Final Project Comparison

When doing the first appropriation project with "The Sound of Nature" video it was a tad bit difficult because I felt like my creativity was limited. I was only able to use the sounds from the video to make a new mix. I liked the idea of making just audio although in my first appropriation project I used video too; I felt like it would have been better to just stick to the audio alone. Also when using only the originally footage I felt like it was so out dated. I tried to make it sound more modern and give it a new twist but with it being old and not having a lot of music in the original video it was hard to use what was there to make it music at all.

In this final project I was able to do a lot more. Using GarageBand to make my own original music was the best way to go. I then knew that it would be a lot easier to add audio from the video. Using GarageBand also made it more fun. I like making music of my own so I spent a lot of time making the music for this project. Were as before I struggled most with taking the original audio from the video, in this project I took more time just making the original music. I wouldn't call it a struggle though because I really had fun making it and adding the audio from the video ended up only taking a short period of time. Overall I think I enjoyed making the final project more versus making the first appropriation project.  

Nature Feel

Title: Nature Feel
Date: November 15, 2012
Medium: Digital Imagery

Description: Using Instagram a social media app, a collection of images where taken from different users relating to Nature. Those images were then taken and made into a collage. To make the collage into one piece, different filters were use. 

 

Social Media

The project that I am doing would take a little more work without having the social media. I would have to contact people by phone or other communication devices and ask them to take pictures for me. Even after that it would take a lot more work to get the pictures from each person. Right now all I have to do is screen shoot the pictures and they are automatically saved to my phone. Also I have been able to get pictures from people by them just simply sending them to my phone. With out the help of social media I would have to take a different approach. I would either have to ask people to print the pictures for me or send them through email if possible. But it would take me much longer to get the images and this project may then turn into something I wouldn't want to do.

I am not sure if I fully understood the part about broadcasting. But using Instagram I was able to broadcast the fact that I needed these images in the first place. I first made a text gram that described the images I needed and then posted for all of my followers to see. When I did this people were able to read the text gram and tag me in the pictures after they took them. Also other people who don't follow me were able to tag me in pictures to if they visited my page and saw the text gram that I posted. Instagram is a great way to broadcast. Any one who post a picture on there page can also upload the picture at the same time to their twitter or facebook page. There for not only their Instagram followers will see it but also their twitter and facebook friends will to. Which means they are posting the picture for a larger audience to see.

Harrel Fletcher - Net Art

Harrell Fletcher

Born:1967

Education: BFA from San Francisco Art Institure
                 MFA from California College of the Arts

Media: Drawing, Video, Net Art and Performance.

Lives and works in Portland, Oregon

Professor at Portland State University

TWITTER

Since I already have a twitter I will instead talk about how I remember it was when I first got it and how it is now that I understand it and use it a lot more. Twitter was something that one of my friends swore to me would be a good idea. He was always on it and I just didn’t understand why. I was still using facebook and a lot of my friends still were too.  I finally created my own twitter and tried following as many as my friends as I could. It didn’t make much since to me and I thought it was pretty dumb. I started by posting simple thoughts that ran through my mind throughout the day. Things like “I’m tired” or “I really don’t feel like being in this class right now” were some of the few things I first tweeted.

Now that I have been on twitter for a few years it is a lot different than before. I tweet a whole lot more I use it for more than just thoughts that cross my mind. I post pictures; I use it for business purposes. I also use it to stay in touch with friends and sometimes but very rare I follow a celebrity or two. I am also able to post some of my music or if I go to some of my favorite websites I can tweet things that I find on there by just clicking a button. There is a lot to twitter but I think after having it and having a good amount of followers it can be pretty cool.

Appropriation Video

Name: Natures Sound Mix

Time: 3 Min 34 Sec

Medium: Digital Video

Video that incorporates sound that has remixed to sound like a song. Video matches up with the song and has some effects added to it. The purpose is to make a video that will keep viewers attention and also teach them a little about sound.

