Blog #14

This post focuses on New Media Art pages 80-94. The last leg of the book shows artist that take unique stances on software, they use it in a way that is often not intended or they do something unique with it. Anne Marie Scheliner, Joan Leandre, and Brody Condon Created Velvet Strike, a mod to the game Counterstrike, which itself is a mod for the game Half Life. Counterstrike puts players into two teams, terrorists and counter terrorists and has them complete objectives to thwart the other side. It creates a statement not only on the nature of war, but the nature of the game. It brings the real life ramifications into the game. It allows players to stage protests in the game. The idea of a game using war to create a means of fun makes an interesting statement on society, Velvet Strike brings the parts of war that are never seen in the game, creating deep points on the nature of games in our society. Alexi Shulgin claims to have created a cyberpunk band, which really just comprises of him and his computer. He creates digital versions of popular songs which sound as though they are being played through an old nintendo cartridge. It makes interesting statements on the idea of musical authenticity. Is it the same song when being played in that way? The idea is one that exists all over the creative industry, is digitally remastering Star Wars destroying its authenticity, or is it just improving the film? This debate has gone on for as long as people have been changing pre-existent art. Cornelia Sollfrank created Female Extension a program that created accounts on various email providers and sent them into a contest. The accounts created were all female which meant that the majority of the applicants were females, which led to only males winning the contest. The piece unearths a bit of sexism that existed unseen by everyone involved.
I feel that all of these pieces portray artist using technology in unique ways. The idea that technology is created for one single purpose, but can also be used in such unique ways to create art show a new view on originality. I think when most people think of computers they see very narrow things, a device that allows for very limited things which exists under many constraints. But in truth the computer can and will do anything and everything the user asks, given the right instructions. I think it is an interesting thing to see an artist using a piece of software meant to fulfill a specific task in another way entirely. It is as though they are working within those constraints to create something totally unintended, which only goes to show the nature creativity has taken on in the digital age.

Blog # 13

In pages 64-80 Of New Media Art, the focus seems to shift mostly to work done on the web, in browser sort of things, that focus more on fooling the user than presenting themselves as art. Mouchette.org for example is a website that tells the user it was created by a 13 year old girl who claims to be an artist. It challenges the ideas on what art is, claiming that if one claims to be an artist and says what they do is art that is all they need. The website has various surveys which certain answers trigger delayed email that after a certain amount of time sends the user an email with suggestive language. To this day no one knows who Mouchette actually is, it just goes to show how the internet creates an environment in which anonymity is very easily kept. Radioqualia is a group whose exhibition was to create a speech emulator to read the 4,141,432 lines of code that built the linux operating system. It was broadcast over the radio wave for 590 days, purposefully creating a work of art that was simply too long for anyone to take in. Shredder is a program created by Mark Napier, its purpose is to show the user the underlying code of any given website, breaking down the aesthetically pleasing facade of all websites. Instead of being pleasing to the eye all websites can be broken down into ugly and unappealing code. Radical Softwar Group's Carnivore takes information from email and instead of stealing information it uses bits of that information as the groundwork for pieces of art.

This section of the book I believe serves to show how artists can use mainstream technology to create scenarios which are deceiving to the viewer. The internet creates a haven in which anyone can pose as anyone else, a forty year old man can claim to be a thirteen year old girl. Artists likewise can use their work to explore the ideas of anonymity creating pieces that ask the user to interpret whats real and whats fake. The idea that an artist can create something to deceive the user is a powerful tool that can be used to make any number of powerful points.

Blog #12

This blog concerns the book New Media Art by Mark Tribe focusing on pages 42-64. The section outlines various digital artists work from mostly the mid to late nineties, the time of the dotcom boom, which certainly has had an incredible effect on the art done at this times. A piece by Mary Flanagan called domestic was done in 2003, it used a video game engine called unreal, a game that focuses on online play in which players control a character first person and attempt to kill other players. Her take on the game was to subvert expectation, she turned the game into more or less the sims in unreal, a house making sim that uses things like text to suggest inner turmoil instead of out. Jennifer and Kevin McCoy used an array of cameras to remake a scene from Evil Dead 2, they used the cameras in such a way that when filming the scene they turn on at different intervals effectively creating a unique shoot for every take. Dial tones by Golan Levin examined not only the newer cultural norm of cellphone etiquette bur also mirrored the work of John Cage and his use of everyday noises in his music. A piece by Rafael Lozano placed spotlights throughout Mexico City and allowed users to move the cameras via the internet. Ken Goldberg examined internet hoax and the way the internet is able to present a falsified scenario very simply. He set up a small garden and told gardeners around the world they could tend to it, begging the question, is this actually happening, or just some hoax.
Many of these pieces took advantage of the Internets upheaval into mainstream society, it was no longer something whose purpose was shrouded in mystery but rather a device which was primarily for selling goods. It still shocks me that many artists were able to do art such as this on their own, it to me subverts the idea that artists are people who paint or make sculptures. To me it seems that as an artist you either do fine arts or you work as a digital artist for an organization which wants to make money. These digital artists working on their own with computers surprises me in a few ways. I suppose its just the idea that if you know about computers you become hired by some company because they will pay for your services as opposed to creating a living on your own, it to me is a unique happening of our times.

