Video Art Project: Fat Ass

Watson

We were asked to blog about the article "Computer wins on 'Jeopardy!'; Trivial, It's Not" by John Markoff. Here it is:

I think it's pretty fantastic that we're finding out how to make our technology so smart. Personally, I'm not entirely worried about the computers taking over the world in the sense of world domination. However, I am worried about computers taking the jobs of people. For example, at Walmart, how some of them have self-checkouts. Giving live human beings would be more beneficial in our economy, when finding jobs is so hard, than letting customers ring themselves up. Especially since so many of them don't even work right. If computers are getting smarter, they may take over bigger jobs. Which means people could lose bigger paychecks. That's my biggest worry.

Otherwise, I welcome our new computer overlords.

Orlan

Personally, I'm not a fan of Orlan's "bio-art." I think she had revolutionary ideas and that she was a great artist, certainly. She pushed the boundaries and challenged people, and that's one of the major points of art. She also did some pretty awesome performance pieces for feminism, and I respect her for all of those things.

But, personally, the idea of going in for a surgery that has risks of complications that could kill you is just too much for me. Altering my body into grotesque forms in the name of art is just not my cup of tea. I understand why she did it; I understand the message; I get what she was doing. It's just too much for me.

That said, I've noticed Lady Gaga has been referencing some of her art work in her videos. The body modifications, the heads on tables, the blatant sexuality; she worked Orlan's message into her pieces very well.

Flip Book - An Experiment

My flip book had a story. It was about a little bird that brought a flower to his lover bird, who then found a strange feather on him. The lover bird freaked out, and kicked out the original bird. I panned down in the tree they were in until you saw the owl sitting beneath the nest. The owl says "HOOT!" which transforms into a boy's glasses. You see the original bird fly into the picture, hit the boy, get a strange feather stuck to him, pick the flower, and then fly away.

Conclusion: my bird was innocent the whole time and the lover bird overreacted.

Apparently I never took or uploaded photos of my flip book, and I can't find it since I've packed for the end of the semester. Here's the best I've got, me working on the book:

Paul Allen

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/18/paul-allen-bill-gates-google_n_850781.html

It seems to me that the development of computer and internet technology has been fraught with copycats and under-the-table deals, so this article didn't really surprise me. I'm not a fan of the computer superpower companies deciding to just steal from one another, rather than collaborating. Imagine how far and how fast technology would go if Microsoft, Google, Apple, and any of the other big names teamed up together. That's neither here nor there though.

I'm not surprised Microsoft was arrogant enough to think they had nothing to worry about from Google or that they thought they could catch up to them in six months. Most of the major companies do seem to have this arrogant attitude; whether it comes from the money they've made or the success they've had, I'm not sure. But it seems to me, they could do without it. This story made me a little more of a fan of Google. The more I learn about Microsoft though, the less I think of them.

Performance Art Project

Things I learned from this project:

1. I cannot lip sync.
2. I should never pursue an acting career.
3. A lot of people see something unusual and strange in their environment and just decide to ignore it and pretend it's not there. Very strange to me.
4. I can never play poker.
5. I am not a performance artist. Maybe someday I'll miraculously evolve into one, but as of today, this is not my forte.
6. Choose your videographer wisely and make sure they know exactly what you need them to capture.
7. How to use iMovie. This was my first project edited in it. I'm rather proud of it.

P.S. Sorry I haven't updated my blog very much. I have all of the posts that I need started in drafts. Most of them are halfway done or more, I just haven't gotten around to finishing and uploading them.

Grid Project - Pacman Purse

Xerox Project - This is me... All of me.

I included the covers of my favorite Harry Potter books because they made me who I am as much as my fingerprints and footprints do.

 

Banana for Andy Warhol. And because I love bananas.

Technology has always caught my eye. I have an inner nerd.

Very appropriate for our project.

My belly. I've struggled my whole life with my weight. A part of me doesn't know what I'd do without this part of my body. Become an exotic dancer? Play on a sports team? I may never know, and sometimes I'm ok with that.

When Santi talked in class about his foot project, I immediately connected to it. I've struggled with what my podiatrist calls dermatitis my whole life. I've tried a lot of lotions and medicine, and nothing clears up the cuts and dry skin. I understood what Santi meant with his project; when there's a wound on your foot, you feel it every day and you can't escape it, because you've always got to walk, or run, or dance.

