For my final piece of work in this elective I thought I should present something that has been influenced by the elective rather than just listing in one entry what I have been posting from the start. On a previous post I talked about a pair of robot arms positioned outside some toilets and drew people that were inside. I really liked the intrusive nature and think it relates to how many people think of the digital world, for example; seedy, erotic, intrusive etc. I created these portraits in the form of a hidden camera, almost like some strange stalker.
‘Hidden’
These images in a way represent what sticks out in my mind the most about the elective, not just the waterman but the Grey area of the internet/ digital world that as a class we spoke about and the disputes we each thought. What I best like is how much we all influence each other and how you can almost change what people think with small amounts of information or imagery that we give. I will explain; in this set I have said they remind me of spying on people like in the waterman exhibition and I called them hidden, implying that i could be stalking or taking images without consent. This is backed up with the images being B/W and of low quality, (possibly due to the lens/ camera) implied through the lens shape and flare.
Really all I am doing is giving you false information. The images are self portraits made to look like I’m doing something I’m not. What I like about this elective is that we’re all given the same information and everybody understands it differently. The constant discussions worked well for me, hearing what everyone said helped me to learn.
I think the best and most obvious point of this elective is that its different from we all usually do, or what I do anyway. This is a good idea as it breaks up the week, allowing change and if something in the lessons exciting and could be adopted in your other course than great. I think the visits and very hands on approach to the learning helped the most. For example; being given work and going into groups and feeding back for discussion.
I think the most influencing lesson I had for this elective was about creative commons. I found this very useful, I wasn’t fully aware of how it worked before the lesson and now I am trying to get involved through allowing people to use my work, however I still keep some things to myself. But i definitely agree that by allowing people to use my work or play around with it, my career in photography and in art can really be helped.
I’m definitely going to miss this elective each week. Due to the lack of time in college I did look forward to attending each week. As I have said before the elective is not what I expected, constantly challenging and often opening my mind a little. For example; Lev Manovich, which I am now looking at in relation to my own work in photography (Lev Manovich – The language of new media).
This video is the first of a few;
http://www.opensourcecinema.org/book/rip-remix-manifesto-1-meet-girl-talk
The idea of this as you will see from the video, is to watch and remix the video. You then submit the video and a 2.0 version will be put together. Unfortunately this has finished now. It talks about the creative commons.
For example; when something is say uploaded to a blog you have created you have copy right to this without putting the symbol on it, however in this day many people don’t understand this and so if you don’t put the symbol on your work it could be taken without consent. Copy right means you have exclusive rights to your work and unless people ask your permission they can’t use it. Where as creative commons means you have a different symbol (CC), allowing permission for anyone to take the work and remix it, this can prove very successful. If you look at songs in the charts for example, when a remix comes out of a song the sales of the original increases.
When looking through this I started looking at the difference between completely open source information and data, and the copyright laws (mainly within the music industry). Honestly I don’t think either work. I put would describe them as copy-capitalist (exclusive rights) and copy-communist (completely open source). A communist is an aspiring capitalist wanting to share everything someone else has and so eventually someones work will support the rest which doesn’t work. The capitalist has everything and can do what he wants however this will cause ‘mutiny’ almost and people will take if they cant have (which is just how the human race is when worse comes to worst), and so the capitalist will lose out and so this doesn’t work. We seem to be close to a middle ground with creative commons, in terms of keeping rights but allowing to be reworked with credit. Is this the way forward?
In my opinion we’re now at this golden age (specifically in the art world) where nothing is new. We’re no longer creating anything ‘completely new’ due to what surrounds us, influencing almost everything we do. What is being created is an influenced repetition. This means we should embrace this creative commons, give the permission for people to not take credit for our own work but allow for them to remix and make things better.
I reviewed some of my notes over Christmas and found a few links. One in particular stood out; ‘we feel fine’, by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar.
What made me laugh most of all was that when selecting and showing my housemates some of the emotions, the first I went to was suicidal.
Above is the pulse room. I thought this was pretty good. Someone holds on to these bars and their heart beat is recorded. Its presented in the form of light from a bulb in front of the them and then repeated to another bulb in the room. This process is repeated over and over. Its cool to see various peoples beats and how they may change in response to what they see.
Apparently their instruments were stolen so they decided to use Ipod Apps to perform on a subway train. To be honest I think its just a publicity stunt to get more followers and for Apple to help them get money. This is a cool video though and definitely shows off some great things that can be achieved from today’s technology.
This is a great video, something that appeals to me being a photographer. Also because messing with the public can be fun, in terms of my work at the moment I am looking at how people judge and make decision on what they have been told prior.
DIGITAL ART…??
People are now confused at what digital art is. This is because, if you look across the internet for example, you have to look through a lot of rubbish until you find something that you may like. However if you look at the software itself in which you use to look through the rubbish as art. I also look at the videos above and wonder whether this is that art or whether the actual doing is the art. For example; looking online at pieces of artwork is not the same as going to an exhibition to see them or producing the work yourself. YOU CANT EXPERIENCE THE 3D IN 2D.
