Blog #7

This weeks topic focuses on New Media Art, a book authored by Mark Tribe. It is an in depth look at the history of what is known as new media, which is an umbrella term under which all digital art, computer graphics, and computer animation fall into. The book outlines the history and early definition of the art form from how it was developed to how it exists today. The beginnings of New Media art begin almost as long as the computer has been in the hands of the public, but the ideas had been forming for decades before that. In the book Marcel Duchamp's Fountain is cited as an important precursor to the movement. Indeed New Media arts were truly formed out of an in the wake of the contemporary art movement of the twentieth century. The close ties between the two are seen even today predominantly in the field of graphic arts, the use of montage and text were really established and realized long before computers were a part of them. Any time an artist uses digital media to create a piece of art it falls into the category of new media, but new media arts are their own discipline independent but still branching from the contemporary art movement, the book discusses this bond as well as citing important pieces and going into the very beginning of the new media arts movement as it is today, that is, the use of computers to produce digital media.

The book is a rather fascinating look at not only the history of new media, but an intriguing look at the state of the movement today. The formation and independence of the movement are all interesting stories in an of themselves. It is very important to know the back story of ones chosen profession and the establishment of that profession is almost as interesting as the state that its in today. It is important to have a strong background in the history of new media in order to advance the state its in presently, otherwise one has no bearing on their own work or the work around them.

Blog #6

This weeks topic is on the subject of the Kuleshov Effect. A form of montage in film making that uses juxtaposed images to suggest emotion onto an otherwise emotionless actors face. The effect was developed by early 20th century Russian film maker Lev Kuleshov. The idea behind the effect is to show an actor or actress close up in front of the camera with a completely emotionless expression on their face. The camera then cuts to things like a bowl of soup or a dead body, due to the "mash up" of these images the human brain then fills in the gaps, the bowl of soup makes one believe the actor must be hungry, or the dead body must mean the actor is experiencing great sorrow. In fact when shown to audiences they actually felt the actor was displaying a different face and emotion for every different image shown. The effect plays on the basic human need to make sense of sensory input, this natural correlation plays directly into the technique. The short film explaining the effect seems indeed to be poking fun at the nature of human psychology, using a sort of humor to outline their points. The actress watching the actor and seeing it cut to a number of images causes her to humorously fall in love with the actor, possibly satirizing some contemporary films use of superficial metaphors to convey a "deep" message. In the end they even refer to her love for him as a love of montage itself.

I think the technique is an interesting innovation of early film making, a play on human psychology that can be used to convey a point or message. It seems that it is an easily over used or indeed improperly used technique that can seem contrived and pointless, but used wisely and responsibly can be a powerful film making device. The nature of the human brain is really what allows Hollywood to exist, the conveyance of a message with images is something that people have been doing for much longer than there has been film, and indeed the invention of the film camera has been a huge leap in man's potential to convey those images, and if done responsibly can further the artistic creativity and narrative abilities of any individual film.

Blog #5

The document The Declaration of Sentiments was written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1848 was written in support of women's writes in the United States. The title is borrowed from the famous Declaration of Independence, it is in my opinion used as a social critique of the document. Thomas Jefferson wrote his declaration in 1776 but his sentiments were much older than that. His words were partially borrowed from the philosopher John Locke, who first said that men were created equal, and deserved certain inalienable rights. Several generations later America had won its was for independence and was a free country, but there were still a few inconsistencies with their governing. America was indeed a free country by many standards but for all of the talk of righteousness and equality, women were still not allowed to vote, in fact not too much had changed for them, they were seen still as caretakers for the family, meant to clean and raise children, they were almost second class citizens. This document by some accounts was the first big step towards women's suffrage in the U.S. It came at a pivotal time in the history of the nation, it had been many years since America had won its freedom but it still seemed to overlook many of its own ideas. There was still slavery and women were not yet allowed to vote. This movement reminded that in order to stand behind lofty ideas of freedom and rights, America had to walk the walk instead of just talking the talk.