Originally I attempted gluing hinges to the mirrors. They stuck, but the cardboard on the back of the mirrors couldn't hold onto the plastic border. I resorted to yarn and wrapped it around to hold the mirrors upright.

A single ear, cut out, in honor of Van Gogh. I've always loved studying art, and the fact that you've got to be at least a little (or in Van Gogh's case, a lot) crazy to create something new and beautiful.

Also I chose mirrors because when people look at the piece, I want them to see themselves as much as I see myself.

The Cyclotrope

Click here to see The Cyclotrope!

I found this beauty on Tumblr and figured it was very applicable to our class. Plus, it's pretty neat! Unfortunately, I couldn't find a video on Youtube because it's originally from Vimeo so just click the link. Enjoy!

MZTV.COM: The Time Line

The time line is basically a sequence of events for everything that has happened in the history of television. The one provided on the Museum of Television's website (mztv.com) was incredibly detailed and interesting. I really enjoyed the website itself. It was really interactive and entertaining; I loved the construction of it and the way everything flowed. It was very user-friendly and visually appealing. Looking at the many shapes and sizes television has gone through to arrive at the high flatscreens we see today was really fascinating. I had no idea that TVs had evolved from the strange mechanical scanning disk to the teeny-tiny screens reflected onto glass to the cute little round Zenith televisions, and so on.

I don't know, I don't really have much more to say besides the fact that I really enjoyed exploring many facets of the time line.

Stop Motion Bookshelves

Seemed pretty relevant to our class. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

"Scanner Darkly" Assignment from ART 210

 Original:

Completed:

As a freshman to UT, it's my favorite assignment I've done so far, and I'm the most proud of it. I worked for hours on that piece, and I think it came out wonderfully.

Oh no! The sixties!

What happened between 1952 and 1971?
When it seemed like technology could go no further, people resorted to drugs.

I grew up with my grandparents. My mama always said that the 60s were the ruination of this country. I thought that was a bit of an exaggeration, and it is, but now I see what she means. She was born in the early 50s, and was raised by her mother and grandmother, who introduced her to the old music and the old movies. She loved Elvis and The Wizard of Oz, and her favorite song was "How much is that doggy in the window?" by Patti Page. I'm not sure exactly what they are, but every once in a while a movie will come on AMC that she loved, in black and white and sometimes without sound, and she'll excitedly tell me that she used to love it when she was younger. She liked the happy, upbeat flavor of the culture from before her time. My mama always told me she "never fell for all that hippie crap." Watching her friends tripping on acid or high on weed always repulsed her, and as those habits leaked into her music and her movies, she stopped listening and watching.

There's a reason why the "golden oldies" radio stations usually play music only from the 40s, 50s, and a few 60s songs. Some radio stations include more decades, but my grandparents only listen to the 40s, 50s, and a few 60s because those were from the good, ol' days before the world went to Hell in a hand basket. They don't want to remember watching their kids make all the wrong decisions about drugs, and watching on the news as the hippies who had ones promoted drugs are being promoted to politicians. Every time I bring up something political or cultural in my house, they start going off on tangents about how the Beatles and their British Invasion ruined music, or how the people who tore up their draft or escaped to Canada were traitors to their countries.

Because of my very conservative family, I know how the 60s "ruined" music and other aspects of American cultural life, but I'd never really considered film before this class. I'd never heard of Clockwork Orange or seen any part of it. I was appalled, watching these four kids, tripping acid and beating up an old man and raping another man's wife. My parents used to drop acid, and imagining them behaving so abominably made me almost ill. I know that the experience isn't the same for everybody, but the fact that something so dangerous was made into a film that a lot of kids my age apparently laugh at scares me. Apparently I'm more conservative than I thought, because now I almost agree with my mama's summation of the 60s.

I don't necessarily think that it ruined the film or music industry, just that it caused a huge change. And change, though difficult for some, is necessary and good for almost everybody and everything. I'd like to think that the American culture went through a bad time in the 60s, but that it took its experiences and learned from them. Movies and music have evolved in leaps and bounds every year, it seems like, and I enjoy where we're at today.

Animations

Some Examples of Animations:

Flash Animation:

Flip Book Animation

Why so interesting?
The two animations I picked as examples were interesting to me because I just thought they were cool. The Post-Its were really creative, and I loved how the flip book looked three dimensional. There's not really a message with these little animations, there's just pure, fun creativity, and I love stuff like that. My own flip book probably won't be so innovative or skillful, but I hope it's something I can have fun with.

