Blinky

Final Project: Messing with Texas

2005-12-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Austin Center for Dance and Hand to Hand Combat. If you follow our strict regimen of exercise and stretching you will be able to defend yourselves against attack from any kind of criminals, kooks, aggressive car salesmen, insurgents, investigative reporters, angry spouses, or any other perils you may encounter in everyday life.

First, you must select some suitable attire. Nothing too constricting, please. You must have full use of your limbs at all times.

"--Sir, I need to go to the bathroom..."

"You! In the black pants! Get out of here--I will not tolerate your insolence!"

We'll start you off with some basic Salsajitsu techniques. We brought in some lifelike male dummies for you to practice with. Don't be shy, you can't hurt them.

From there we shall move on to advanced belly-dance kwon doe, a secret and ancient form of self defense practiced for over 4,000 years.

Meanwhile....

"Alright men, this is what you've been training all year for. The siege of the Austin Center for Dance and Hand to Hand Combat begins in an hour. Let's focus, people...this ain't gonna be no cakewalk!"

Back at the studio--

"Once you become as good as me, you will be able to move so quickly you will be nothing but a blur."

"That's it, you're catching on! Nice leg work, Sally..."

It is also important that we be able to communicate with each other in the field. This is the basis for the most impenetrable code ever devised. Read it and memorize it, because the board will self-destruct in exactly 1 minute.
"--Wait. What is that I hear in the distance?"

"Right, left, right left..."

"Quietly now, men. We're getting close. Everyone stay on full alert>"

"Here they come. Quick, ladies, rond de jambe, chagement, glissade, pas de bouree, arabesque....ATTACK!!"

Mori: an Internet-based Earthwork

2005-12-02T09:06:00.000-08:00

On November 30 our class took a trip to the Arlington Arts Center in (where else?) Arlington, Virginia. It was there that we experienced Mori, a multimedia artwork that was a collaborative effort between Randall Packer, Ken Goldberg, Gregory Kuhn, and Wojciech Matusik. According to multimedia legend Randall Packer, "In this installation, minute movements of the Hayward Fault in California are detected by a seismograph, converted to digital signals, and transmitted continuously via the Internet to the installation." Mori represents the idea of telepresence to a T. Standing in a room in Arlington, Virginia, we could feel the tiniest movements of the earth along a fault all the way across the country. The vibrations inside the room took me back to my childhood in California, where I experienced several earthquakes.

Washington Monument

2005-11-29T14:36:00.000-08:00

Like the weight of the world on Atlas' shoulders, the Washington Monument weighs heavy on the DC skyline.

Check out the camera bag. You can spot tourists a mile away.

We also saw lots of people out getting exercise. This guy actually floated across the street.

The Monument is so large is has its own gravitational pull...we are being drawn ever closer.

We never found out why these kids were dancing in sync. They ran off before we could ask them.

There is just something beautiful about a line of American flags being lifted softly in the wind.

Looking up from the base of the monument makes me dizzy. Its tremendous weight is crushing me. I think I ought to sit down for a while.

Apparently old people don't care much for the wind whipping around the monument. "Time to go back to Kansas, Fred," says the woman in the purple pants.

Though he may look like a KGB agent on patrol, he is in reality your friendly neighborhood park ranger.

The park is an oasis of calm inside a bustling city--the constant police sirens and car horns reminded us of that.

I told Jermaine not to chase the pigeons, but she didn't listen to me.

They gracefully took to the air for just a moment before settling back down on the soft grass

Motion@Flashpoint

2005-11-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the Motion exhibit at the Flashpoint Gallery mostly for its "fun" factor. The art was all interactive and showcased what could be done with technology. However, it seemed that there wasn't a whole lot of substance underneath the surface of these pieces. Either that, or I'm just not nuanced enough to appreciate what the artists were trying to get across (which is also very possible). My favorite piece, pictured below, is called "Bathroom Beats." A series of intertwined metal tubes protrude from a toilet and sink like a bunch of snakes. If you touch the tubes with a metal rod each one makes a different prerecorded noise.

AU Situational Tour

2005-11-10T23:19:00.000-08:00

For this tour Jack and I took a short walk from our classroom on the second floor of Katzen, downstairs, through the lobby, across Massachusetts Ave., past the shuttle bus stop, across the quad, and into the Ward building.

Is There Love in the Telematic Embrace?

2005-11-03T19:57:00.000-08:00

Roy Ascott's essay ponders the impact of technology on many aspects of human life. But the key area he seems concerned with is its impact on human relationships and its impact on art.

Technology has had an unmistakable and unchangeable impact on human relationships. Whether they are personal relationships, business relationships or even romantic relationships, technology allows the linking of individuals who would otherwise never encounter each other. However, by most accounts these relationships are not as fulfilling as "real world" relationships. To answer Ascott's question as best I can, it is possible to find love and meaning in the telematic embrace, but it will never equal the connection possible through "real world" contact.

Art has always evolved to fit the mediums available. People don't still paint on cave walls because at one point someone discovered that canvas made a better medium. There is really nothing to fear from technology, because has not replaced the art that already exists. In fact it's quite the opposite. Far from replacing conventional art, technology has only helped it, allowing more access to the once-exclusive realm of museums. Someone who lives in the middle of Kansas and has never been to New York's MoMa can go online and view the exhibitions. I can't go to Paris right now but I can go onto Google and find a scan of the Mona Lisa in two seconds. Not only that, but because of technology I can Photoshop my own face into that ancient painting and post it on my blog for the world to see, thus creating my own art!