This document obviously marks a very important step in the slow and arduous fight for universal suffrage, it was not until the 20th century that women even had the right to vote and even longer still until it was guaranteed for African Americans. We as a nation have to remember the past as it was and remember the truths that we stand behind, instead of just using them as a crutch. Our nation is founded on the idea that everyone is equal, and yet it took much more than a century for us to actually adopt many of those inalienable freedoms. In this time of acceptance we must remember that we are in fact a free nation of reason and must seek everyday to uphold those reasons past petty things like ignorance, it is our responsibilities as citizens of the free world to uphold those freedoms in hopes that some day, everyone will enjoy those inalienable rights that we as humans are entitled to.

Blog #4

In the article The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism by Johnathan Lethem a series of questions are imposed in the subject of the arts, or rather on the copying of the arts. Throughout the article Lethem asks questions about the nature of plagiarism, in a society where the word "sue" and "copyright" are everyday words, what does it mean to us when art is "stolen." He mentions that Thomas Jefferson saw copyright law as a necessary evil, something that was more in place to advance the progress of the arts. It is impossible to truly define what is stealing and what isn't, he mentions Bob Dylan's ideas about appropriation, or the borrowing of someone's ideas and implementing them somewhere else. Is this stealing? Its pretty impossible to draw a clear cut line, does someone's influence on you and your use of their ideas in your own creations count as theft? In a capitalist society where art is viewed as a commodity and where money makes everything happen, copyright is in place to protect one's intellectual property, or rather to make sure that you are paid handsomely when someone takes a few to many liberties with it. Lethem poses the question "is that right?" Well there is no real answer, our society is the way it is and that's pretty much final. But where is it that we draw the line. He mentions a music historians conversation with Muddy Waters, Waters sings him a song that he wrote, describes when he wrote it and why. The historian notices similarities to a song written by the extremely influential blues man Robert Johnson and asks Waters if he knows anything about the song. To his surprise Waters recounts that he heard the song by Johnson from his own teacher, he recounted his own personal conception of the song while at the same time acknowledging the source of influence, there was no concept of stealing, it was simply part of the creative process. Finally what I found a very interesting addition to the paper is at the end Lethem broke down every paragraph of his paper and revealed the sources of his sentences, the whole time he had been making references to all sorts of creative media, whether the reader picked up on it or not, and cited every one from movies to books to quotations. I found this the strongest part of the article, a cementing of the idea that our society is made of its past and indeed its influences.
My own impression of the article is on of fascination, its something that I have thought of many times myself. We are built on our influences, nearly everything we do is in some way drawn from something that we have taken in at some point. In fact I would maintain that the things that we collectively experience in that exact combination is what makes each of us individuals, an individual formed out of other people's ideas. Indeed it seems that no one example of art contains no reference to something that came before, whether the artist is aware of it or not. Our idea of aesthetics comes just as much from our evolution as it does our personal ideas of what looks or sounds good, which just ties back to the things that we have seen. I found the article very informing and well through out and indeed readily added to my own thoughts on the nature of plagiarism and influence.

Blog #3

The article "Art in the Age of Digital Distribution" is an in depth look at the future of new media art in the aftermath of digital society. It pays very close attention to the doc com boom, in that it was a time when society began to take the internet into mainstream focus, in turn art had to adapt. With so much focus put into advertising on the internet art had to change, where much of the advertising art was still analog and the most complicated technology required was a printing press, art had to become purely digital. It discusses the impact that the pop art movement had on today's digital artists and the aesthetics that digital art began to take on. how many of the artists today had no affiliation to a company, whereas most digital art is generated through a large corporation for advertising, many artists choose to use technology for their own personal art. In the article it is discussed that many forms of conceptual art rose in the eighties, meaning that they earned their recognition, but due to its close ties to the internet, new media art was introduced as a mainstream art form. Because there was money to be made by this form of art it was very quickly adopted just because of the vast sums spent on it by companies looking to earn profits on the internet.

This article helped to put into perspective the use of digital art in this society. It helped to place this art form in society instead of simply presenting it as it is. It is extremely important to know the origins of really anything worth knowing. And choosing to become a digital artist in a digital society requires knowing digital arts place in that society. The article discussed the advent of conceptual art in the early nineteen-hundreds and the impact of pieces such as Duchamp's fountain. We are in a time that is still feeling repercussions of the conceptual art movement and its very important to be able to place digital art within those bounds. Because while so much of the art is simply there to sell products, it still has an origin and it still holds a place in art. In other words it has a past and a foreseeable future just like any art movement.