Blog #11

This blog entry will be on Art 21's segment on Cindy Sherman. The episode was entitled "Transformation" it focused on artists whose art seeks to change their identity in some way. Cindy Sherman's approach was to take on a character played by herself but in no way modeled after her. She dresses in the role of this character and takes photographs against some sort of appropriate background. Her work throughout the years has seen her taking on the identity of well thought out characters, people that fill some role in their made up lives. She creates a back story for these people, gives them motives and ideas, in a way she creates their lives and fills their role as herself in their clothing. She seeks to take her entire identity out of this character and instead become them. Many times her characters are over exaggerated and even hokey from societies standard. She creates characters that in a way are hard to believe exist in the world today, but have believable ideas behind them. Some times the over exaggeration adds to the overall composition.
    The idea of creating yourself as another person is a rather intriguing concept. Cindy Sherman's ideas are to create a character whose ideals and life are far removed from Cindy's own, but they are all played by her. Cindy's pictures seek to show this person not as her but as that person, but she always uses herself as a model, which is where the conception lies. She is creating these characters that are only ever portrayed by herself but never as herself, she seeks to remove herself completely from these people, but she always plays their part. I find the idea an interesting take on the ideas of identity, the amount of trouble one has to go through to become another person with a life separate from one's own self. The idea that she wants to show a character that is in no way related to her and should not be seen as her, but are always shown with her body creates and interesting point on the nature of the individual in our society.

Blog #10

In John Berger's documentary "Ways of Seeing" he discusses and criticized the way in which our society sees and understands oil painting and indeed art in general. He looks at the history of oil painting and how it was seen then and how that perception has changed. He starts off by talking about the advent of the camera, the use of a camera to frame a composition, and to guide a narrative along a prescribed and controlled. He then shares with us the ability of today's technology to show us things in a manner unique to human society. When a painting was made it existed in the place that was its intended housing. Often times paintings were part of a particular room or building, in their original frame and place, they were to give the viewer a certain feeling about them. In today's society we can look up these pictures at our leisure at a computer, meaning that painting has been brought into our own space, we view it in terms of our own lives. This is a way in which a painting's meaning is open to a unique interpretation from anyone. When a camera shows us a painting in its entirety we can't observe the details, it in effect means nothing to us, when the camera begins to zoom in to outline certain details, we only see what it wants to show us, in effect changing the way a painting can be interpreted. It can show a landscape, the way people dressed, or a narrative. He said the same is true of viewing a painting set to music, he reasoned music is more subtle and can change the way we see art without us knowing it. To further punctuate his point he shows a painting to children who have no information about the painting, even without knowing the particular artist was a homosexual, they were able to point out the femininity he gave his figures, the purposeful ambiguity that showed in the genders. He went on to discuss the use of the female nude in a painting, he described a female nude not as a naked person, but as an object that is meant to symbolize something, not a person depicted as not wearing clothes, but a metaphor who's perceived "clothes" are their nude body. The way in which many commissioners of art choose to view their women, more as possessions than people and how these views have carried largely into our society. He ended the documentary with the obvious parallels of the traditions of oil paint and advertising. He pointed out the obvious parallels to draw out the glowing differences. When an oil painting was commissioned, and artist was paid a sum of money by a wealthy person to show his possessions and portray his way of life. It showed him his own greatness and adorned his space with narrative of the waking life he led from day to day. He then showed these ideas as they were portrayed in advertising. The large difference being that advertisements were attempts at persuading those who did not have the things shown. These advertisements show the product as a means by which to transform their lives, to give them this ideal life. It was a way of making people feel more wealthy for spending their money on a product when in reality they were less wealthy because they spent money on that product. He then linked the obvious traditions of oil painting and these ads. Sometimes elements of oil paintings were added to advertising and sometimes the painting itself was inserted into and advertisement to convey a sense of wealth, luxury, and sophistication. These ads could then be placed in such a way, or "framed" by the camera into a proper context that strengthened their message.

I found the documentary extremely informative well thought out. I appreciated the insight Berger gave to this history of oil paint and how it was made and how we have come to view it. He urged people watching to be skeptical of everything, even himself and his documentary, that we need to properly perceive the world around us to really see the value of something. While there were moments of the film that seemed in a sense hokey, and quintessentially British if I may be so plain. The ideas in the documentary were outlined through extensive research and great observation. The history of art has played a huge role in our day to day lives, and the traditions held by oil painting have held up in some ways but drastically changed in others. I feel that this documentary outlined an important line of thinking and encouraged perception in a way that causes one to not only think about the subjects of oil paint and our society, but about how we should see things as a whole.

