ART 343-Pepakura Mini-Golf Hole

My completed Pepakura mini-golf hole turned out differently than I had initially expected when I started the project. My concept was to take the objective and competitiveness out of the game, thus making the game utterly meaningless. I tried to achieve this concept by creating a hole that everyone would get a hole-in-one. I tried and realize this by creating tracks for the ball to go in that would lead directly to the hole. I am satisfied with the design that I created in Pepakura, and feel that my physical object turned out beautifully as well. That being said, I scaled the original size down too much and thus made my physical object too small to be used with the marbles. I am also not too crazy with the spray paint I used, but all in all am satisfied with how this project turned out. If I were to redo this project I would definitely make sure that I scaled the design correctly, as well as print on a paper of my choice, rather than defaulting to what was available in the digital media lab.

ART 350-Lectures/Exhibition Reviews

Barbara London Lecture Review

Bill Viola, Barbara London, and
Joel Bachar

Barbara London is the Video and Media Curator at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. She visited the University of Nevada, Reno April 28 as a guest curator for the annual student art show. Prior to the opening of the student art show, she gave a brief lecture at the university. In her lecture she discussed many of the artists she had the opportunity to work with at MoMa, as well as showcase her most recent work, “Looking at Music, 3.0.” London’s lecture consisted mostly of talking about and displaying works of artists she had worked with as curator at MoMa. She initially talked about Nam Jun Paik, an artist I have become familiar with over the past few years as a digital media student, and how he pushed the envelope with his use of televisions and creating essentially the first form of a short music video in “Beatles Electroniques.” She explained that Paik was often trying to comment on television as information and how culture interacts with it. After several more presentations of artists she had worked with, London went on to show her work currently on display at MoMa. “Looking at Music, 3.0” surveys the diverse world of ‘80s and ‘90s appropriation, exploring the influence of music and remixing culture on visual arts of the era. In an article in the New York Press, London said, "As a curator of time-based media I have followed how visual artists work between disciplines and often collaborate with musicians or have done music themselves." The most memorable thing that London said during the lecture was that all art takes is a good idea. I understand what she meant when she said this; however, I respectfully disagree with this statement. I think it takes more than just a good idea. I believe it takes a good idea as well as a conceptually genuine way to express that good idea. If one cannot express their good idea in manner that truly represents that idea, then the idea may be lost in translation.

QUESTIONS:
What drove you to become a curator and did you always imagine you's be one for MoMa?
Which artist that have worked with has had the most influence on you and why?

Poster for "Looking at Music 3.0"

Pete Froslie Lecture Review

Pete Froslie

Pete Froslie, "Augmented Reality John
Wilkes Booth"

Pete Froslie visited the University of Nevada, Reno for a visiting lecture in late March. Froslie is an electronic artist and an alumnus of the University of Nevada.  His early work focused on automating many objects from his childhood and looking at their surfaces and infrastructures for ways to communicate his conceptual ideas.  Continuing with his idea of automating things, Froslie automated a group of small toy cows by connecting their circuits to a decomposing beef heart. As the heart decomposed over time, chemical reactions would cause the toys to move and moo.  Froslie described his cow heart work and works previous to that as “illusions of life through technological means.” I found this description of his work accurate and very interesting. The concept of portraying organic, natural things by the means of automated, technological objects is an interesting idea to me because they are so much different. Froslie’s most recent, ongoing project incorporates several different forms of media as well as painting, drawing, and sculpture. Froslie has created a John Wilkes Booth avatar and has been trying to use fandom to start automating this virtual counter image of President Abraham Lincoln. Froslie has created an ongoing novel to serve as the story behind the virtual Booth’s adventures. I enjoy that Froslie has linked different aspects of his virtual Booth story though several different forms, book, video, comic, games, website, painting, sculpture, etc. All in all, I found Froslie’s lecture very entertaining and insightful. I gained some insight into the somewhat fanatical, yet engaging mind of an electronic artist who was at one point in the same place that I am now. His lecture inspired me to try new things as well as showed me that not everything we do as artists has to be purely concept, but that we can have crazy ideas and just run with them.

QUESTIONS:
When creating this ongoing story of your virtual John Wilkes Booth, do you incorporate any real life events, either of yours or the real Booth?
Which form of media do you prefer working with when creating these stories and why?

