Cool Video

Cy Kuckenbaker's composite of Five hours of planes landing at San Diego International Airport. Inspired by this composite by Ho-Yeol Ryu.

Final Project

After countless revisions, this project has changed from its original purpose. I wanted to combine text and image spatially, but what space would I portray? What text would I write? As I looked around for inspiration, my own thoughts began to dance around in the space before me. Having recently read Goethe's Faust, the story is still fresh in my mind. So, here I have brief snippets of thought, frozen in time, suspended in space. The fleeting nature of each snippet suggests the transience of thought.

Interactive App prototype

Here's something I made in another class!

http://markleedesign.net/483f/BioCentre.html

Poster Project

This is a poster for my history of graphic design class, along with my statement in full:

In the 1930s, the Nazis began a campaign to solidify their image as pillars of racial purity and military might, incorporating classical styles of realism and reinforcing the virtues of homeland pride. Artistic expression that did not reflect these Nazi values were labeled “degenerate”, meaning they were considered by to be intrinsically abnormal and substandard. Modern art, such as expressionism, cubism, dada, and surrealism fell under this definition. Artists and curators who were partial to anything deemed degenerate were relieved of their jobs and positions and replaced by members from the Reich Culture Chamber. The offending art works were often confiscated, and in 1937 a collection of such confiscated “degenerate” art were shown in Die Ausstellung “Entartete Kunst” (The Degenerate Art Exhibition). The cover of the exhibition catalog features a full bleed photograph of The New Man, an expressionist sculpture by Otto Freundlich, and is the subject of my poster.

I tried to imagine visiting this exhibit from the perspective of a modern artist. No doubt the utter dismissal of decades of progressive work hurts deeply, but the show is drawing in much more attention than the nearby Große Deutsche Kunstausstellung (Great German art exhibition), which only features officially approved art. In it, the classical sculptures and paintings by artists like Arno Breker and Adolf Wissel were largely ignored despite being heralded as the antithesis of degenerate art. The modern artist might begin to feel that this was proof that the two collections should be reversed, that surely this lack of popularity meant that the so-called “degenerate art” was more thought provoking, more inviting, more worthy of attention than the stiff old styles at the Great German art exhibition. If so, criticism ought to be levied at the appropriate collection, thus: my Reverse Degenerate Art Exhibition Cover.

In place of Freundlich’s expressionist sculpture, my poster features Arno Breker’s Die Partei (The Party), a statue representing the Nazi Party, which, along with another statue representing The Army, stood at the entrance to the Reich Chancellery. The original cover featured a mix of typography, from a neutral roman “ENTARTETE” (Degenerate) to an expressively scribbled “KUNST” (Art) placed in quotation marks, and finally an “Ausstellungsführer” (Exhibition Guide) set in Fraktur. The apparent effect was to emphasis each word differently, but modern designers tend to be more unified in their typography, so in my cover “ENTASRTETE”, “AUSSTELLUNGSFÜHRER”, and the price tag are all formally related via type, alignment, color, and balance. While the original “KUNST” was scribbled in as a mockery of expressionist art, my “KUNST” is set in Tannenberg, a special type of blackletter commonly called Schaftstiefelgrotesk (Jackboot Grotesque) associated with Nazi nationalism. In all truthfulness, I have always thought blackletter type is rather curious and have long been interested in medieval and ancient typography, which is one of the reasons I chose this particular project to do.

The Nikon D80, My Camera

This is a Nikon D80. My dad bought one a few months before it's replacement, the D90, was announced. Since he works in the graphics business, having a DSLR is essential for taking pictures of products and finished installations.

Since the D80's release, newer and better cameras have been introduced, nearly all of them more worthwhile than this camera. It's options are limited, it doesn't shoot video unlike it's D90 successor, and there seems to always be slight blurriness around edges.

