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Too $hort, who appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon a few nights back, recently had this interview. He brought up that Trinidad James stole a majority of one his songs, but goes on to say that it's all in the name of the game of hip-hop. He talks about how the origin of hip-hop came from sampling a lot of disco music. This would have been a great example in one of our quiz questions. 

Don't Wake the Snake [Video Art]

The Big Three

Klaus Obermeier 
I am still consistently astonished by the technology behind the projection mapping. Against a vertically stripped wall, one performer showed horizontal strips. In total darkness, one dancer was illuminated by alphabetical letters. It's important in these art collaborations with moving people that there is contrast to show the projector's capabilities, and in this particular performance, they did a very good job of showing it. 




Gideon Obarzaneks 
One of my favorite parts of this performance is the delayed shadow that follows the movements of the performer, acting just like a paintbrush tool on a slow running Microsoft Paint program. From inverted projected shadows (their shadows had white outlines at one point, and I have no idea how they did that) to randomly generated ovals of various sizes composing the structure of their bodies, this performance had it all. Obarzaneks had a very good explanation of what he was going for and how he wants to reveal dancers with light projections rather than just put images over them. The guy named "Frida" that worked on the technology end of this had some very impressive designs that made this performance possible. 




Kevin Warwick 
Warwick deals with the direct interaction between computers and the human nervous system. His studies in robotic and cyborg technology have lead to his Project Cyborg and various other projects. One such project he performed on himself involved planting a data chip in his skin which could control opening doors, lights, and thermostats. Warwick's goal is to create a bridge between the human mind and electronics, almost like telepathy. Warwick has worked extensively with a robotic arm that could mimic his own arm. His work in this field has been implemented in surgeries, and definitely has functionality for future endeavors. 

Latin Music

I've really enjoyed most of the music/ music videos we've seen throughout this class. This particular section on Latin style music was equally good. The music of the Latin World utilizes much different chord progressions and a different culmination of instruments (especially horns) than the US. The distinct sound and culture of Latin music is very pleasant to listen to as background music. Maybe it's because I can't understand what they are saying, or that it is just the style of music. My two favorite pieces in the bunch were Sidestepper and Soda Stereo (it was very 80s). The Latin house style and the more relaxed old school/ chant-singing style were both refreshing and yet familiar. Because I am taking World Music, I have already been exposed to a lot of Latin music, from merengue to salsa to reggaeton. 

Kinect + DSLR

After already seeing plenty of this going around, Golan Levin's abstract XBox Kinect + DSLR combo is not too interesting at this point. One thing people need to understand is that humans are easily distracted, especially when it comes to lectures and interviews. The addition of the abstract design graphics to this interview paired with the poor sound pickup make this video slightly difficult to sit through and try to take in what he is talking about. I still think it's cool how they are receiving 3D imaging, however, I haven't seen too many fluid projects (I am aware it is a new technology). I'm looking forward to what they can do with this technology. I'm glad Golan talked about school and how important it is to work with other like-minded and skilled people, which is encouraging to hear that it holds value more so in the future. The more I hear about coding and really nitty-gritty tech stuff, the more nervous I get that I am falling behind on an important skill our school is not teaching or giving me time to learn. I am eager to learn coding and I intend to teach myself a lot of it, however, I would enjoy the help of experienced professionals. Overall, this video was good to watch and listen to. Golan had a lot to say and they picked good questions for him. 

Digital Storytelling

Overall, this was a very exciting video for me to watch. A lot of the people working on these projects such as the Cosmopolitan or the Spacebrew opensource, are people I envy. Their skill and innovation to the digital environment is something to be proud of. I was continuously distracted by the awesome graphics Josh used in his presentation; they were unique and consistent, and he gave me a lot of ideas for some personal projects. At the end of his talk, he began discussing how the future of the computer is having the environment be the computer. This goes hand-in-hand with Google Glass, and having the person fully immersed in the technology. I am glad he brought up how important the physical world is to those involved in digital fields. I always want people to know that we (new media/ tech geeks, etc.) need outside just as much as everyone else, whether it be for our projects or just to get some fresh air. 

My First... Performance Art Piece

This one is for Santi.



This one is for me. I just wanted to add a little bit to the video, it was a fun project for me and I wanted to make it more appealing to people who aren't really into performance art. 

