scrapbook dix-sept

This is fly paper from my garage, it is definitley kind of nasty, but it caught my eye. Fly paper when you think about it, is rather morbid. Insects that manage to fly into it, are stuck, waiting for their slow inevitable death. And we as humans, not only allow this, but are fascinated by it. There are new victims everyday, which when I was younger, was "wicked cool". It simply hangs from the center of my garage as a symbol of our control over nature. You can not help but notice it and what it has done. It's awful. I can't imagine dying that way, yet I am drawn to it. I bet when I go home there will be even more bugs. And you can count on me to look and see.

Rupunzel Reflection

I'm really glad we went over the reading by comparing it to a well known story/tv show/movie. It helped me better understand the cosmological aspect of a narrative. Plus it reinforced how common every story is, themewise anyway. The characters may be different, but the problems/drama are basically the same. I'm excited to see how that will play out in our project. With "x" amount of images for us to use, it will be a challenge to create a story, but interesting to see the elements, literally, structurally, anthropomorphically, and cosmologically that are the same and those that completely unique and different.

artist onze

Although he studied to be a photographer, John Klima worked as a software programmer after college for several years. While the job gave him flexibility to work on other creative projects, it also influence his later work. At Microsoft he started thinking of other ways to organize files and apps, possibly in a three dimensional way. Glasbead (99-00)is the result of this influence. A spherical orb, Glasbead is a three dimensional interface that allows the visitor to create music alone or through collaboration. There are two kinds of stems, bells and hammers, that the visitor can upload music onto. When the hammers come in contact with the bells, a new sounds/music is created. This happens by clicking on the center of the orb and spinning it. I tried downloading it, but it only went up to Windows XP, and not Vista, so it was not working properly. Like the last artist/group I wrote about, I like that this can be done in collaboration. I think that it is important to bounce ideas off of other people. Sometimes it is the best way to learn. I also appreciate that Klima incorporated what he learned at Microsoft into art. It's another example of why collaboration is so important. If that had never happened, neither would have Glasbead.

artist dix

Raqs Media Collective is a group that created OPUS in 2001. OPUS or Open Platform for Unlimited Significance, is a communal website where visitors can both upload their own work and use other submitted pieces to amp up their own. These remixed pieces are known as rescensions. According to Raqs, rescensions are not copies or clones, that there is no stealing of ideas or pieces. Rescensions are like children of specific parents. This is an interesting site because it allows appropriation and collaboration for different art works. The article described that this was an almost utopian ideal for artists, that it seems too good to be true. It does seem to ideal, but it got me really excited. For some reason it didn't come up properly on my computer, probably because of the shared filed issue that St. Mary's is not a fan of.... Anyway, you can search by keywords and descriptions. Then the new work appears next to the old apparently. It sounds really cool. I think it's important to have a place to share ideas, because it is the best way for someone to grow as an artist. Hopefully when I go home/not connected to St. Mary's internet, that it will work!

artist neuf

Feminine Extension

Cyberfeminist artist, Cornelia Sollfrank, entered the first ever Hamburg Museum of Art's Gallery of Contemporary Art's international net art competition in 1997. This contest, unlike others before it, stated that only truly web based art and not other medias displayed through the internet would be considered. The first museum of its kind to hold such an event, it was suprised to receive 280 contestants. Unbeknownst to the judges, over seventy percent of the applicants were web programs created by Sollfrank. She created a program known as Female Extension that made up various women, from different backgrounds and styles that were backed by legitimate e-mail addresses. Additionally, these "women" also had separate entries. Basically, they were a part of her entry, but had their own lives so to speak. These works took HTML information and played with it in a way that they resembled other pieces. After the winners were announced, she came out with what she had done. All three of the winners were male, which Sollfrank had predicted. Her work was meant to criticize the blatant sexism of the system. Miraculously, even though over half of the applicants were female, the men somehow won. I think this was a really interesting way of calling them out. I'm not exactly a feminist, but sometimes its hard to deny that men have it easier in certain situations. She may not have won the prize, but she won in the sense that the judges at the Hamburg Museum can not deny their decisions. Using art to prove a point is really powerful, yet one little slip and the wrong meaning could be conveyed. Sollfrank was intelligent in the way this was planned out.

robert frank reflection

I really enjoyed the Robert Frank exhibit at the National Gallery. For some reason, unbeknownst to myself, I am drawn to black and white photography. To me, I feel like b&w adds or emphasizes the emotions of the picture. Without color your eyes focus better on the other physical qualities of the images. Although somethings seem to blend together, facial features and other aspects are more defined in way. What was really striking about his work was how he had the sequences so eloquently planned in his mind, yet most of the photographs were candid. Without the information from the tour, he subtle transitions from section to section with a flag indicating a new chapter would have gone unnoticed by myself. I also liked the room with all of the images from the Americans and how he worked hard to create his message about injustice in this country. My favorite things, however, were the images of the miners and the book he made for his wife. You can't help but notice the eyes of the miners. They fade away due to the fact they are blacked out by the coal. It was eerie to see. Some of my family members were miners and it's unbelievable to think that people go through that kind of labor daily. The book for Mary was adorable, it was cute that he strung all of their memories together, and that he cared enough to simply remember them.

self portrait reflection

My objective self portrait was more difficult then I expected it to be. When I think of the work objectivity, I generally think of the terms unbiased and truthful. It's hard to present an image as objective when the majority of your audience has no idea who you are, where you came from, or where you are going. I thought about doing a fake online dating ad, something like eHarmony, since it would be funny, and a statement of the facts. But someone who may not know me may not see what I had as objective. My hair is brown, true, but how do they know I don't dye it (I don't by the way). I don't wear glasses, but do I wear contacts? It was very complicated. So I scrapped that idea, and just decided to take a plain, boring, uneventful picture of myself and add a comment or two. During this project I realized that I can never take a decent photo within the first three attempts. In the end I could have chosen a picture of me that looked more like a school portrait, but I ended up going with one of the ones that had me blinking/wincing. The inability to take a good photo within the normal amount of time before people get annoyed is who I am, no sugar coating. The piece ended up looking sloppy though, so I am not too pleased with it.

The subjective self image was so much easier. The fact that no one really knows me in the class makes it interesting too. I chose my first and last school portrait, because not only do they represent the progress I've made in my life, but they aren't objective images of myself. They are staged, which adds a whole new dimension to it. The background is a scene that could either be inside or outside, it depends on the person viewing it. I wanted it to be more like a room, with a view looking out, to where I want to go. In the window is an image of a run down plantation. I want to work with historic preservation after school, so that's what I am running to. There are also images of my art work from the past year. My parents don't really get why I like art and want to pursue it in some fashion. It's been a source of tension recently. The song is the Beatles' "She's Leaving Home". The lyrics tie in with this notion of growing up. I want to get away from where I grew up, not because I hate it, but because I am longing for something more. It's nothing against my family, and they are having a difficult time understanding. I made it look like an actual note because I liked that element of is it a note, what is it. More subjectivity I guess.

From the critique I realized that I am a very subjective person. People choose to represent themselves in certains ways and its totally subjective, even the ways they are portrayed objectively. A conscious choice went into that project, one that we as viewers can't really understand until we talk to the artist himself/herself.