Collage vs. Video

When making a collage I don't think I put a bunch of thought into it. One reason is because it was about me. Its always easy for me to talk about myself although it always takes some thinking I still know what my main strengths and weaknesses are. I think when making the collage the art portion comes into play when we take so many random things and bring them together as one. I would say that a collage is a type of Dada art. In my collage I think I took the most time on putting the letters together for the titles on both sides. I like text and not just text or font that you see on many computer software but creative font or unique font. When I took the font out of the magazine I wanted to mix and match them and that is what a collage allow me to do.

When it came to the video I felt like this was much different than making a collage. Because we were only able to use the video that we were given it was harder to add and mix many different things like we were able to do with using different magazines. The video also was difficult to use because it was so old. When we thing of technology and the modern way of editing we hardly think of black and white unless it is a filter or an effect. With the video being so old it did make it much harder to come up with a concrete idea. After doing peer critics I did see that all of my classmates ended up coming up with great ideas from the video that many of us felt was old and hard to work with.

Dlectricity

Dlectricity was a great event. I liked it more than anything because it brought people to Detroit. There is always bad talk about the city of Detroit but this was a great event to bring a lot of people to the city. My sister and I went to the show on Saturday night. We mostly walked up Woodward and saw most of the art work there. There were great pieces of art all over and the fact that the event was out doors at night with many pieces that had light effects and such made the event even better. One of the types of art that i liked was the videos that were projected on the buildings. Because I work with video a lot in my recent art work I liked the fact that instead of projecting these pieces on regular white projectors they used buildings. One of my favorite ones would have to be the piece called WORK. This was one of the first projections that I saw. I think it was projected from inside the building rather from the street like many of the other ones were. Each window had a projection playing on it that together made one video. There were also other art pieces and things going on that night that were interesting.

In one of the museums there were these cars that were painted and some mechanically mad so that they moved. Although they didn't allow any body to take pictures of this art it was interesting. Most of the cars had mechanics shirts with different names on them laying around the base of the care. I really didn't understand the meaning of the the work and it didn't have any artist statements to my knowledge but it was still very cool. They also had drinks and other art work plus music playing and people dancing. All of these great things made Dlectricity a really good event and a good way to bring more people to visit the city.

Appropriation Artist - Kelley Walker

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ARTIST: Kelley Walker

BORN: 1969, Columbus Georgia

LIVES/WORKS: New York

SCHOOL:  BFA, University of Tennessee, Knoxville 

MEDIUM: Painting and digital imagery

CONCEPTS: Kelly Walker was considered a post pop artist. He did art with silkscreens and things like tooth paste on magazines. He liked to work out side of the norm.

Appropriation Art

Bottles of Emotion

Acrylic Paint

12 x 2.5 Glass Bottles

Painted Ciroc Liquor bottles with different emotions. Each emotion represents the emotions most people go through when drinking. The different colors help back up the mood or emotion that each bottle is trying to represent.

MAKING GAME vs MAKING ART

Making a game and making art work is different in some ways but also similar in as well. When making these games they started out with an idea. Art work is made the same way for me. I usually have to think of what I would like to do before taking the steps to get it done. Another thing that is similar is when making art I may have to draw little sketches to see if what I plan to do will work. With the game making I had to draw out a diagram to get an idea of how the game will go before introducing it to my classmates.

There were many differences as well. When making the games i didn't have to worry as much about the aesthetics of it. It could have looked however I wanted it to as long as it was fun and organized. With art we always want to make something that makes people look and hold their attention. Another thing is interaction. When I make art it is not usually something that people can interact with. Unlike the art in the gallery I make art that is less interactive. So when i made this game it was completely interactive. Lastly I felt that one of the other contrasts was the fact that when making the game I had to consider other people. I had to think what people would want to do and enjoy doing. When making art I hardly consider others. I make art that would please me. Of course unless it’s for a class but even then I usually make art that I’m satisfied with and later think if others will like it.