Pete Froslie, "Toy Cows Controlled with Beef Heart"

Leo Villareal Exhibition Review

Leo Villareal, "Amanecer"

I have visited Leo Villareal’s exhibition “Animating Light” on display at The Nevada Museum of Art twice now, and can truly say it is one of the most stimulating and inspiring exhibits I have ever visited. I must admit, that I have a predisposition to love light shows and works of the like ever since attending my first electronic music concert and witnessing the amazing light shows that accompany the music. That being said, Villareal’s exhibition is somewhat different from the intense lightshows that often accompany electronic music. Villareal has taken light and uses it in a much more calming, tranquil way. Few of his works incorporate quick, flashing lights that could understandably cause seizures. Villareal seems to work more with deliberately passive changing light. What is amazing to me is how light can so evoke such strong emotion from a viewer. For instance, Villareal’s piece “Diamond Sea,” made with white LEDs, custom software, and mixed media, is a little faster paced in its changing LEDs and created an anxious, energized feeling. In comparison, his piece “Amanecer,” made with LEDs, custom software, diffusion material, wood, electrical wiring, and hardware, has a slower, soothing change in colors that was peaceful and serene.  My personal favorite piece in the show was “Big Bang,” made with LEDs, aluminum, custom software, and electrical software. I found myself, both times I visited the exhibition, being able to sit and watch this piece for such long periods of time that everything else just seemed unimportant. The swirling colors, and constantly changing shapes within the swirls caught and held my attention. I kept trying to find a pattern, but found that I never could, that it was always different. Villareal’s “Animating Light” was a real eye-opener for me and has truly inspired me to want to create light pieces that evoke such emotion like his did for me.

QUESTIONS:
What is your biggest form of inspiration when creating these light pieces?
What would you like viewers to take away from your light pieces when they view them? Are they similar or would you like each one to speak something different?

Leo Villareal, "Diamond Sea"

Leo Villareal, "Diamond Sea"

Leo Villareal, "Big Bang"

ART 350-EyeCon Final Installation

The final installation for my EyeCon project worked successfully. I was able to accomplish my goals of getting music to play based on where paint was laid on a canvas. I had some minor problems along the way, but was able to work through them. All in all, I agree with the comments during the critique that there was definitely room to push this project even further. This, and all the technology we were introduced to this semester, are so new and experimental that when using them I must not limit myself to things I know and the basic functions that these technologies offer. Just as new technologies in the past created countless new creative and conceptual artworks, these new technologies are jut the same and have possibly even more opportunity to push the envelope. That being said, for my first project using the EyeCon software, I feel learned many of the basic functions that the software has to offer and will hopefully be able to continue and progress my artwork from what I learned.

ART 350-EyeCon Update 3

My project is coming along nicely. I have finished building my canvases, five in total each 2' x 2'. I've also continued to play with the angle of the camera from above and have found a way I think works best. This of course will change once the piece is installed, but I at least feel better about the general angle and distance. After finding that both the Front Door and McNamara Galleries will not be available for me to install my piece on May 3, I've decided to try and install the piece in the northernmost stairwell of the CFA Building (near the painting studio), the one covered in graffiti and other artworks. This environment seems appropriate to invite people to interact with my work and express themselves on the canvas, hopefully drawing inspiration from the art surrounding them. I will ask Wendy to make sure it is okay to install my piece in the area and also if I may borrow an easel from the painting studio for the installation. I am glad to say I accomplished all the goals I set for this project in the last update. For next week, I need to confirm I can install in the stairwell and borrow an easel, play with how to incorporate different sounds in the same field, and be prepared to install (i.e having everything tested and ready).

ART 343-Mini-Golf Hole Update 2

I've finished modeling my mini-golf hole in SketchUp and have started putting the pieces together from the 2D pieces that Pepakura unfolded. There are a lot of pieces for this hole, and it looks as if it is going to take a long time to complete, but I am actually very excited to put it all together and see the finished product. I printed my pieces on the standard white printer paper from the lab, but plan on painting the hole once it is all assembled.