The Rise of Jazz and the Crash of the Stock Market

The history of jazz begins way back in time, when slavery was all-too-common. To communicate, African slaves would call out a line of song and wait for a response from another slave. Slaves also sang "spirituals" to express religious beliefs and desires for freedom. The two are major parts of the foundation for jazz. As the 1800s rolled around, more and more Europeans and Africans immigrated to the US and as their cultures clashed, their music exploded. Mixing the uptight waltzes and quadrilles with the "rhythmic and melodic music of the black community" resulted in "ragtime." As that evolved, sometime in the 1900s it became jazz. In the 20s, it started spreading across the country from New Orleans and, in the 30s, it started changing into different music, like "big band swing." However, between World War II in the 40s and the growing popularity of television in the 50s, jazz fell out of the mainstream. It's influence did leave its mark on musical history by giving rise to rock and roll and almost all other modern music.

The stock market crash was completely unprecedented. The economy had been booming throughout the roaring 20s, and then on Thursday, October 24th of 1929, the market fell about 9%. People panicked and began selling like crazy, sending the market lower and lower. And then on Black Tuesday, hope was lost as it fell another 12%. Soon after the crash, the Great Depression arrived and many lost hope because banks had used of people's live savings to invest in the stock market and had lost it all. Although, the Great Depression wasn't only caused by the crash of 1929. Many farmers planted more wheat than was demanded on the market; President Hoover decided to take a hands-off approach to the rising problem; and factories were overproducing goods and as the monetary situation got worse, people couldn't afford them. These are just a few of the other contributions that made the Great Depression the monstrosity it was.


Jazz was the beauty of expansion and free expression; when Black Tuesday hit the pockets of every American from your average everyday Joe to the big businesses, and then World War II hit, there was less room for such freedoms.

Links:
http://www.historyjazz.com/
http://www.themoneyalert.com/stockmarketcrashof1929.html
http://www.money-zine.com/Investing/Stocks/Stock-Market-Crash-of-1929/

Comments on Madama Butterfly

This little animation seemed to capture the spirit of the story of Madama Butterfly. I haven't actually seen the opera, but the brief synopsis that I read online details an American naval lieutenant who falls "in love" with a Chinese geisha. The two have an affair that results in a child, which is represented in the animation as a fish. Before the child is born, however, the American naval lieutenant returns to the states, leaving the geisha to raise the daughter on her own. Their bond is represented by an extended umbilical cord in the animation. The lieutenant returns with a new wife after a few years and takes the child from the mother. The geisha is destroyed by the loss of her child, and as the animation shows, she falls apart. Or takes herself apart, depending on how closely you want to examine it.

I think the animation was a little strange, but definitely very interesting. The fishbowl representation of the pregnancy was comical to me, and I'm not entirely sure why the animator did that. Perhaps she gave birth to a fish because fish can't breathe outside of water, and it shows that the baby became more vulnerable to danger once outside of the mother's protective womb? Also, I thought the umbilical cord connection the mother to the daughter was very symbolic, and I liked how they flew each other as kites. It speaks of their connection, and how mother teaches daughter and daughter gives mother new life.

The scene at the end, when the geisha is tearing herself apart, was very difficult for me to watch. I think the opera combined with the animation was very powerful and evoked a lot of different emotions. Overall, however, I enjoyed the experience.

Hi, my name is Cierra May, but I prefer to be called CC.

Originally, I was in ART 311, Prof Echeverry's Online Production class, and when I realized that, even though I've taken the pre-reqs, I wasn't quite ready for it yet, I dropped it and picked up this course. I'm really excited for ART 211, my friends and peers have had great things to say about it. I haven't been to my first class yet because of picking up the class so late but after being in Echeverry's Online Production class for a week, I have a feeling that I'll enjoy Art and Technology.
Like I said before, my name is Cierra May Simmons, but I prefer to go by the nickname CC. My high school yearbook adviser gave me that nickname and helped me become the person I am today, so to remind myself of that motivated, dedicated person, I like to hear people call me "CC." I thought I wanted to write for a living when I was thrown into that yearbook class and had no interest in subjects like design, art, or technology. Working on the yearbook, creating something out of nothing that people would treasure forever, changed my mind. So I'm trying to figure out where I want to go with these new found interests, and it seems like this Art and Technology class might be just the thing for that.