Maybe it's an issue with the lens, a Nikon DX AF-S Nikkor 18-135mm1:3.5-5.6G ED. It's a versatile lens, no doubt, but sometimes I wonder if it's been causing all the focusing problems that keep appearing.

Catfish (spoiler free)

Much has been speculated about the film Catfish, causing no small order of controversy. Purported to be a documentary about an ordinary guy who gets caught up in extraordinary events, the authenticity of of this film is immediately called into question. How much of this documentary is real? How much is the fabricated narrative of the film makers? If the entire movie is fiction, can it still be called a documentary? In the movie, after a shocking revelation that leaves our protagonist doubting authenticity, he goes on to seek out the truth of the matter. I think it's only fair that the critics who doubt the veracity of this documentary to follow Nev's example and check out how deep the rabbit hole goes. Maybe they can even make a movie out of it.

Desktops

Portraiture need not be straight headshots, in any age. As a symbol of a particular person, a straight headshot certainly gets the job done, but as many artists and photographers have found, it is not the only method. A person can be represented in a myriad of ways, from the possessions they have, to the things they do, to more abstract notions like how they feel or what they desire. In the Digital Age, these symbols increased dramatically; for every real world object or action there seems to be a digital equivalent. Our workspaces change, our ways of working change.


In my series of Desktop, I present portraits of six anonymous individuals with nothing more than the desktop environment on their screens. The monitor acts as a frame. In one of these portraits, the person included the conversation I had with them requesting a screenshot, which was not what I quite intended but becomes a kind of “photo bomb” as it might be called in a traditional portrait.

Project 01

Done! Looks like things took a different turn than what I expected.

These three images are my take on alteration. Three objects, each with part of their surface texture removed and replaced with something else, merging two images as one. The project began as an attempt to peek into the fourth dimension: the textures represent what the object once was before it became a leaf, a page in a book, et cetera. I took pictures of what I assumed plants, paper and DVDs were made of: dirt, wood, and something vaguely adamantine. Throughout the course of compositing these images, my research began to poke holes at my theory. In fact, plants made mostly out of the carbon in the air, not the dirt in the soil. DVDs are made from alloys of silver, indium, antimony, and tellurium. Paper, although technically made from wood, also contain additives, and are coated with a variety of materials for better printing. With this information in hand, the three images become naïve assumptions of what things used to be.

7th Annual Pasadena Art Walk

This past Saturday I went with my dad to the Art Walk in Pasadena, which was on a small stretch of El Molino Ave near Vroman's Bookstore. Mostly it was a bunch of artists selling their work, and honestly none of them really caught my attention. There was free museum admission, so we checked out the Pacific Asia Museum and looked at a bunch of Buddhist sculpture figures. At the time we went, they were rearranging the exhibits so half the galleries were empty. Late in the afternoon we went to the Paseo Colorado where there was a music event going on and saw a performance from the Taiko Center of Los Angeles. They were okay, but truthfully I felt every thing that day was geared mainly towards children and family activities, so I didn't really enjoy this visit.

Their drums weren't even that big.

Beginning Project 01

My Project 01 will (probably) be about Altering the Organic. I will attempt to do so by substituting one object's texture for another, and presenting it as reality. The first step of this is to take a bunch of photographs of potential textures to use...

The Shakespeare Redesign Project

The Shakespeare redesign project is a redesign of this flyer for The Shakespeare Papers.

My immediate approach was to do research on the subject, and I found that since the creation of this flyer their website had been extensively redesigned for a more modern look. Instead of copying that look (they had a newer logo design as well) I took elements (their updated information blurb as well as the longer subtitle) and put them on my own composition.

I knew there would be a lot of old wrinkled paper textures used elsewhere but I figured a simpler aesthetic would work just as well.

In class, points were made about the phone number throwing things off balance a little, the way the body text isn’t quite working either due to color. A suggestion was made to justify the paragraph both left and right, but I tried that before and it didn’t work out. Some wanted more divisions of information, others liked the drop shadow. The biggest criticism came from the lack of contrast in fonts.