Video Arte Dot Com

Video Arte Familiar:
This video is comprised of a young girl's experience at a carnival along with mom and dad. The piece is made up of two small boxes playing simultaneously, each with different videos going on. Most of the piece is at some sort of fair/ carnival, but there are occasional shots of everyone playing at home. This is video art because it combines multiple clips (channels) at once and has additional French-speaking music in the background. 



Video Arte en Venezuela:
Caracas Morphosis utilizes a timelapse type of video/ photography. The video plays around with older black and white photos, initally zoomed in, and then moves the fram around to show the entire picture. The picture then morphs into the same angled image in the present day to show what has changed. A lot of video art goes against the conventions of televised video or movies. In this case, the lack of plot, actors, or any actual moving video set this video apart as a video art piece. 



Shift and Tilt:
Using a technique as tiltshift, the video Beached, maintains focus on select amount of the frame while blurring the rest substantially. This effect makes the objects in the frame appear to be toy-sized and thus decontextualizing the video. This video in particular is a timelapse as well, so the entire film is sped up, allowing minutes to go by in seconds. This fairly simple technique paired with good film equipment makes this a pretty easy video art piece to make.


Beached from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Durable Knowledge

Although the article says it was created in 2004, it would appear that this author died in the 1980s. At the end of each "timeline," he makes it sound like the 1980s are the present day; "In the early 1980s Sony developed the 3.5 inch floppy and with improvements this has became the floppy standard used to the present day." Well, in any case, here is my timeline of what the article discussed.

Sound
1820: Hans Oersted discovers relationship between electricity and magnets. Andre-Marie Ampere (note the name) discovers that wires exert magnetic force on each other.
1873: James Maxwell establishes theory on electromagnetism (still used). 
1878: Oberlin Smith writes about magnetic recording in Electrical World magazine. 
1894: Valdemar Poulsen discovered principles of magnetic recording.
1900: Prototype of Telegraphone built, it was first successful magnetic sound recorder. 
1905: American Telegraphone Company sells Poulsen's machines 
1927: Vacuum tubes and AC biasing improve the quality and practicality of magnetic recording. Carlson and Carpenter patent AC biasing. 
1928: Fritz Pfleumer patents tape-recording (magnetic powder on paper/ film).
1930s: AEG improves commercial development of tape recorder. Germany's Magnetophone premiered at Berlin Radio Fair, shocked audiences. 
1937: Clarence Hickman of Bell Labs found new material to lessen amount of material used in recording. 
1948: Ampex and Magnecord steal AEG model during WWII. Multi-channel and multi-track recording soon revolutionized tape-recording. 
1965: 8-track introduced.
1970: cassette deck introduced. 

Video

1950: After WWII, video signal recording was a new goal. Bing Crosby helped fund first multitrack tapes for large bandwidth. VERA by the BBC was inspired by their works. 

1956: Ampex's Quadruplex 2 Inch; tape moved at 15 in/sec, same as audio recording. Soon released VRX-1000, equivalent of $650,000 today, was first practical video tape recorder. Could only be played back 30 times. 

1958: RCA and NBC broadcast first prime-time color show from videotape. 

1960s: Sony and Philips develop VTRs.

1970: Sony releases videocassette recorder (VCR).

1980: Philips releases VHS format cassettes. 

Computes

1951: Magnetic tape for storage in UNIVAC.

1955: Magnetic hard disks in IBM 350.

1967: IBM 370 used semi-conductor.

1971: magnetic disk enclosed in envelope (floppy disk).

1980s: Sony's 3.5 inch floppy released.

Flash Gordon

This is one of my favorite websites of all time: Wimp.com. It's not much of a looker, but these guys put up 5 awesome videos that they find on the world wide web every day. I have found a bunch of sweet flash mobs through their site. Unfortunately, I can't put their videos on Blogger but I can link you to their site pretty easily.

