Andrew Kieper

His artwork involved a combination of visual and audio loops that are not perfectly synched up. In the piece the effect desired was to create a space with sound. Through the use of panning, playing with the equalizer, and raising and lowering the pitch things can sound closer or further away. The visual was highly textural and a combination of abstract and possibly real images. This ambiguity allows the viewer to interpret in his or her own manner.
Video art, in general, was also discussed especially the idea of narrative versus non-narrative. A non-narrative defies the expectations of a video viewer as most popular video is narrative. Bill Viola was mentioned as an important artist in video that focuses on ideas like birth and death often in his video. Finally, parts of a Matthew Barney film were shown. In it, a museum space is taken over by a cast of characters including a punk band, Serra throwing melted vaseline, and a feline/woman advesary.

SMP Midterm

Vanessa-
Her project is the creation of a fox world. Throughout it she uses the image of an anthropomorphized fox and objects that relate to the fox. The objects are in the framework of a girl's posessions, but with a fox answer. Some of the issues brought up in the discussion included: Confusion over a photoshopped Cosmo cover because it seemed less related to the story of the objects. People also emphasized the importance of having the mark of the fox on all of the objects, so that the message is clear because all of the issues had not been resolved.
Jeannie-
She describes her sculptures as self portraiture. These portraits show repressed emotions seepting out of them through the use of materials. She says they represent what she feels she cannot publiclly express. The sculptures are on the floor and the material is kept pure without coloration. The sculptures are interrelated by the use of the braid in each. The question of how these will be displayed in an environment and how that will effect the way a viewer relates to the pieces both separately and as a whole.
Erica-
Her display has desks with chairs. There are various objects on the desks and instructions for someone to perform once they sit down at the desk. At one desk there is a page that says please sign in and there is a pen in a container with gold leaf. This was meant to make the action of writing and reading permenant, but the gold seemed to cause people not to want to touch it. At the other desk there were cards that were to be sorted into categories and ones that were not should be cut. There were also pens and a sign on this desk besides the cards. The problem that was brought up the most was how she could get the audience to expirience the piece the way it was intended as people are often unwilling to disturb what is seen as artwork.
Hilary-
Hilary has color nature photography ina square format. She says that these photographs come from walks she takes, making the journey of her walk just as significant to her as the work. She is seeking to be emersed in the landscape. By using the square, she is subverting what is traditionally thought of as landscape. At the time, she was trying different methods of presentation that have the phtoographs mounted slightly off the wall. The problems she faced was mostly in the determination of which photographs to be used, and how they would relate to eachother in the installation.

WarcraftWebsite

Clickity!

Site Map

World of Warcraft

fantasy
nerd
role playing
fighting
magicworld
videogame
obsession
alternate reality
secret life
time consumption

Web Site Ideas

FBI

natural light (or another cheap beer)

Victoria's Secret

Atkins (or another weight loss trend)

World of Warcraft

My First Website

My super cool Website.

Oil Standard

The oil standard project manipulates the common person's use of the internet to demonstrate an economic reality. Mandiberg is using the program to make apparent the actuality of the interconnection between oil and other forms of monetary. He is able to exploit the fact that the internet is changable and open to modifications. Without this ability, Mandiberg would be unable to have this project. Furthermore, since the oil prices are realtime, he must be tapped into some other internet source to supply the program with these prices. Mandiberg is only able to do this because the internet is able
investigate it, and talk about how it uses the internet as an art medium. Explain why it uses it to best advantage, and why the piece could not be made in any other way. The work relates to the history of the internet described in Sterlings article because it pulls from the idea of any person being able to input information into the web. Furthermore, since the download is free, it is a direct decendant of the free file sharing described in the article. The work reflects the time in that it directly comments on the political and economic issues of the time. Also, it uses the common popularity of firefox (as opposed to say netscape navigator or internet explorer, which were more popular in years prior), which makes the program much more accessable to the common population.

