of its purpose. At the same time, I'm also somewhat neutral on the reading- I really feel like I need to see these things in action, so to speak. I completely understand cutting and pasting both visually and ligustically or just visually, but I'm not entirely clear on why artists would cut and paste solely within literature. I'm not oppossed to it; I'm not saying I think it's silly, but I'd like to see more examples of it. The paragraph of rearanged words was not enough for me to fully understand the purpose of doing this. So, my question is less of a question and more of a desire to see additional illustrations of what this reading is talking about.

Jim Carrey Before and After Use of The Healing Brush/Patch Tool

Dada Post

For this assignment I chose to observe John Heartfield's work. I read the post on how to include pictures, but I can't seem to get it to work. Here's the link instead.
I observed the first two works: Prussian Archangel and Cover of Jedermann sein egner Fussball.
Prussian Archangel would appear to use assemblage first off, but actually this piece is more of a collaged work. Although assemblage involves 3 dimensional objects, they must generally also be found objects. These are all things that were made by Heartfield; some, such as the uniform, were made from pre-existing frameworks, but he made them personally and collaged them together to create this work.

Cover of Jedermann sein egner Fussball is a perfect example of assemblage. It contains things such as a fork, a gun, a lightbulb, and a manequin. These items were not made by Heartfield, but, rather, were placed together to create a 3 dimensional sculpture.

As for their meanings, the first one, clearly, is an anti-war sentiment, and the audio can tell us that it is specifically pointed towards German militarism. I'm not sure about the second, since there is no audio. I almost want to say it is a statement on women, or perhaps machinery's influence onk mankind.

My Audio Project

Here's my audio project. Basically. the task was to create a journey from one place to another, and my journey is from a rural, country area in the United States to the door to another world.
My audio project

Sounds from the Freesound Project are as follows:
water by HerbertBoland
crickets by genghis
dogs barking by ronfont
ending noise (altered) by nicstage
door opening by Glaneur
lock opening by RHumphries
sand footsteps by hazure
singing by irishtokia
ghost sounds by hanstimm

Sounds by me:
guitar part
dialogue
piano

Response to Janet Cardiff

I responded more to the dialogue in Janet Cardiff's piece than anything else. I really loved the mystery of it; she would be speaking normally about something we can all understand, but then she would tell us something personal, or the male voice would interject. It created this dream-like effect wherein the real world is just as it always is with the addition of a a few warps and an enhanced perception of symbols and signs. However, I also recognize that the dialogue, which was my favorite aspect of the piece, was greatly enhanced by the use of a 3 layer audio. She would have, for example, dialogue in the foreground, footsteps in the middle ground, and appropriate ambience in the background such as water or crickets or machinery of some sort, perhaps some far off voices as well. Without these aspects of the piece, it would not be reality. It would just be a dialogue taking place in a plain, sound-proof recording studio. She didn't want that effect, though; she wanted us to be there with her, in her dream, and I think the three layer structure really worked for her purposes. It imitates reality very accurately.

My Audio Exercise

Here's my audio exercise
So this is just a little clip I made of a few quotes by G.W. Bush with some groovy background music, I hope you enjoy it.

Here is my source list, all are from The Freesound Project:
The intro baglama part is by jason01234
The background bell song is by spyguy
The quotes from G.W. Bush are by m:o

My Audio Proposal

For my audio project, I would like to create a journey from a rural area of the United States, possibly in the past, to another world. I'm not exactly sure what sort of world it will be, but I know that it will be pure fantasy (as opposed to, for example, an alternate universe or hidden sect of our own world). It may involve magic or different life forms or a battle, but I'll have to see where the sounds take me once I get there. I do plan on using many sounds as well as music that I will record myself; the music will probably be a few simple sounds on the piano or guitar to enhance the atmosphere of my initial country/rural setting (which was very musically oriented, at least in my opinion, to blues and country).

Response to Sound Projects

I listened to quite a few of these projects, and, frankly, I just thought a lot of them were very silly. I'm a very visual person (and, therefore, very biased), and I'm not too interested in sound unless it's musical or unless it accompanies some sort of visual media. A lot of these projects dealt with the manipulation of human voices and sound devices to create a dramatic effect, but I wasn't really buying it at all. I wasn't moved by any of it. However, after I tried a few links, I listened to Milan Knizak's Broken Music Composition, and I loved it (at least compared to the others). I suppose I just liked it because it had really old sounding music that was all scratched up, as if the record was damaged. I liked it because it made me feel sort what I would call a more complex version of nostaglia. It reminded me of records and all the old style music I've listened to my whole life, but some of the sound effects distorted it so much that you could barely hear the music. So, I liked the fact that it wasn't just purely nostalgic of old music-- that would have been cheesy. I think this one stood out more for me because, as a musician, I connected with the sounds and the concept of it more so than with the other works.

Response to the Reading

I think this reading contained several interesting concepts about contemporary art that got me thinking. Contemporary art and deejaying, for example, are not two things that I would immediately think to compare. However, it does seem to be how artists work in this era, i.e. by reusing or combining prexisting ideas or works and elaborating on them in some way. My response to this reading was mainly to the idea of using sources in contemporary art; I've never relied too heavily on sources (consciously, anyways), and it was interesting for me, as an artist, to read this article which offered some insight into the thought process behind reusing old art. One artist said something along the lines of "why make new objects when we have so many in the world already?" I loved that; I can see how an artist would use this idea to jusitfy working solely from sources. I could see myself working from sources because of that idea: there are so many concepts and artworks in the world that haven't been fully analyzed and understood, and it would be interesting to create a work which elaborates on its source's original meaning.

link to an art project

here is a link to a project called sketch furniture
it's basically a company that used motion-detection devices to make 3D images out of sketches; the 3D images are turned into blueprints for furniture.

hear hear

testing testing testing