Author Archives: debbydix
The Theory of Everything
This was shot so well, I loved the clear lighting in every scene it just suited the movie so well and gave it a pure focus on the story. I don’t think the trailer does justice to the film because it makes it seem like a tear jerker & its not but its better than nothing.
technically the course is over, but I want to learn more… so CJ you do not have to read this or newer posts. A kickstarter campaing peaked my interest about the useby date of new media due to technology adevances
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/710593842/theresa-duncan-cd-roms-visionary-videogames-for-gi/widget/video.html
On first look these have quite a beautiful mix of capturing comic book appeal and a gentle but proactive message. The main reason I am interested in this as far as posting a blog goes (because obviously Kickstarter & Rhyzome have the promotion and analysis) is the way platforms and systems change and that can leave much of this type of work becoming snapshots in time. In this instance there is a project to get the work in an ongoing online form. Perhaps in other cases there are travelling museum exhibits with the hardware and software set ups to showcase work like was at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney early this year. Putting some of the games I played a bit over a decade ago ago in a quaint history. The art would be similar.
I think it is great that there is a push to make these cd’s freely available online. I also like that there needs to be so much effort to do this because of how digital & new media art sits in the way art is absorbed by society. It is interesting because you don’t fully need to be in the know to see how these platforms reflect a body of work and their relevance and systems of getting there.
This is one of the things I enjoy about this type of work. That it is for a moment in time. It can’t be precious regardless of how pivotal it may be. To me the work is a stepping stone to the next. It gives it a similar process to science. Many discoveries are amazing and seen at the time but ultimately referred to as research benchmarks until the next takes over fully.
green screen project
I have a group project which will be interesting. How to work collaboratively for assessment (I either want to get started and back off and let others run with their idea, encouraging them to work together of course, or I want to go off on my own and do it myself). My key point here is for assessment, if we HAD to do it, as in real world life death rent electricity kids on the street (and why do we have to be so reliant on the rent and electricity) – I’d do it easily, for the hell of it I’d do it easily. For assessment its different – maybe a good thing I got out of teaching.
I like the people I am working with, but it would be a hell of a lot more comfortable helping them out with this bit or asking them to help out with that bit. I am craving discussion/input but not collaboration, and I think I am worried that we will squash ourselves so as not to squash each other.
This sharing is divergent to the point of this blog journal because its not particularly critical or analytic of anything but my way of working; but, relevant in the sense of my need for privacy yet wanting to create art that will be seen. I can’t hope to reflect some things without the self disclosure.
So to break down to what I am thinking right now (and this will be a long post because I’ll just put some of the working of the project onto this post i think)
The thought we had were on surveillance and I guess conditioning with an example on consumerism although that may get too preachy
The technique we must employ at some point is green-screen, or keying
This is my submission into a group project of three people for our new media elective. I have seen one of the other submissions but not the third one yet so it will be interesting to see how they work together. The general focus is surveillance, with one looking at all of our online activity making us basically a data point and no more in the grand scheme of things, one about the spectacle of consumerism and mine on the two edge sword of monitoring those close to us.
In the lead up to finally deciding on the direction I took, I was interested by the way that artists interperate data into a visual form and was looking at layering images to uncover more data or codes underneath and seeing if they distort the message above and even make the whole thing a fairytale. I lost the momentum on that as a group project was not headed in that direction but it is still something I would like to look at under my own steam after this course.
Above: I was playing with stills that I lifted from the net as an example of things to start with in terms of a ready made to get an idea across to the group. Including work by Mike Perry & Alexander Bettler plus images from Data Flow 2 & clip art. Again not to rip off but as a quicker way to get an idea flowing but local posters and espescially government sponsored graphical representations would work well, keying out further sections as I went and then obviously depending on the colours I used to key that decision would impact any information in layers that were further underlying which shared the colour. This worked alright in conjunction with screen captures of scrolls with google maps & google earth, for example I did one down Gawler Place in town, choosing different sections to show through but it would have needed another tie and was moving away from the group focus and not a lot of communication so I worked on the idea in case but am not putting it forward. Further paths could be available by filming a toy car or any wind up toy painted a block colour & then keyed. This was probably moving away from surveillance & into manipulation & maybe even propaganda by extrapolation. One of the influences over this idea was the photograph of the female French Revolutionaries of the Paris Commune where images were taken individually and composited as well as manipulated to give an effect that looked true enough to use as a propaganda piece. It worked both for and against the purpose.