Scans

Sketches

In the first sketch, Billie Holiday is singing in a bar where Edgar Allen Poe is drinking and Upton Sinclair is leaving the kitchen with a pad in his hand as a rat runs out of the kitchen. I will need to scan images of Holiday, Poe, and Sinclair. I will also need to photograph or scan images of a bartender, glasses, a rat, and wood pieces to construct a bar and table should an appropriate image not be found.


In this Sketch, Cab Calloway is performing in a theatre while John Wilkes Booth is in one of the front boxes. I will need to scan images of Calloway and Booth. I hope to photograph or scan the images required to create a theare and a band.

When Zombies Attack!

Contest Link

Borroughs Response

In the article, Borroughs describes the cut up. This is a technique where an artist literally will cut up a page of text and reassemble it randomly to create a new text. He relates this technique to collage, but withy words instead of images. While I can appreciate the desire to create poetry in a new, expirimental way, I am unsure how 'poetic' this technique actually is. I see a poet as a crafter or words, where as the cut up seems like artistic expirimentation. The question remains, though, is randomness art? In the definition of art as whatever someone is able to claim as art, the mere activity Borroughs describes would be concidered art. If, however, 'artistic technique' is considered then the argument may b e made that it is not art, but merely activity. Borroughs realizes this and says that its ease is part of how cut ups work. He writes, "Cut=ups are for everyone. Anoyong can make cut ups. It is experimental in the sense of being something to do." In this case, the final product seems to be art as much as the process of creation is artistic activity, and therefore, art.

Photoshop demonstration Photo

S-E-X-Oh!

S-E-X-Oh! is a play created and performed by a theatre group from Chicago called Teatro Luna. Teatro Luna is comprised entirely of Latina women. S-E-X-Oh! deals with the sexual lives, fears, and issues of the actors. The title comes from the opening and closing scenes which has all of the actors spelling the word that was so taboo in their childhood homes, "sexo." The play was comprised of mostly unconnected scenes put together with short snipets of music between. Each scene presented an event or issue of one or more of the women. Issues such as lesbian motherhood, love, childhood sexuality, and pregnancy were discussed through small scenes and short conversations. One of the most interesting parts of the performance came in a series of dispersed scenes through out the play. At some point, each actor came to center stage and had a recorded profile of themselves played. In these short profiles, the women brought up various body issues, which were mirrored by the backdrop. The backdrop consisted of photographs of the women with written commentary of what they think about the offending body part in question. There were also intercuts of one woman discussing her job as a phone sex operator and her interactions with perverts also known as her clients. Overall, the play was able to achieve its goals of openess about sexuality and womanhood and attainment of women power.

Dada

Schwitters


Merzbild 46 A. Das Kegelbild (Merzpicture 46 A. The Skittle Picture)
In this piece, Kurt Schwitters is using the dada technique of Assemblage. The piece features a seemingly random collection of wood and metal pieces. All of the pieces contained in the work seem fairly mundane and unimportant when looked at on their own. In combination, however, they form a 3D abstract collage, which moves the eye around the piece. The key to the piece, however, is the artist frame. This is what marks it as "Art." Through this piece, Schwitters is able to subvert the traditional definition of art while creating his own.

Bild mit Raumgewächsen (Picture with Spatial Growths)
or Bild mit 2 kleinen Hunden (Picture with 2 Small Dogs), 1920 and 1939
The technique of this piece is an abstract collage. Schwitter's combines a wide range of sources and types of 2D materials as the basis of this work. From a distance, the forms and use of positive and negative space capture the eye. Soon, one is drawn in close and the individual components of the piece which include ticket stubs, newspaper clippings, written notes, and even hair are revealed. By using a collection of materials that seem to be collected off the street or from the trash, Schwitter is again able to bring into question what it means to be art.

Journey Project mp3

This is my final mix of my audio journey project. The concept is a journey of the mind, from a place of hysterics to a place of peace. While traveling between these two destinations there is a time of complete chaos. Enjoy.

