VIDEO ART

When i started thinking about the piece i knew i wanted to do something with the defects of video. I knew i wanted to rerecord the video to see how the image would become distorted. Then i decided i wanted my video to be just colors instead of actual images. I hope you guys enjoy my video art piece. I have no video editing skills other then what i can play with in iMovie so i tried my best to make it work!!

Jim Campbell

Jim Campbell is an outstanding interactive artist. When we explored his pieces in class i was amazed at how they were able to interact with the viewer. Many of his pieces used LCD lights which immediately catches your eye due to the brightness. I would love to experience his pieces in person.  I like his Reconstruction series, which was composed of a large grid of LCD lights.The video below is an example of one of the pieces from the series.

Pipilotti Rist

                 
Pipilotti Rist is a very bizarre video artist. But i really enjoyed this video. It's as if she was trapped in the video screen and was trying to get out. I liked that the video re winded back to the beginning before she smudge her face in the screen, it done seamlessly and i was very surprised when i realized her makeup was reverting to its original form. 

Musique concrète

Concrete Music was developed by Pierre Schaeffer in 1940. The photo to the left shows Schaeffer and the Moog synthesizer he used to create music. This music is very similar to the music we listen to today. The art form of making music on synthesizers instead of using traditional instruments. Earlier forms of concrete music had basic sound recorded on a tape. The tape was then cut into fragments, rearranged and pasted back together. They would then replay the edited tape in various speeds.

Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys was born in Germany in 1921. In 1940 Beuys joined the army during World War II. Once he experienced the horror of war he decided to dedicate his life to his love of art. He is most famous for his performance art but also took part in sculptures, and installations as well as "contributions to the theory of art and academic teaching, and social- and political activities."

The piece to the right was the first piece of Beuys that i was introduced to during our class. I first looked at the piece with confusion, thinking "wow this is just a piano covered in felt" but once learning the story behind it and what Beuys had to go through growing up i began to see the art in a new light. And started to enjoy his pieces that dealt with war and this basic material most take for granted but many in war would cherish in order to keep war.

My Performance Art Piece

I had many ideas for this project that i thought would work out wonderfully. Once i tried to execute them they were all epic failures, which made me quickly realize i am NOT cut out to be a performance artist. I get really shy and embarrassed in front of people which is not a good characteristic to have while performing.

My final idea was filmed in the Walmart supermarket, i decided to dance through the aisle while blasting music on my iPhone. Many people now a days wont go anywhere without there iPods or some form of music which is starting to hinder some peoples communication skills and social skills. Instead of making small talk with strangers or saying a simple hello, people are stuck in their own little music world. It is taboo to listen to your music out loud instead of using your ear bubs in public. So i decided to do just that and break the norm, not only was i gonna blast my music but i was gonna dance up and down the aisles. Many people didn't respond like i thought they would. Most of them heard the music before i even approached them, looked back to see where the noise was coming from, saw me and moved out of my way. Others would see me coming and stay in there aisles and stare at me as i passed. I hope you enjoy the video and sorry in advanced for my poor editing skills.   :/

Leigh Bowery

I LOVE LEIGH BOWERY! when we first saw his work in class the first word that came to mind was FIERCE! i was kind of surprised i didn't hear of him before this class. He is truly his own work of art. His sense of style and costumes are out of this world. I can see why Lady Gaga is inspired by him and definitely see a connection between them.

Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson is a performance artist, who used synthesizing to manitpulate her voice to create a music video.   In the video above "O Superman", she plays with video effects and lighting to create a video which was probably considered ahead of its time in the 80's. I enjoyed how the synthesized voice had an echo when telling the story.

Klaus Nomi

Klaus Nomi was born in Germany and migrated to New York City in 1972. While in New York Nomi began a career as a pastry chef. He first enter the art scene in 1978 when he performed in the "New Wave Vaudeville" dressed is a bizarre space costume and singing an aria that gave the audience goosebumps. Nomi unfortunately died in 1983 due to AIDS, an epidemic which had taken many lives during this time period.

I found Klaus Nomi to be very interesting when first introduced to us in class. Not only did he preform very well but his sense of style and costume was a piece of work in itself. In the video he seemed very soft spoken but his makeup and clothing were the exact opposite.

Xerox Project

Performance Art

Vienna Aktionists
I found these type of art quite disturbing. It was very different then anything i have seen before. The people involved were definitely trying to make a statement, they are very extreme and like to push boundaries.

Sankai Juku
My favorite out of all the performances we viewed during class. I really enjoyed that the performance dealt with emotion and body movements instead of costume and action. The men involved were very simplistic with their shaved heads, limited wardrobe and white painted bodies.