This was an attempt to use some footage provided of a girl moving the card over herself which I could then key, it was not terribly compelling and because of the similarities in colours worn by the girl to the card it was limiting and the clip was shot on an iPhone and quite grainy. I then tried the shot below which I put into the one below that, but its small and boring.
The final shots used were much clearer and the green gloves were removed which was helpful but I didnt have access to those. I also felt after the last lecture when I saw the new clips that they were best used as one aspect of the piece as standing alone what the artist did was a statement in itself as a singular piece.
There is a current Crime Stoppers campaign, very catchy, that encourages us to put the number in our phone so we can report anonymously anything we think is unusual around our day to day travels. For example we may see a few dogs sniffing at a garbage bin, or someone has a dramatic car upgrade, all things that may seem a little quirky or odd are possible signs of criminal activity that we can call in and report on. Of course this active monitoring activity also seems to align with patriotism and suspicion and it can be good readiness for fights against x, y & z.
With the thought of surveillance brought within our own sphere of influence I ended up working on a family piece I had initially withheld because I thought it was too personal against what was a more stylised representation, but was still an important aspect to me of surveillance. That is the monitoring of those close to you for better or worse, and the possible aspects that can effect its interpretation. The final piece shifts the perspective due to slight variations in the image due to overlays, sections of colour or close ups etc. along with the lack of awareness of the kids and questions of motivations of whoever is watching.
Institutional Repositories: Part 2
In an area I hope to explore over time when my skills are ready, this blog in general (I have chosen to land here after a bit of surfing) is very generous in its information and detailing the issues behind some of the angles. I initially got to this blog from a video about a study on unicorns
Shinseungback Kimyonghun
This artist explores an interesting mix of technology and processed based work which also looks at possible counter responses enabled by the technology and processes employed. Looking at his site I see one of the works titled Captcha dreams of a way to communicate beyond the regular scope of tracking. It eludes to “it won’t be long until they can read this too”, I think they already do (at least thats the impression I got when i read the book Learning With Big Data) and also this ZDnet article on google cracking Captcha but we can dream. The work is humorous and thoughtful and mixes hopefulness and pessimism nicely.
Adriana Ramic
This is a link to a newsletter that has part of a series of interviews with artists who address network culture and technologies in their work: This article is begins with the work by Adriana Ramic: the return trip is never the same
Here the work is partly based on the study of behaviour of ants and how we search for Queues to a more efficient or better this that and the other by noting swarm behaviour, instinct, patterned randomness etc. This moves through to language; big data, technology in predictive text editing and also again pattern recognition. Its sorting, displaying, translating and assigning, sometimes arbitrarily.
I liked reading about these concepts. I noted the visual cues but here the process in the thought experiment and the documentation of it was pretty satisfying in and of itself so even though there are obviously bodies of work I was able to perform a few thought experiments of my own from reading this interview. Here are a couple of the links from the newsletter
The craiglist assisted readymade may require downloading a plug in for Craiglist, The view was part of an exhibition in post
UNDISCLOSED #12 – 28th December 2008
I chose to reblog this particular post because of the pre-during-post. Of all we have no real evidence of during.
Artist is Julie Vulcan. Some links are no longer active, all part of an online project.
full site for this project un/disclosed
Early morning sometime, I think around 9am.
I am standing in front of the War Memorial.
There is a man made pool in front.
I am walking around this.
I am now at the end facing back towards the huge cenotaph.
I am lying down with my feet facing towards the memorial. I am dressed in a red shirt and red pants. I have a pile of ice cubes to each side, which I pick up and place around my legs.
The cubes are tracing my outline.