Happening by Allan Kaprow

Name of Artist: Allan Kaprow

Name of Game: Happening

Objective: Take Place anywhere, and are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience. Getting a group of people to simultaneously do the same act.

Rules: Key elements of happenings are planned, but artists sometimes retain room for improvisation.

Players: Unlimited  

Pic My Location

NAME: Pic My Location

OBJECTIVE: To race and find all your teammates by using phone to phone picture messaging.

RULES: Teams will randomly be selected by the GAME LEADER. Each team will select a TEAM LEADER who will start the game off from the HOME base. The remaining players will then be numbered from one to the last player. Each player of the team except the TEAM LEADER will get a picture sent to their phone of where they should go and hide. Players with the same number will get the same picture. The GAME LEADER will give each team time to go off to their location. Then when the game leaders gives the go lead players will text player one of their team who will then send them the picture of their location. The TEAM LEADER will try to figure out where the player is off of the picture they are sent. After finding player one the TEAM LEADER and player one will text player two and wait to receive a picture of player two’s location. Player one and the TEAM LEADER will work together to then find player two. Each player found will then work together to find the remaining players based off of the picture that is sent to them. Once all players are found the entire team must return back to the HOME base where the GAME LEADER is. First team to get back HOME wins the game. 

PLAYERS: 6 or more even players 

Show & Tell

Title: Dreamscape (Double Dream)
Date: Sept 21, 2011
Medium: Video
Dimensions:
TRT: 2:01
Description: This was my first video that I shot and edited. It represented a person having a dream inside of a dream and then finally waking up. The entire video was shot with one camera and acted out by me and a friend.

In Progress Critique

When looking at a lot of my classmate’s final project and getting feedback on my own work I learned a lot. The main thing that I was able to see was if my audience was able to get the point that I wanted to make with my video. That has always been my main goal. I want to make sure that the meaning behind my work is evident and that whoever watches it is able to connect with it somehow. Watching other people’s video I wanted to see if I could understand what they wanted to get across too. I also enjoyed hearing other people’s ideas on how they would display their work.  I wanted to do something different besides showing my video on two computer monitors but I think that is the best way for it to work.

Also getting feedback on things that I could change and things I could add into my piece was very helpful. I always want to be the best artist that I can and learn as much information as possible so any time we have critiques it is important to hear how people felt when watching my work because on a larger scale others may look at my work and feel the same way. Everyone’s ideas for their own individual pieces seem to be interesting and although we were able to see a lot of peoples work fully or close to being done I am excited to see what changes they will make and how their finished product will come out. 

Ann Arbor Film Festival Previous Winners

Although I wasn’t able to make it to the Ann Arbor Film Festival this year I was able to find some of the previous winners work. It was hard to really find any of the previous artist full work but I found excerpts and trailers of some of them. I am not sure if the work I found was the correct pieces but if they were I found a lot of nice pieces. A few that stuck out to me was one by Huang Weikai. His piece called Disorder was the winner of Michael Moore Award Best Documentary Film. I personally liked this piece because one day I want to make a documentary of my own. These types of work are great because they show real life events. In Disorder it seems like it took place in another country and although it was a trailer, to see a little of what goes on in other countries and how they differ from America is great. We as Americans that haven’t had the opportunity to travel can see a documentary like this and get a better understanding of the struggles that people in other countries have. To win an award by Michael Moore is a big deal because he is one of the most popular documentary artists around so that says even more about the piece Disorder.

Another piece that I really liked was In a Pig’s Eye by Atsushi Wada. This piece won the Prix DeVarti Funniest Film award. I was only able to find excerpts on this piece too but the little that I was able to watch was funny and interesting as well. In a lot of my video art I like to bring humor into the equation. Sometimes it is on purpose and other times it is something that comes naturally. Laughter is the key to living in my mind so to be able to make my audience laugh is something I really enjoy doing. Through all the work that I was able to view I found them pretty cool and it would have been great to see what this years festival had. I was inspired by the work I viewed to learn more and one day be able to make much more interesting pieces.