Blog #9

The article Ecological Realism by Andre Gorz focuses on the relationship of mankind with the environment. Gorz takes a very negative view on societies current outlook on the world, pointing out that industrial growth has had very noticeable and devastating changes on the environment around us. He points out that even with no industrial growth we are still using up finite resources, and in our present state of very rapid growth, we will begin to run out of resources perhaps within the lifetimes of our children. Gorz is very adamant in making his points seem very dire, that the extinction of the human race is only a matter of years away. He is a firm believer in reduction of resources, and a lessening of our co dependence on finite materials. Ecological realism, he states is exactly how it sounds, the reality that we are running out of the things that make our societies work, and furthermore are polluting our planet to the point that extinction is becoming more and more of an inevitability should we fail to change our ways.

While I agree with the core of Gorz argument, I believe he may have been somewhat harsh. Reading his article I was struck with what I perceived as a touch of fear mongering, this I take point against. As much as I believe that we as a species need to change in order to create a better planet, I don't believe the way to change people is through fear. We know that terrorism is bad, but wasn't the U.S. governments policy of spreading fear to scare the American people into war wrong as well? I believe what people need is not another fear campaign but a rational, reasonable, and possibly most importantly, unbiased explanation of how things are and what we need to do to change. I think that this is the best way to get any point across, if you believe in something, it only causes a panic to get people to see things your way through fear. Instead, inform them as an equal and explain the state that we are in and tell them what their options are, any sane minded individual would see the importance of preserving our planet in order to not only preserve our survival, but also our the survival of our children.

Blog #8

The Persuaders is a documentary about the recent history and the current state of the advertising industry. It chronicles the methods and realities of advertising in America, it looks out where it came from and where it is now. Much of the film is concerned in following a new start up company called Song, a new age sort of airline. It follows the companies thoughts on their image and shows the steps that they take to get their brand known. The film also takes a look at the current state advertising in the U.S. It views how the trends have changed in the time when advertisements were just that, simple practical advertisements. It eventually transitions into the present day, the film looks at the people who are in advertising, people who would probably much rather have a job in art, and how they use their advertisements as a sort of artistic expression. This of course transitions into the rise of emotion driven advertising, creating a strong emotional bond with their brand. Many of the worlds top advertising companies view people as very emotion driven, one advertising "guru" saw people as 75% emotion and only 25% intellectual, believing that the difference between success was merely a specific choice of words. The film delved into a psychologist turned advertising guru who believed that there was a "code" to tap into what consumers really wanted, incidentally he was the main driving force behind hummer's decision to make bigger vehicles, and even a cheese manufacturers choice of packaging in the states. He believed that certain words held certain memories and associations for everyone and the key to good advertising was to tap into that. It looked at the way advertising looked to trigger key responses in consumers own feelings. It showed another advertising analyst believing the best way to advertise was to look at cults in order to see what makes people so fanatic about certain ideas. The view was that people become passionate about things they love, music, or religion, and use those very same methods to draw people to their product. It looked at Saturn own "Saturn-day" which is an enormous outdoor event that brings people from all over the country. People came to Saturn-day looking for a community with which to bond, they made their product a cultural icon, effectively creating a large "cult" following, a community drawn together by their product. The video looked at agencies who compile peoples personal information and sell it to ad agencies for consumer information, just to know how to create personalized ads for specific people.

My own impression of the film was one of great interest, how one person causes another person to think a certain way, or just to persuade them to purchase a product. It is so deeply rooted in the psychology behind a group of people, an in depth look at the personality and the mannerisms of potential consumers. The end of the film even seemed to nod to this sort of "personalized" advertising as a great positive thing that put power in the hands of the consumer. I'm afraid that I strongly disagree, the fact that people privacy is being so easily cast aside to make them spend money on products that they in all likely hood don't need. This so called power is turning people more and more into lifeless wallets pouring money out on extravagant items that they have no business purchasing. I do find it fascinating how it is that we work as a society, but I'm also constantly unnerved by the views taken by this advertising, that people are essentially emotional idiots. The idea that creating a cult around your product is a good idea is something very alien to me. In my own experience capitalism is a necessary evil, a way of life with great potential for good that caters to peoples true nature while refusing to believe in fanciful ideals. Its a system where the individual has a large amount of power, where they can sculpt their own lives, but its also one prone to predatory attitudes, where one individual can simply step across others heads in order to make a few more dollars. I think that the idea of invading someone's privacy to make money is fundamentally wrong.