Situational Tour

2005-11-01T21:48:00.000-08:00

Slow It Down

Here Comes Somebody Important

Couldn't Take The Pressure

Hidden Layers Of Security

Stampede

Midterm Project

2005-10-11T19:44:00.000-07:00

Body Language Sequences--Dr. Hugo Heyrman
DoctorHugo.org

"I walk through the streets of Antwerp City, to investigate how people are using 'silent language' and 'personal space'. I am interested in the temporality of speed, acceleration, slowness and pause. How 'sub-movements' are expressed. How motion precedes emotion." --Hugo Heyrman

“Body Language Sequences” is a series of short, looped movies compiled by Belgian artist Hugo Heyrman. To create this piece he walked the streets of Antwerp with a video camera in his hand and candidly recorded ordinary people doing ordinary things. None of the actions he recorded would make someone on the street stop and stare.

There are no car accidents or fistfights, the things that normally attract attention in a large city. In other words, the scenes that he chose would be completely mundane and boring to an outside observer. But presented Heyrman’s way, these completely mundane scenes take on an entirely new level of meaning. He takes a few seconds of action and slows them down to a crawl. He then loops the images over and over again, causing the viewer to reflect and try to add meaning to what he or she sees.

The authority shift is what most attracted me to this piece. Instead of shifting authority from artist to audience as with most pieces we have studied, it is the subjects in Heyrman’s work that hold all the authority. The artist does not control the actions of the subjects in this piece. Rather, he simply records and preserves actions that occur independently of him. He did not stage the actions that took place; he simply captured people behaving completely candidly, unaware that they were being recorded.

Another interesting aspect of this piece is the bending of space/time. The actions that Heyrman recorded would last only a split second in real-time; he loops each scene so that one instant becomes infinite. In real life, it would be impossible to analyze and think about every piece of nonverbal communication we encounter day to day. Presented in this format, however, the viewer can sit and reflect for ten minutes on an action that took place in the blink of an eye.

In the introduction to the piece, Heyrman writes, “The revealed moments are giving an insight in the instinctive feelings, attitudes, expressions, gestures and emotions of human communication. In a series of experimental ultra-short films, each looped sequence draws attention to its own syntax —a rhythmic pattern of body language in motion.”
I found that statement to be very true. There is a sort of beautiful pattern and rhythm that emerges if you allow the scenes to loop for a while. Something as simple as a girl tapping her fingers on her leg or someone merely waiting becomes art. What emerged for me was the understanding that there is an incredible amount of hidden or disguised meaning in everyday life; all one has to do is look for it.

You may read the artist's statement here.

Ted Nelson--Hypertext

2005-09-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

Ted Nelson's piece is all about hypertext, hypermedia, non-sequential storytelling and the like. Anyone who has seen Pulp Fiction (one of my all-time favorite movies) can attest to the success of non-sequential storytelling. However, there are certain mediums which are better suited to this technique than others. For example, Nelson describes several books which were written in the non-sequential model. The reader decides where he wants to go by choosing from several different page numbers offered. It's an interesting concept, but not the most efficient way to read a book. The reader would constantly be flipping between different pages and sections of the book--I imagine the reader would eventually get lost. Computer technology changed all that. The internet is an incredible network of media (pictures, text, etc.) all tied together by hyperlinks. All one has to do is click on a link to end up somewhere completely different. This system is much more conducive to non-sequential storytelling than a printed book, for example.

David Ross Lecture

2005-09-11T12:33:00.000-07:00

According to David Ross in his lecture at San Jose State University, the internet and net.art are all about breaking down barriers, blurring the boundaries between creator and audience, and casting off authority. It is certainly true that the internet has allowed art to spread to a much wider audience than it otherwise would have with the creation of Rhizome and other art sites. I found his description of what happened with cable television to be very interesting, how people thought 70 channels would mean enough room for anyone who had something to express, but that it became an “economy of scarcity” and most people were left out. Now the internet is the medium by which these people express themselves, but what does the future of the internet hold? Maybe it will go the way of cable and some entirely new medium will have to be developed. And while the future of art may be digital, the past isn’t going anywhere. I believe there will always, always be a place for museums. And there will always be artists who choose to create sculptures or paintings by hand, instead of creating art with a mouse and a computer. No matter how popular internet art becomes, the great thing about it is that now there really is room for everyone.

Visual Music @ Hirshhorn Museum

2005-09-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed the Visual Music exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum. I found it fascinating because it presented several forms of artistic expression I had never seen (although I must admit I had absolutely no experience with the concept of multimedia until this class). Nevertheless, the blending of sight and sound was a unique experience to go through. I was also shocked at how long ago some of the pieces were created. When one thinks of “modern art,” the 1930s do not immediately come to mind. But Oskar Fischinger created many of his films during this period. I really was surprised that I had never heard anything about these artists. My overall favorite was Jennifer Steinkamp’s installation (Below). Even though it nearly gave me vertigo, I felt I could have sat there watching it for hours. It was an incredibly immersive experience.

"Overture"

2005-09-03T23:17:00.000-07:00

Coming into this class, I had very little knowledge of multimedia from an academic standpoint. Of course, I've been exposed to multimedia all my life—I just didn’t really know or pay attention to it. From reading the Overture I was hoping to get a clear answer, but after reading it I discovered that a clear answer isn’t really possible. Multimedia is many things, but it is very hard to pin down exactly what those things are, especially because some forms of multimedia haven’t been invented yet. I was also surprised to learn that the concept of multimedia isn’t new and doesn’t necessarily have to utilize computer technology (opera, for example, has been around for centuries). I look forward to exploring this new world more closely.