ART 350-Eyecon Update 2

Since last week I have narrowed down the number of tracks I am going to be using from twenty to nine. I believe this helps for it to sound more like a song, and less like a jumble of sounds going off all at once. I have also replaced most of the single time sound effects with looping beats. I played around with the camera position a bit and have found it difficult to create fields that work as well as I want from the overhead position, so I think I am going to have to work using the polygon tools, or find a different angle that will work better. I contacted the gallery to see if it would be possible to set up my installation in either the McNamara or Front Door Galleries on April 27, but was denied due to the Student Art Show the following day. I was just informed that these projects will not be due until May 3, so I will ask if it would be possible to install my project on that date. If that does not work I will try and find another suitable place to install. For next week I would like to have the camera position and angle figured out and working, have the polygon fields positioned in the areas needed to fill up the canvas area it is pointed at, and have the canvases built and ready to be painted on.

ART 343-Mini-Golf Hole Update 1

Having worked with Google SketchUp now for many hours, I am starting to feel like I am getting somewhere with this assignment. I have had spent numerous hours testing out different ideas for my mini-golf hole, trying to make the curves and bends the way I want, only to get frustrated and start over. Now, however, I am at a place where I feel like each hour I spend on this is truly productive and getting closer to what I imagine this hole looking like. I am definitely behind where I feel I should be, but intend on putting a lot of hours into this project over the next several weeks to make sure it is up to the level I want it to be.

ART 350-EyeCon Update 1

I have made some great progress over the week on my EyeCon project. I set a goal to play with the program a bit and test it's capabilities to see what I would and would not be able to do. So far I have been able to create 20 separate fields within EyeCon, all of which have their own .wav file. Each field is activated when EyeCon recognizes a change in the white background, such as paint being applied. I've set each field to "Expansion," which just means that the more of a field that is taken up, the louder the volume is for that certain .wav track. I initially downloaded a variety of sound files I thought would work well together to make a unique song, but after playing with them found that they do not actually all work that well together. I plan to continue looking for more sounds that mesh together better than the ones I have now. As for installation location, I don't have a specific location in mind yet. Somewhere where people would be able to be walking by a blank canvas and paints and be intrigued to let their artistic juices flow. Perhaps in the Front Door Gallery or in the McNamara Gallery.

ART 343-Mini-Golf Hole Declaration and Pepakura Figure

For this assignment I want to create a mini-golf hole that the user would make a hole-in-one every time. I would do this by creating my hole at an angle to ensure the ball, once hit, continues to roll until it is in the hole. I would like to design the hole with several interlacing paths that all end right at the hole. I think it would interesting to make the hole look like it is impossible, yet when the user tries it finds that they will make a hole-in-one every time they try. Pictures of my progress to come.

Picture of my Pepakura Andy Warhol

ART 350-Second Project Declaration

I would like to use the EyeCon to create an interactive musical painting for the second project of the semester. I have stumbled upon various websites like this one, where the user can create their own music simply by pressing a corresponding key on their keyboard. I want to take that idea to painting, but instead of pressing a key, the beats and synthesized sounds will be activated by painting on a canvas. I intend to have Eyecon focused on a canvas where people will be invited to paint on a blank canvas. I will create areas on the canvas that Eyecon will trigger to play a certain sound (either once or looped) if it notices a change, such as paint being applied. Hopefully, each song created will be unique just as each painting will be unique.

ART 350-Arduino Final Installation

We have finally finished installing our jellyfish in the 208A Gallery in the Church of Fine Arts at UNR. I have learned a lot from this project, both about the possibilities of Pepakura and of Arduino. I feel as if we have only scratched the surface of the potentials with both of these programs, and look forward to delving deeper into each of them as my work with digital art progresses. Although we originally planned to have more jellyfish, I think that only having three works well for the small gallery space. Each jellyfish is equipped with it's own Arduino along with six LED's programmed to blink in sequence. All in all, I am satisfied with how this project turned out.

ART 350-Update 3

We've managed to nearly complete our first jellyfish. When we proposed to make 10 of these jellyfish, we immensely underestimated how much time each one would take to create. Thus, with only two weeks remaining before this assignment is due, we've decided to downsize the scale and only create a few, 5 at most. We have a lot of work ahead of us, not only with building the jellyfish, but also with the Arduino and it's programming. We have had some progress with getting lights working and some other basic codes, but no luck yet with having it detect movement to activate the lights. We plan to spend a lot of time the rest of the week and over spring break in the digital media lab working with Clint and researching online to get this whole thing completed.