Ken Feingold

This past Wednesday Sage did a presentation on the work of artist Ken Feingold, who was featured in our textbook. Feingold's If/Then piece, basically two robotic heads having a philosophical conversation about existence with each other, draws a lot of parallels with many popular science fiction tropes. Issac Asimov and Philip K. Dick explored the problems with consciousness in artificial intelligence... but really these talking heads reminded me of the video game Portal 2. Specifically with this turret. I'm not sure why, but after going through countless puzzles avoiding deadly yet loquacious automated turrets, and then encountering this "different" turret... I don't know. The idea of a truly artificial intelligence is bewildering to comprehend, right now we are still limited to faking it with prerecorded messages. What's the difference between a robot that is fully aware of itself and a robot that acts as if it's fully aware of itself, but isn't?


What's the difference between a human that is fully aware of themself and a human that acts like it is but really isn't?

  

Common Tread

Two weeks ago I went to see the Common Tread exhibition in the CSUF Begovich Gallery along with the Art History class I was in. The curators, Martha Rocha and Martin Lorigan, talked briefly about the exhibition and their road trip across America they took before starting this collection.

At the front of the gallery were walls stacked with framed photographs of what looked like vacation photographs. Pictures of people posing in front of monuments, pictures that wouldn't look out of place in a dusty old family album. There was a mockup of a billboard that served as the screen for a projection of a photo presentation of postcard designs made specifically for the event, they appear in the Common Tread title which itself is a postcard. In the middle there were a collection of artwork dealing with road trips and traveling, and at the back was a "garage", so the whole experience is like the road trip the exhibition is about. I especially liked one piece near the back of the gallery where you had to look through a thing in order to see the picture.
 

Project 0.5 Homage

Rather than talk about Paul Smith and how his work influenced this, I'll describe the technical process. I used a Nikon D80, with a mediocre lense and less than ideal environment. My original intention was to shoot a scene against the sky as a backdrop, but I could not find any angel where the sky was visible, and instead choose to do it in front of some bamboo. Due to cramped space, there was inadequate room for a good depth of field and really at the end of the day I had a collection of rather poor shots I didn't feel very good about. The two best ones were picked and composited into each other. The background was blurred, the clothes desaturated, the shadows were picked up where I thought appropriate, and a glimpse of sky behind the leaves removed. 

Daniel Canogar

Daniel Canogar ( visit his website here ) is a Spanish artist who does mostly video and installation projects. I presented three of his artworks to the class, beginning with one that we all read in our book: Horror Vacui. I found the differences between the description in the book (it's about dismemberment and the creation of an 'other') and what the artist himself had to say about it (it's about obsessive searching and viral multiplication) interesting.

Horror Vacui was made back in 1999, and Canogar's themes of technology and organism has evolved much since then. Circadian Rhythms is pulsating lights projected on to a wall of dead lightbulbs, a juxtaposition of a representation of electric impulses in the brain's nervous system and dead electronic waste. Sikka, a video installation where DVD content is projected onto the DVD from where the content comes from, is an attempt at bringing the dead back to life.

I think Canogar is working with some interesting themes, but without seeing his work in person I cannot say for certain how effective his projects are.

F.A.T. Lab

So besides what we've got on the Class Blog I've found one interesting group of "digital" artists who are really into the whole open source movement: F.A.T. Lab. I guess to describe F.A.T. Lab I'd have to talk about open source and "enriching the public domain", as they put it... but why bother trying to explain it when I can link to a description one of the biggest open source projects ever? F.A.T. Lab, which stands for Free Art & Technology, is so dedicated to the cause of "openness" that they claim no rights reserved and are "copyfree".

Art 410 - 510 / Fall 2012

From now on this will probably maybe be my class blog thing to record responses to class material. Maybe. For now, here's a video of some pictures from the last time I took Art 410 in the spring.