A couple are walking in my direction, they are in there mid 50’s.
They look down at me with interest and then look around trying to figure if there is something or someone else around that will give a clue to this. They sort of smile at me but don’t engage.
I am now up to my upper torso. It is pretty swift…
View original post 408 more words
links etc
I am learning rudimentary techniques as I go, most from surfing the net as we are a conceptual art course the main focus is on the ideas rather than execution.
Anyhow it was nice to come across this site: hollywoodcamerawork
I have also enjoyed reading this book: Software Takes Command, by Lev Manovich, which is nice if read also with McLuhan A Guide For The Perplexed by W.Terrence Gordon.
An artist and site that explore this further suzanne treister
Here is a site I found interesting for a personal mapping (I wanted to reblog it but it didnt happen) Stephen Wolfram The Personal Analysis
Also, I found a good link to a lot on this but having trouble re-finding the site. Its a book and also has been reviewed here: infosthetics and here brainpickings anyhow the book is Data Flow 2 edited by R. Klanten, S. Ehmann, T. Tissot, N. Bourquin, it was published in 2010. A google under images also gives a good start to a journey of the various artists.
importance of narration?
We are working on a project, I think with a narrative aspect and perhaps cinematic convention.
Just scrolling through some excerpts
This has a dream like feel because of the watery cartoon style of the imagery. I have not seen the movie, just some excerpts I am basing this on.
Its very young, Plato’s allegory of the cave. It looks like the whole movie is shot in this style, from what I see its quite predictable in terms of stereotypes, its mostly youths (& a professor) with depth not middle age people cooking bacon and eggs giving theory whilst rushing to finish and get out the door. So apart from the visual method, it reminds me of poetry and relies really on the audible narrative (in my opinion), I found the animation obsolete apart from one a clip of guys walking and coming up against an older man up a pole. In thisa group of youths walking down the street seemingly zig zag but starting back from the same point in the zag as if the earth moved horizontally beneath them. That well represented the circular nature of the analysis of life. I think that clip could stand alone even in silence.
However the film is mostly the words, and even then you could have silence to think on it. Vision contradicted the premise of the film in my opinion.
Looking at the animated effects of the clips is a mix of real and surreal, drawn and real perhaps props. Lots of waves through the film. Angry people look angry, lost look lost, reflective look reflective. The emotions are clear even when the sound is off.
Roman Signer works in video and performance, sculpture & photography. This piece is funny and a good statement on process, still a predictable result after all that I think, which is cool.
Looking at The Numberjacks there is a mixed use of visual cues and audible ones as to a characters intention. Here the problem blob is obviously umsocial with reference to snot etc, but the puzzler is not as obvious, I thought he looked pretty neutral but he is very dangerous. Here I turned off the sound but he has a cool tune associated with him, very 70’s feel. The colour of his puzzle bubbles that he traps the numbers in give it away, as do the looks on the numberjacks faces, but he himself has little expression. The colour coordination of the numberjacks and their areas within the couch help cement their place which reinforces the idea of order and placement for kids. There are other enemies of the numbersjacks, like the numbertaker, who has a Dalek quality about him in the way he moves and his attachments.
Looking at Lucy the concepts were clearly shown in the visual. The scene below slowed the process down for us hoping to one day get to the 10% level to understand. I didn’t think that by this stage in the movie this was necessary. Other effective but used for too long in the scene visual cues were the Morgan Freeman conversation, where he kept holding his old phone handpiece even though all media devices were on and communication was over the tv screen, The dark matter analogy at the end wasn’t bad either. I didn’t like the way it grew outward but that linked the biological notions in. I remember a movie years ago with Mel Gibson (may have been Phenomenon) where his brain capacity was expanding due to a tumor and there were less special effects but it was along similar – toned down- lines. but not physical connections shown, more light flashes than dark solid. What i also didn’t like was the holding of the dark matter conversion over before the eyes and the text display of what percentage of her brain had opened up. I understand it was primarily a fun action movie but there is a difficulty combining concepts here.
My Blog on New Media Art 