Gerry Fialka

Gerry had a lot of points that made you think. Usually when talking to most artists or when artist come to lecture I expect them to come and talk about their art work but he immediately got the audience to thinking with the first question that he asked. The fact that he was able to keep us all involved besides the one guy that he caught sleeping. Gerry had an interesting idea about art too. He talked about how artists have come up with art work that is not art work but then he covered other mediums that have done the same thing. Like the women that mad the book that wasn’t a book or the man that made the song that wasn’t a song. To me this is the most interesting because I feel like music, just like art, is something that is everywhere. So many artists have taken things that have already been made and then calling them art after making a slight change to them. When the music artist recorded the song that was nothing but natural sound and called it music it was just the same as artists that make found art. I dislike both of these because I like creativity and people who are original. I feel that taking found art or making music out of basically nothing is an insult us who work hard to make real art and music with meaning.

Some of the simple quotes that Gerry said were interesting too. It was one about taking the time to make planes and then doing the opposite. I liked that one because sometimes we constantly make plans that don’t work out the way that they should so maybe if we tried the opposite or just tried something different in general we would get different and possibly better results. Another thing he asked us was would it ever really be silence. Another one of those questions that I think made everyone think. And I think the biggest thing about a lot of his questions were they didn’t make us just think on the surface of things but I heard other people talking and they seemed to be in deep thought about these questions. All together his lecture was something that made me think and that was the most important part to me and it is what really kept me tuned in.

A little about me.

I was born in Detroit and lived there for a little while then later moved to Southfield. I have a strong love for music. I write, sing and rap. Music has always been a part of my life even way before art. Being able to express myself through music is something that I wouldn’t trade for the world. I am a very oriented person. I love to be around my family because those are some of the few people who I can truly be myself around. Art is something that I like a lot to because it has such a large open range of creativity. I like making art with meaning. My tattoos that I have mostly designed myself all have significant meaning to me. I am a very open minded person. Trying and experiencing new things that will help my creativity in my music and in my art is always something I enjoy doing. 

60 Second Shot

With the 60 second shot I learned some of the different angles that I could use. This was interesting to me because while watching other peoples pieces I saw how the change of the cameras angle could make the video completely different then if it was just shot at a normal straight on angle. Also with this piece I learned more about having a narrative. Videos should have a meaning to them. Even with a video as short as 60 seconds most piece have details behind them that gave at least some kind of beginning or middle or end point. This is usually up to the person who makes the video but it will allow the viewer to get more of what is actually going on. I also liked the fact that we had to use the natural sound and was not able to edit sound into the piece. This worked well in a lot of the videos because the sound is what helped give the narrative. Sometimes even having absolute silence in the video worked well too. Some of the different shots were close ups or wide screamed shoots, there were still shots and also panning shots. All these are interesting in there own way because where as a close shot make the viewer focus on specific things a wide shot gives the viewer the option of what to look at. Also still shots and panning shots have about the same effect. This practice of the 60 second shot gave me practice but also ideas of what all options I have when making any video.  

What I Love About Video Art

Video art is a great thing because of the way you are able to tell a story. With most art you have a single object that makes it more difficult to put meaning into it. With video art you can have as much meaning whether it is the words that are used or the actions or even the way that it’s edited etc. Video art gives you more room to be creative. My favorite part about video art is the editing. Editing to me is so fun and creative. When I first was able to work with editing software I played with it forever just getting myself familiar with all the things that it was able to do. Slowing things down or putting other visual effects on my work was something that I really enjoyed doing. Editing isn’t just about those things though, because even the simple changes and effects are exciting as well. One of my first projects in Video Art 1 I did a lot of different camera changes and since I was only using one camera I wanted the scenes to flow together and look as if I was using multiple cameras. Being able to put different clips together and with the right timing and the right transition was simple and made the video flow smoothly as well. I truly want to learn more and get more familiar with different software and techniques that make my videos look more professional so that one day I am able to use them to my benefit in making a great career for myself.