1) http://www.wimp.com/russianmob/
2) http://www.wimp.com/onset/
3) http://www.wimp.com/symphonyflashmob/

Guerrilla Warfare

I don't know if it is that I am not sympathetic enough or just that too many people are over-sensitive, but whenever stuff like this comes up, the discussion always goes to shit. I have and always will value women's contributions to the world, including art, as equally as I do men's. I'm disappointed that the world needs to have groups like this to bring up "issues" like this. I don't believe that a bunch of girls in guerrilla masks attending art shows are going to convince women to become artists. You need to appeal to the masses, and these guerrillas are appealing to the crazy. I would love for them to be successful; all artwork is inspiring and innovative, regardless of who it came from. Unfortunately, when it comes down to it, these girls are doubtfully making an impact on people who would be willing to pursue futures in fine arts. You have to play the game. It's as simple as that. Maybe men just happened to play the game better in the past, but it sure is looking like women are catching on. My message to anyone who wants to pursue art: work hard, put in the time, and be yourself. As Neal DeGrasse Tyson said: "if everyone had the luxury of expressing the unique combination of talents in this world, our society would be transformed overnight." Be yourself, and you will succeed. I don't know your definition of success, that is up to you, but whatever that may be, I urge you to get there.

       

NY Times Does Art and Tech

Check out this NY Times Article on art and technology, it's pretty interesting stuff. 

Xerox Yourself

My inspiration behind this project was my drum. The cajon, pictured below, is my substitute drum during college because for obvious reasons, I can't have my drum set in my dorm. I used photocopies of my hands and feet where I actually use them on the drum. Because the drum has snares and a hole in the back, different areas on the drum head make various noises. The photocopied hands were supposed to exaggerate the areas I hit on the cajon. I attempted to photocopy my ass, both covered and bare, but they didn't turn out. If I were ballsy enough, I would've xeroxed my nuts, but I felt like that was a project for another time.  

Sheryl Oring

Responsible for the I Wish to Say performance, Sheryl Oring "thinks that communication is an art form." Her skit, for lack of a better term, involves typing out letters to the President on a 1950s typewriter, appropriately paired with an old 48-star American flag and 1950s suit. Sheryl's website iwishtosay.org has a pretty sweet homepage, and there is actually information on her (unlike Tom). Her old-school style is something to be admired; Sheryl enjoys taking time to write postcards and letters. The craftsmanship involved in writing your own card to someone adds a whole other meaning to what is written. Short sidetrack: I just found out that my dad used to keep up with his old roommate from college via handwritten letter. He is still in contact with his friend today (via email), however, if it wasn't for letters, there's a chance he may have lost communication. I hold onto all of my family's handwritten letters, birthday cards, and other personalized mail. I still don't know what I want to do with them, but just the nostalgia they bring is enough reason to keep them. Who knows, maybe one day I'll make an art project out of them, something they'll never forget in return. 

Tom Geoghegan

Not to be confused with labor lawyer and author, Tom Geoghegan, the real Tom Geoghegan is a live performance artists. Featured in Beware of Live Art, Tom has partaken in multiple noteworthy performances such as Rubbish and Strange Fruit. From getting kicked in the hand to peeing in his own boot, Tom puts himself through a lot for the sake of his art. The negligence of the passing audience is upsetting, however, not surprising. There have been TV shows based on how few people react to things like bike theft or robbery, nonetheless an arm in a trash bag. I'm impressed by Tom's ability to sustain stillness throughout both the performances in Beware of Live Art. Congrats man, you did what I never wanted to do, and you did it damn well. There really weren't any photos available. 

Graffiti Flipbook

64 Bit Pics

This is a cool website I showed the class earlier, 64 Yourself. It's just something fun to mess around with; makes the pictures into pointillism by decontextualizing it. Give it a shot, I uploaded an example of downtown Tampa. 

?uestlove

It's Surreal

Surrealism is a pretty self explanatory term. Here are some examples:

   

45 Million, Really?

I've seen videos similar to Her Morning Elegance, in fact, there was a recent Amazon Kindle commercial using the same technique (below).  



I do not understand how the Oren Lavie video has 45 million views. It was not any more impressive than other stop motion videos I have seen. The semi-2D aspect of this video was not a new concept either. I have never heard of this band, and after looking at their YouTube page, here, you will notice that their next "top video" has fewer than 500,000 views. The related videos were generally unpopular as well. The only popular video recommended after the viewing of this video was Sara Bareilles' Love Song. I am not saying I didn't enjoy the video, but sometimes video virility doesn't make much sense.