Process – taking a picture on a camera today is produced/ stored on an SD card. Is the function of storing the data on the SD card the art or the end product/ image?
When I got home from the laser cutting I cut another, for painting. fun fun fun!
PUT IT ON MY SKATEBOARD. I’VE HAD SOME STRANGE LOOKS FROM PEOPLE; LOOKING AT ME AND THEN LOOKING AT MY BOARD, THEN AT ME AGAIN. MAKES GIGGLE. I HAVE DECIDED FROM NOW ON EACH OF MY BOARDS WILL HAVE A DIFFERENT PICTURE OF MYSELF! A BIT LIKE YOUR MUM WRITING YOUR NAME IN THE BACK OF YOUR SCHOOL TROUSERS.
Not really done this before so I thought I would jump in face first at the deep end, I find the best way to learn is just find out yourself. Found an old picture of myself and thought I would make a stencil the hard way!
I drew around the image with a HUGE marker, then played around with the lines so that when I cut them the image wouldn’t fall to pieces and make me look like a muppet. Once this was done I scanned onto the mac and dropped it into illustrator. Then objects, (top of page, after selecting the image and making it like straight and in the place I wanted on the page) live trace – make, then live paint – trace. Easy peasy!
Pretty sure this is mustard. Message if you know how this stuff works and tell me. BUT constructive advice not gash advice.
How very strange this was….
I haven’t been to an exhibition where I find myself strangely attracted to the idea that most of the items aren’t working, for example; the two robotic arms situated outside the toilets. there was a small camera inside each of the toilets that recorded an outline of people and then sent them to the arms that drew the shapes and outlines on a whiteboard for people to watch. One of the arms was broken due to people pulling at it, to draw on the board themselves whilst the other worked on its own terms focusing on a set of testicles (which made me giggle). This is a perfect example of boundary issues from people, where they see something fun and interactive and having to touch, myself included I should add.
I found the contrast between the almost ‘old’ and ‘new’ very interesting. I found myself judging one piece that was using older technology that didn’t work with pieces using newer technology as relatively bad although I think if everything was working perfectly I would rate the older things as being better simply because they can keep up with the new. Almost voting for the under dog. My favourite piece would have to be the music wood, simply due to the comedy value I had listening to people use it.
I think that the space itself downstairs in the restaurant was very confused, which then confused me. I don’t think that the space did the items justice. The best piece there or most visually exciting was the rotary animation, this is because how instant the imagery was when i was using it.
Overall I was impressed with the exhibition and glad that I went along.
I found this essay tough to understand at first and when I hit up the lecture about it blow me away. When looking through his essay Manovich mentions the words strategies and tactics a lot however not in the way people would think to use them, for example; a company make things in order to sell to the consumer like a clothes (strategy), but after a while the public/ consumer decided to change the items to what they wanted, basically edit what they had instead of buying more (tactic). He explains at first that there is a difference between the strategies and the tactics or the companies and consumer. BUT after a while the companies were looking at social groups, various different people and designing clothes to look like what they were creating themselves. So really one cant really live without the other OR are they both the same, are there in fact no such things as a strategies or tactics?
Another example of this that made my life a lot easier came from in class. Was the use of a map and GPS. The strategy is what comes from a map that has been created or from the roads. How we chose to use the streets, roads and paths is tactic. We can choose which route we would like to take. However with some new GPS devices they show you the quickest route, the most favourite chosen by the public etc.
I had this thought from watching the terminator2 the other day. The entire film is filled with new crazy technology. The terminator running on like thousands of terror bites and surrounded by technology considered obsolete, however he is even considered obsolete compared to the baddy. Just like everything day, loads of competition with races to become better than the rest.
The film is fast pace, very explosive and for the time was space age! like everything new today. but there is always a bad note, there is a scene where shaun uses a device to remove a large amount of cash from an ATM, this represents a lot of corruption and greed in todays society. Its all down the person moral compass.
An interesting first elective. quite a lot different from what I thought we would be looking at. I wasn’t sure whether I had made the right choice when I signed up; thinking I should be following something like philosophy so I could link more directly with work I am currently doing. However I try never to look back and go with what I first instinct, it seems to have paid off. I feel with looking at how digital world around is evolving and in which directions I could or should be going is very exciting. From the start I have been encouraged to not be the person to almost chill at the sidelines as I could miss important opportunities which could influence the way I work or even live my life.
Im studying photography however I believe it to be a dying art with many people are happy to do the same work a profession to a comfortable standard due to how easily accessible many tools or the trade are available. Although I think the way to keep my photography going and become known is to push my own work, is learn about the market in which I want to go. This elective could help me do that or at least give me knowledge to adapt in this fast pace digital world.
Digital Environments 