Blog #2

The work on Alexander Apostol explores many of the aspects or modern day urban society. The images displayed in his exhibition In Lieu of Modernity show various rundown buildings which the windows were digitally removed. The work shows the ideas of isolation and and lost expectations. The ideas of our advanced society creating things to improve our way of life that just end up falling into disrepair and become landmarks of our poorer sectors, monuments to modern depression and frustration. The work of Chris Sauter on the other hand explores very much the same ideas but with a focus on a different sort of subject matter. Where Alexander Apostol focuses on covering up what's real with an illusion, we know only through our own intuition that somethings wrong, because something that we expect to be there is missing. Instead of creating a sense of illusion Chris Sauter shows us what is missing by use of negative space. His pieces Arena and Museum show the viewer what is missing from the exhibit, creating holes in the viewers field of vision, silhouettes as it were. The piece the Presence of Absence by Peter Horvath is a video exhibition that worked on a computers browser to show a series of short, vague video clips. The viewer moves their cursor around the image of a face to show the videos, which are only a few seconds in length and show vague and often static laden. They show things like a clock, or a man sitting alone in the dark. A point is obviously being made about the nature of isolation, pointed out through cryptic metaphors and darkly lit scenes which accentuate the shadow and thus hiding things from the viewer, the presence of absence.

I enjoyed all three of there pieces, I believe that Alaxander Apostol made the strongest point with his piece, The use of such strong social metaphors helps to strengthen his points and ideas. Removing something that we expect to be there through our own experience. It makes a strong point about the isolation and poverty created by our society. The buildings look foreboding enough in their present condition, but with the removal of the windows creates a sense that something isn't right. The effect of the piece speaks to nature of our society, the hope created by the construction of a modern building and the inevitable abandonment, the destruction of a once bright dream. The frustrations of the poor become illuminated by the piece and I believe the relative simplicity makes it a very successful work of art. Chris Sauter with his very intricate and hansom looking pieces shows the very effective use of negative space. His approach on this piece is the intentional leaving out of information, instead of covering up as Alexander Apostol does, he shows the hole that he left in the creation of the piece. The incompleteness of the section of wall raises many intriguing questions which while possibly not as heart felt as Apostol's work, shows what is perhaps a deeper and more calculated meaning. The video piece by Peter Horvath appears to be the most cryptic of all. Using a more mysterious and minimalistic approach, choosing instead to focus on what is not shown that what is. The nature of the videos while never explained expects the viewer to develop conclusions themselves by using a very open ended approach. The Piece is a conversation with the viewer in this way, about the nature of isolation and the meaning of absence. The dreary dimly lit scenes allow the viewer to fill them with whatever they themselves bring with them as opposed to spoon feeding a narration, the use of interactivity allows the viewer to be more connected with the work and creates a more immersive atmosphere which strengthens the open-endedness of the metaphors presented.    

Blog #1: Charles Coen Interview

In the interview with Charles Coen many of the artist's ideas and techniques were analyzed. For example the series called "Buff" was brought up a number of times and observed for its artistic ideas. The idea of using silhouettes posed in provocative ways to create a disconnect between figure and negative space, indeed the figure and negative space were one in the same for most of the series. Another subject of discussion was the series focused on time, in which silhouettes were placed instead of actual figures. The series focuses on subjects such as time and isolation. The artists talked about the idea of interactivity and how the use of hollow methods of "interactivity" in exhibits only acts to isolate the viewers further from the artwork.

What I got out of the interview was a greater understanding of the ways contemporary artists use deep seated themes and ideas in subtle ways in their pieces. In forms that can be perceived as minimalistic or even chaotic can be very focused on the very faithful portrayal of a very specific theme. The idea of disconnecting the viewer from a piece in order to make statements on the nature of time and isolation become very effectively communicated with the use of focused imagery. The thing that I will take away most is the treatment of negative space in the "Buff" collection.  I've always been fascinated with the idea of negative space and the use of cropping in the picture plane. The idea of using the frame and cropping to show the viewer the most honest idea of what you want them to see. The idea of negative space as the figure or focal point of a piece of art is a rather interesting idea, it very bluntly calls the viewers attention to the use of negative space, and seems to pose several questions about the way negative space is created in art. He is literally sculpting a piece of art around the negative space created by the silhouette, and using such a strong provocative image makes for even stronger messages.