ART 343-Machinima

Our group, Jett Chapman, Max Simone, and myself, decided on reenacting a portion of the very intense documentary "The Bridge" by Eric Steele. We chose to focus on one particular man, Gene Sprague, who took his life on the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004. We found a beautifully rendered replica of the bridge in Second Life and created an avatar that looked similar to Gene Sprague. We used audio and some video from the documentary along with scenes filmed in Second Life to create our machinima. Over all, I am pleased with how the machinima turned out. It is an interested concept in my mind of creating a documentary, which is supposed to be all about capturing something that is real, but doing so in a virtual environment. I think the actual documentary footage we used is very powerful, but after watching in class and seeing the other students reaction feel it would have been more powerful had we just used the footage of Mr. Sprague jumping from the bridge. We could have created the entire rest of the machinima in Second Life and left the part he jumps off as real footage, just to remind the viewer that it in not all fantasy.

ART 343-Digital Nation Analysis

I found this documentary to be very insightful and brought many pressing issues in our "digital nation" to light. Many of the issues and subjects they cover throughout this documentary are relevant not only to myself, but to others around the world. The first point in the documentary that really got me thinking was the notion that people are being introduced to media and digital technology at younger and younger ages, well before their brains are done fully developing. How might this effect the future generations? What kind of advantages and/or disadvantages might this have on future generations? I recall the kinds of digital technology I had available to me as a child, and am amazed at the progression it's made in the short period of time since then. How will this rapidly changing world effect generations young and old, and will it, or has it already come to pass that technology is progressing too quickly for some to keep up with?
The documentary also pointed out that when print was introduced it inhibited the use of our memory because we no longer were required to memorize things, we had a way to document them. It seems with the introduction of digital media, at this point, to be inhibiting our attention span. As pointed out by the students at Stanford and MIT, we are constantly pulled into hundreds of directions by different forms of technology. Our generation like to believe that we are master multi-taskers, but as the studies showed, and as I can relate from experiences, we are not. We are masters of being distracted by the most insignificant and meager things. How, as technology continues to progress and new and more interesting ones emerge, will it effect us?
Since new technologies are constantly pulling is in so many directions, it appears the way we ave responded is by alienating ourselves from other people and the world around us. I've had numerous situations where people will nearly walk right into me because they are too busy looking down at their cell phones or engulfed in their music that's coursing through their ear-buds. So how do we reconnect with people, with society? Virtual worlds like Second Life and World of Warcraft seem to be the way we are heading. Unlike the real world, these virtual worlds actually encourage people to interact, to team up and accomplish something. Will it come to a point where the only way we socialize or interact is through virtual worlds like these?
A final question that was raised by correspondent Douglas Rushkoff that I found intriguing was:
"We're all together out on the Internet, alone; or alone out on the Internet together. Does this virtual world really bring us together with others? Or does it just make being utterly alone a little more bearable?"
It's a sobering thought to really consider, and one that I'm sure will be answered here in the near future.

ART 350-Arduino Update #2

We have made some good progress since the last update. Pictured above is the the resulting image of our jellyfish after it has been flattened out in the Pepakura Designer program. We have printed it out on a standard letter sized paper to get an idea of what the folds and attachments we will need to make. However, it is much too small on this size paper to begin trying to put it together. So, we will need to either print each individual part out on a separate page, or print the entire thing out on a larger sized paper. Also, still working on getting all the supplies needed for the Arduino portion of the project. More updates to come.

ART 343-Second-Life Performance Proposal

The idea behind my performance proposal is for the entire class to be dressed as giant monkey's (pictured above), roam around in Second Life and to "monkey around." As someone mentioned during our critique, I think it would be interesting to have one of us dressed as a giant banana with the rest of us chasing it around. Additionally, I'd like to have the following song by The Monkees playing while we are in costume.

