Video Art

I filmed this piece while driving through the southwest on tour. I simply shot my tourmate, Jacob, framed within the beautiful expanse of our nations deserts and beaches, as well as the megapolis LA. I moved the original audio tracks around and added delay with final cut pro. I decided to use the quad spilt screen to drive in the feeling of travel and space.

I think the video turned out great.

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Digital Landscape- “Dimension 20XX”

In Dimension 20XX I tried to create an environment that was a virtual “dimension”. The first page is supposed to provide many explorable links, and also prod you to choose with the grating noise background sound. The overall theme is about LARPers (Live Action Role Playing), and Wizards (a common theme for me). Of course, not all the content has a D&D connotation. Some of the pages are just bizzare and funny. One of my favorite features of the site is the endless loops you will find yourself in while exploring the links.

Abject Self-portrait

Here’s the link

One definition of abject is the state of being cast out. I thought of how i react to such a feeling of rejection. I decided to sort of show a story of me traveling to the place i think of when i feel terrible, or “cast out” in my life. It’s me traveling the red-wood forest and becoming a wizard- I true fantasy of mine.

other poster(s) i’ve done

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Assignment #3

Digital technology becomes a media when the art is informed by the technology used. A piece of art uses technology as a tool when it concept shares no relationship with the digital element. An example would be a digital print of an existing painting or drawing. One would scan the drawing, perhaps visually enhance the image, and then be able to reproduce it on a massive scale to the public. In this instance the software and hardware used has no bearing in the meaning of the artwork.

I suppose I must point out that technology used as a tool in an art piece does not disqualify it as digital art. Many of the examples in chapter one in Digital Art are images where artists use software to create or manipulate their imagery. These pieces exist within the realm of digital art. However, the media of the final product is still ink on paper. William Latham’s computer generated, biomorphic creatures (p.47) are an excellent example. Latham used computer software to create a CGI image. While technology is used to create the forms, the viewer has direct experience with the algorithms integral in its production. It is merely an image on a wall. John F Simon’s Color Panel v 1.0 (p. 69) is a piece in which the same technology becomes media. In Color Panel v 1.0 the piece uses algorithms to produce imagery which always changes and never repeats. He creates an experience which the viewer and media have a living relationship.

When technology is dynamically involved with the viewing experience, the digital tool becomes digital media. With a painting on the wall there is an interactive experience between the viewer and the painting. As Christiane Paul points out, this experience “remains a mental event in the viewers mind”. A digital media installation breaks that barrier, and allows the interaction between art and viewer to manifest in either the physical or virtual world. For instance, the viewer, or audience, may become a source to manipulate a video or graphic image. Technology becomes a bridge by which ones visceral experience can alter the original piece.

There are many different technologies employed in digital art. It is important for digital media to reference its inherent qualities in the art produced. A video installation must consider its recording lens; how the video is displayed; as well as the viewer’s eye. Web art must consider its virtual environment as well as the interface by which the viewer experiences it.

Technology used as a tool is a perfectly super way to create and manipulate imagery. It loses no significance or viability. The question of technology as tool versus media is a question of experience, context, and execution. Technology as media is the application of the digital tool as an element in art that is experienced directly by the viewer. This new application can only grow as technologies advance and creative minds evolve.

analyze an add

I chose this add because I figure it would be nice to see how advertising tactics have changed over the years.

1. This add is successful in that it appeals to the rational mind of the consumer. They have the motto, brand, celebrity sponsor, and plenty of information about the product of the viewer to form an opinion about memorex tapes.

2. The elements in play do not convey meaning as much as they are simply visually pleasing. The text block helps balance the figure. The line frame in the background ties together by contact all the objects.

3. Cool colors are used, I believe, to calm the viewer. The gentle gradation from purple to blue is meant to allow the eye to gently move about the text. The yellow accent ties the tape with the celebrity.

4/5. The information flows from the top slogan, to product, to celebrity, then leads your eye back up towards the product blurb.

Reading Response Chapter 1

The first chapter in Christiane Paul’s Digital Art was, in effect, a excellent primer to the functions and advantages of computer and digital media. I agree that the proliferation of visual technologies has continued to impact artists in many mediums. Such advances have definitely caused the viewer to become more skeptical towards the nature of art. Any teenager with Photoshop can manipulate photography with basic skills. The line between digital and analogue art is becoming increasingly blurry. I am hesitant to believe that “all forms of artistic media will eventually be absorbed into the digital medium”.

Charles Csuri’s works illustrate an approach I find very interesting. When using computerized methods to generate your work, you are able to introduce components beyond your immediate control. In each of his works there is an element of concept, or source, that modifies and original image. There is an idea of data as concept, where functions or algorithms can create context. Warren Neidich’s Conversation Maps are another interesting approach to the marriage of technologies. The divergent thinking used to abstract physical language as visual language is amazing.

The art I found least pleasing in this chapter where pieces like William Latham’s. Although his approach is interesting for the many reasons I had just discussed, the final product is far too tacky. I guess I find it unappealing when an image is too easily identifiable as a computer generated image. Take Oliver Wasow’s surrealist images- although there is a lot of work to make these landscapes appear real, the quality is similar to that of Hollywood camp.

I’m looking forward to the rest of this book. I’m quickly gaining interest this medium of such great scope and possibilities.

First Assignment – Dungeonmaster

Dungeonmaster

I spent some time searching Sourceforge.com trying to an interesting program. My intention was to find a program that uses algorithms to generate random sets of numbers or patterns. I first looked at programs that generated fractals based off the Mandelbrot Set. However dazzling fractals can be, it was way to easy and didn’t require any experimentation to produce my image.

My second idea was to generate (by means of a random number generator) 3 numbers, each corresponding to a RGB value, respectively. The generated number would code a color for a smallish unit [block, circle, ect.]. I decided to scrap this idea because i would still have to use photoshop to produce all imagery- which wouldn’t fit the criteria for the assignment.

Eventually I happened upon developer Tom Parker’s RPG-MapGen- a simple block based map generator. The interface was easy to deal with, and within minutes I was able to generate different sprawling block forms in various colors by altering a few basic parameters.

I made the largest dungeons possible without crashing the program. After generating a dungeon, I printed the image as a pdf on the computer desktop, and then extracted the jpg’s from the pdfs and arranged the various maps in layers upon each other.

The way the program generates pathways between rooms is optically viral. What I love about random generation, is that it attempts to emulate what, in effect, is an unalienable experience of the natural world. Natural order appears random, and yet exists upon systems and rules. In Dungeonmaster I attempt to describe an organic form with geometric units generated by a mathematical system.

Dungeon Master by Milton Croissant III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at mmciii.files.wordpress.com.