Dlectricity (friday)

It’s really exciting to see an art festival can take over the main drag of downtown. It's this type of event that really elevates Detroit's "hipster" status. Detroit is more and more becoming a cultural hub of musicians, art and artists. Being an artist, who lives and works in the Detroit area, I’ve relatively recently begun to feel like is the right place to be. Events like Dlectricity reinforce this.

The installations that took over entire buildings were my favorite. In the work Visual Music by Kye Potter and Julia Dzwonkoski, video and images were being projected onto the entire face of a building. Also, the piece Work by Mark Moffett with Time Productions projected video from inside of a building onto the windows, which created a mesmerizing effect.

Aside from the art itself, what really stood out to me was MOCAD being open for a no-cover party. To see the community together, enjoying modern art, was awesome. The work that was inside called Vision in a Cornfield was very bizarre and fun to examine.

Unfortunately the rain and cold stood in the way of exploring more of the pieces (no umbrella). Overall, I think that Dlectricity would benefit greatly from being scheduled about month earlier. Exploring these pieces on a summer night would’ve been prime.

Game VS Art

I’ve never really considered a game to be an art form. Sure, the production of games and art is similar in that they are both a creative processes, but I’ve never thought that the intentions behind them were similar (art: to express, game: to win). I think that the idea of a game being art it is a relatively recent idea, which emerged out of conceptual art movements of the 20^th century.

I think that in order for games to be considered art, the act of playing or the end result of playing must fulfill some conceptual goal, in the same way that finishing an artwork cements an idea or a goal. The methods/guidelines for this goal are obviously quite ambiguous and are part of the creative process.

Another similarity between an art-game and more traditional artwork is in the variables that exist within their respective processes. The results of both are dependent on variables such as: circumstance, personality and skill.

But despite common variables, the main difference between the two is still chance. Chance is what consumes games and is what makes them what they are, while the ideal in traditional artworks is more often than not, to remove chance.

Aleatoric Music

Aleatoric music is defined as music where part/all of the composition of the music is left to chance or to the whim of the musicians.

Steps to creating such a "game" could be as follows:

1. Gather musicians/instruments into a room.
2. Select one of the musicians to be the "Composer."
3. Make a series of cards which are adorn with symbols that have pre-determined meanings. The symbols would signify general musical ideas such as: "play something fast," "play something low," "slow the tempo," etc.
4. The Composer would collect the cards and begin presenting them (at their discretion) for the other musicians to play to.

The results of this would be Aleatoric music.

Here is the link to the John Cage piece that I showed in class:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJMekwS6b9U

Here is a link to an Aleatoric water instrument video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ_KijiwQHE

New Media Game

Title: Quik Pix

Description: Spell "I LUV NEW MEDIA ART" using photos of signs outside, around campus.

Objective: To be the first to spell "I LUV NEW MEDIA ART" and return to the class room.

Rules: The letters have to be photographed in the correct order. More than one letter can be captured in the same photo as long as they are in the correct order. Each photo has to be taken of a separate sign. The photos have to be taken of signs that are physically attached to the campus (no photos of car license plates, blimps, t-shirts, etc.)

Show and Tell

Title: “Window Over the Kitchen Sink (Complete History of the Earth – Article: 2.9144617 × 10^26)”

Artist Statement: Windows always frame a space that is separated from our immediate space. By doing this “framing,” our view out of (or into) a window elicits a perceptual distortion of what the other side is actually like (i.e. doesn’t it look warmer out there than it actually is?)… Windows crop the view, obscure with glare, muffle the sound, block the smell, and in general, insulate from that environment.

     With “Window Over the Kitchen Sink (Complete History of the Earth – Article: 2.9144617 × 10^26)” I created a “window” that exaggerates the perceptual distortions that are inherited from a window-view.

Date: 2012

Medium: Digital Photography, Installation

Dimensions: 21in X 17in X 6in

Description: It is a Photoshop composite image (of both appropriated and original photos) that is printed on translucent paper and is mounted between acrylic glass over a “light-box.”

In Progress Critique

I’m never really comfortable showing unfinished work. I realize that it’s an important aspect of art education but I think that it disrupts the completion of and final impact (on anyone who’s seen the in-progress work) of the completed work in a lot of ways.

I really enjoy being surprised by art; I always avoid “behind-the-scenes” type material until I’ve already experienced the work. Having knowledge about the process of how the art was created allows my mind to wonder onto other things besides the work itself. I find myself thinking, “…Oh, that’s how that was done” or I might seek out the artist’s intentions in the work (the one’s that I already know to be there), etc.

Also, I think that any critique or suggestions in the middle of the process of making work can be either: helpful (in the best of cases) or confusing (in most of my cases). I often initially have really strong ideas about how I want the final work to look, feel, sound, etc.  I like to try to see those ideas through to the end and stumble across other ideas along the way. The issue that I have with other opinions before the work is complete is that they can possibly throw me off of my initial ideas. Anything that increases the chance of me second-guessing myself is something that I like to avoid. With all of that said, I don’t think that our class in progress critique had any negative impact on the completion of my project.

Without completed work, we have to sell their ideas alone. This seems like a very important skill to develop for use in more real-world art situations. The in-progress critique as well as the project proposal forced me to think about how to express my intentions with the project through words, which can be difficult to do.

Ann Arbor Film Fest (friday)

I'm a huge fan of animation, so when I saw that there would be an animation competition at the festival it became my priority to see it. 

I arrived in Ann Arbor Friday, around noon. I had expected a downtown festival more akin to "Arts, Eats and Beats," where a few city blocks are closed off for the event; this wasn’t the case. Nevertheless, Ann Arbor is a hip enough city to where hanging out for 9 hours before the “Animated Films Competition” turned into a good time.

I thought that the animations in the competition were pretty diverse but some were definitely more interesting than others. The only artist that I was familiar with prior to the show was The Brothers Quay. I saw their film "Street of Crocodiles" a few years ago after hearing many other artists cite it as an influence. I've also seen their work in a short animated sequence in the movie “Frida.” The “Quay” film shown was called “Maska.” It was animated in their signature stop-motion puppet style but unfortunately for me, it was subtitled. I found myself forced to choose between reading the dialogue and focusing on the visuals. After a few moments into the film, I decided to generally focus on the visuals. So although I did enjoy the feel of “Maska”, when it was finished the entire narrative wasn’t completely clear to me. It was definitely a film that I would have to view more than once in order to fully take it.

One of my favorite films was called, “Bird Boy” which was done by Pedro Rivero. Although this film was also subtitled, I didn’t have the same problems with it as I did with “Maska.” This is probably because both the dialogue and the visuals were much simpler. “Bird Boy” had these really cute/cartoony characters and visuals on the surface, but the narrative and subject matter were quite heavy and sad.

My favorite film in the competition was called,  “In Between Shadows” by Tianran Duan. Essentially, the film consisted of nothing but a mysterious light moving through a dark vacant house but I thought that it created a really powerful atmosphere.

The “Taxi Driver” parody called, “Walt’s Disney’s ‘Taxi Driver’” by Bryan Boyce was hilarious.

I had a great time hanging out in Ann Arbor and going to the festival. I’ll be back for the 51^st Anniversary, for sure.