ART 350-Arduino Update #1

The last couple weeks have been filled with much trial and error and trying to land on a concrete idea of what the project was going to be. Justeen and I have decided to work on this first project together and to create an underwater like world full of jellyfish within a gallery setting. We just recently purchased a 3D model of a jellyfish (pictured above) we plan to use as a template to create our own jellyfish. We've been working in Pepakura, a program that allows us to create paper models from 3D data, to try and make the most realistic looking jellyfish possible. Once we have Pepakura all figured out and our jellyfish in production (we plan to make at least 10), we will be using the Arduino to light the jellyfish up and possibly make them move. The plan at this point is to have the jellyfish made out of a transparent fabric, EL Wire in the bell of the model to give it light, Fiber Optic Lights as the tentacles, and possibly Fiber Optic Ribbon for the oral arms. The Arduino will have a motion sensor attached to detect any movement in the gallery and activate the lights in the jellyfish. There is still a lot of work to go but I am excited to see the project progress.

ART 350-Reading Questions

From Interactive Art on the Internet by Eduardo Kac

1. Seeing as how the Internet has virtually no censorship and that anyone connected may upload whatever they desire, how might this effect artists using the Internet as an interactive medium and the deeply rooted idea that art has a social responsibility, either negatively or positively?


From On Totalitarian Interactivity by Lev Manovich

2. The final paragraph of the essay reads, "This (interactive computer media) is a new kind of identification appropriate for the information age of cognitive labor. The cultural technologies of an industrial society -- cinema and fashion -- asked us to identify with somebody's bodily image. The interactive media asks us to identify with somebody's else mental structure." If this is true, will it come to pass that interactive computer media will put the same pressure on society to conform to a certain "mental structure" the way that cinema and fashion have with bodily images?

ART 343-Second Life Avatar and Object Comparison

For this assignment we were to create a realistic self-portrait avatar as well as an object from our daily lives in the online virtual-world of Second Life. I had created a self-portrait avatar previously in Second Life for the beginning Digital Media class, which can be viewed here. I feel that my second attempt at my avatar was much more successful, due in part to the fact that I had spent more time in Second Life figuring out it's capabilities as well as using a skin template to import an actual image of my face rather than using the default skins. I am pleased with the way my avatar turned out, but feel as if there are still some things I can do do to make it truly look just like me.
As for the object I created, I decided to create a replicate of my Sony PSP. Again, I was pleased with the way it turned out, but still feel like there is more that I can do to make it seem truly realistic. This was my first time creating in object in Second Life, but found the build feature to be pretty simple and fun to play around with. I look forward to spending more time in Second Life and discovering more possibilities and ways to expand my ideas as a digital media artist.

ART 343-Art & the Avatar Discussion Questions

1. In one of the responses to the article, left by Sowa Mai, it discusses the issue of entering a virtual world with our perspective still intact. These perspectives are based on situations and events experienced in the real world. In my mind I wonder whether or not our perspectives, while in a virtual world, are worth anything. In a place where we can be anyone or anything we want, where we can do things we as real people would never dare to do for fear of seclusion or judgment, in a realm where anything goes, do these perspectives matter?

2. The society we live in trains us to expect unrealistic and unachievable attributes of ourselves and of each other via commercialized mass media. We are bombarded with commercialized images of the ideal body, the ideal home, the ideal lifestyle day in and day out. For this reason, the ambiguity of identity while in a virtual world can be extremely attractive. In a virtual world we have the freedom to alter any indicators of age, race, gender; to be anyone we want to be. In reality, we are pressured to be all of these ideal things with just a hint of hope that we may someday be, but in a virtual world we have the choice to be whoever we want, whether that be the ideal image that we feel pressured into being, or anything else we may have our hearts set on. The question I pose in this case is that since we live in a society that puts this sort of pressure on us daily, why wouldn't we be attracted to escape to a place where we can actually be exactly who we want to be without the fear of being ridiculed for not following the societal norm?

ART 343-HUD Display

Click to view in larger size.

This was my second go at creating a HUD as a self-portrait, the first being one created for the beginning Digital Media, ART 245. That one can be viewed here for comparison. For this one I wanted to create a HUD that represented something about me that I love to do, which is skiing. I chose to represent this in a first-person POV because I felt it would give the viewer a better feel of the exhilaration and beauty I see when I ski as opposed to a third-person view. I really enjoy the way this HUD turned out and am glad I decided to create something from what I do rather than take something already done and make it my own like I did in the previous HUD display.