Outside Sources:
By Dynamicell (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=47052)
Fire_Forest_Inferno.aif (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=17548)
By martypinso (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=85523)
DMP010037 CRICKETS TEXAS .wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=22604)
By Jake Williams (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=40013)
footsteps upstairs hard floor indoors.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=18171)
By Alithia (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=142037)
Autisme.WAV (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=23156)
By bondegi (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=235387)
threejackhammers.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=30206)
By cognito perceptu (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=57789)
alarm.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=18767)
By NoiseCollector (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=4948)
peace and anarchy6.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=5616)
By studiorat (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=59647)
scream boom_01.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=22350)
By loofa (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=149377)
BIG DOOR SHUT DOWN.aif (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=23579)

All other sounds recorded by me on minidisk with a flat mic.

Janet Cardiff

The radio clip describing Cardiff's Sound Journeys was less interview and more spliced together sound information. It seemed that the radio voices and Cardiff were independently describing various parts of her work, with clips used as examples. When compared to the clip, however, the description was indeed accurate. The sound was interactive and Janet Cardiff was incontrol of where the sounds make the listener go. By using the three levels of sound, Cardiff was able to create an entire world through only the aural senses. She was able to fade in and out a level of sound while maintaining her footsteps or voice. This technique creates a forced sense of movement. It makes the listener question, "what is reality?" By using the binaural recording technique, where sounds are recorded with specific mic placement that allows the sound to seem like it surrounds the listener, Cardiff is able to make the sounds seem intensely real in a surreal way. The sounds feel so close, yet our brain knows they are not, which causes a disjunction to occur amungst the senses that perpetuates the questioning of reality. One aspect I especially found interesting both in the interview and the piece is the idea of the layers of history a place can have. By looking through the entire history of a spot, Cardiff is able to transport you through time. This is especially interesting because of her choice in medium. Sound is a recording of time passage, and, as the radio clip said, walking is also a passage of time. These things combine beautifully as Cardiff attempts to transport the listener beyond where he or she is physically going. Every aspect of her work points the listener to a surreally real journey through space, time, and the museum's surrounding streets.

First Audio Exersize

Here is my first audio project using audacity. It is about a thirty second clip combining 4 different sounds found on The Freesound Project.

Rhythmic background sound from crushed bits
Door opening and shutting and corn flake chewing from FreqMan
Footsteps from Jake Williams

Audio Journey Concept Proposal

The concept for my audio journey is symboliclly traveling through the mind, beginning with a chaotic state of mind and moving towards a peaceful one. The concrete sounds used for the beginning and ending points are a forest fire sound and a quiet summer evening. Both of these clips have already been found on the Freesound Project. To show movement in the journey, I will be looking to fade in and out of different sound environments with a variety of different types of doors opening and closing. Things that I would like to record in class time would mostly be these various door sounds. I also would like to record some typing and perhaps some of the ambiant sounds found in the halls of Monty, such as the noise of the coke machine or a noisey light(there is one outside the classroom 151) I hope that by patching together seemingly unrelated sound environments it will reproduce the thought processes of an excited/hyperactive/agitated mind that is attempting to find calm.

Sound Art Blog

I looked at the work of Gregory Whitehead. I especially found two pieces, Radio Degree Zero and Eva Can I Stab Bats In a Cave?, particularly interesting. The meditative backwards and foward mantra of Radio Degree Zero created an odd sense of calm. Each pause gave emphasis to the individual words which emphasized the entire phrase even while the words seemed unconnected. In Eva Can I Stab Bats In a Cave? Whitehead uses an altered series of the palindrome phrase to form a palindrome, as if each phrase style is a letter. Primarily, I was interested in the comical value of this piece, which is punctuated with large gasps between phrases. Overall, I find Whitehead's work interesting because of his focus on a voice, albeit digitized, as an means of artistic expression.
Link

Question: Is the idea of 'newness' (progress/avante-garde) merely a construct? Is it possible to have anything new in art?
Response: The combination and juxtaposition of objects pulled from various sources can be reformed into something that can be concidered art. For example, by using a combination of objects in a setting, one is able to create art 'theatre'.
Art: Mike Kelly
Test Room Containing Multiple Stimuli Known to Elicit Curiosity
Photo with Description
Mike Kelly's Book Minor Histories in which he describes Test Room

From Rhizome.org

Private City
http://www.anina.be/

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