Orlan
i found it interesting that Orlan was able to make plastic surgery into an art form. This act is usually something that people who receive it like to keep secretive, but Orlan wanted to broadcast ever surgery she had. I enjoyed her photography and her self-hybridations  more then her plastic surgery broadcasting.

Bauhaus & Fluxus

Bauhaus is a design school located in Germany in 1919. The school was very modern for its time and didn't follow traditional standards. It is most famous for its school of architecture. It was later shutdown in 1933 by the Nazi regime.

Fluxus was started in New York in 1960. The movement was influenced by Bauhaus, Dada and Zen movements. Like Bauhuas this movement was considered advanced for its time and broke away from tradition. They believed that any medium could be used to create art.

Un Chien Andalou

Luis Buñuel is a Spanish surrealist director who collaborated with Salvador Dalí to create the sixteen minute silent film. After viewing the movie i was very confused to what i had just saw since the movie had no plot, or if it did i did not comprehend it. It was definitely a movie filled with surrealism. Some of the imagery was very bizarre, especially the scene where the woman gets her eye cut open. besides all the weird scenes the special effects were very cool and i was surprised to see what they were able to create with such limited resources. I loved how the images would  layer and filter over each other when the scenes were changing.

GRID PROJECT

When i was thinking about which pre-existing grid i could use for this assignment my room mate shared a story of how this summer when she worked at camp where her campers LOVED to make patterns with the Perler Beads. She hated it because she always had to help pick the individual colors for the campers. So i decided this would a be a great way to execute the assignment because when i was a kid i also loved to make things out of these beads. I decided to recreate  a piece from one of my favorite artist Keith Haring. So with 6+ hrs gone and 6,728 beads later i was able to create this master piece.

This is the original Image

Unfortunately i didn't have the funds to recreate the exact colors so i chose to only use 4 colors

 

 

Video Games + Movies

When a movie or television show is really successful they will usually make some sort of game for the product. This is a great way to for the movie or television show to make more money and/or get more viewers. For example Spongebob is a very popular cartoon for children. If a child who enjoys Spongeboeb see's anything in a store with Spongebob on it, the child is immediately going to ask their parent to buy that product for them.

As well as if someone enjoys a movie, they will buy a video game because they liked the story line and would like to play a game and act as if they were in the movie's story line.

TETRIS

I was interested in learning more about the game of Tetris because it is a game that has survived many years. It is a very simple game that quickly becomes very challenging. I still enjoy playing it today especially when I'm able to play against a friend. This is a great website which tells you the complete history and some fun facts about the game, TETRIS HISTORY.

it was developed in 1984 by Alexey Pakitnov, a Russian scientist. Within a year is was used in the IBM PC and spread throughout the Soviet Union. However it took 4yrs for the game to be brought to the US. in 1988 Henk Rogers discovered the game and released the game for PCs. The game became a hit. In 1989 the Nintendo Gameboy was created with the Tetris game cartridge. This past year tetris just spent ther 25th anniversary and they are still hold out strong!

Fun Fact: "Tetris is ranked as one of the All-Time Top 10 Paid Applications on the Apple iTunes App Store."

MZTV.COM

MZTV is a very interesting and well put together website on the history of the television. After browsing through the site, i was able to see many things we mentioned in our class discussions. The thing i found most interesting was the pages dedicated to Marilyn Monroe. There i was able to see the many Marilyn Monroe appearances in both commercials and television shows. This museum seems like it would be a very interesting one to visit. now that i have learned so much about the history of TV.

Wired.com

After reading the article, it is amazing how film has progressed over the years.

I'm amazed that in 1937 such a master piece as "Snow White" was able to be created when just 10 yrs earlier "The Jazz Singer" was the talk of the town.

I would've loved to experience Circle-Vision 360°, i imagine it was the effect Abel Gance was trying to create when he filmed "Napoleon" while using 3 simultaneous camera.

The idea of Smell-O-Vision is very clever. I'm kind of surprised they haven't tried to bring this idea back. When and if they do i would definitely try it.

IMAX is a great way to view a film but, the last imax movie i saw was a bit overwhelming. the screen was huge and felt like i couldn't see the whole scene at once. I'm probably the only person who felt this way but it wont stop me from viewing another movie in Imax.

Toy Story = AMAZING. I remember when the movie came out the animation was terrific! It really changed the standards for childrens movies. Thank you Pixar!

Bit Torrent- a great illegal way to see movies, to bad i dont know how to do it.

Avatar- i'm pretty sure the early film makers would have never imagined film would have made it this far and become this advanced. i'm glad i was able to experience such great films and i'm excited to see what other advances film will make in the next few years!

Old Time Radio

The concept of having live performance without visuals is a bit mind boggling. At the same time it makes you pay closer attention to whats going on. If i were watching a tv show but wasn't really paying attention i could still get the idea of what is going on because of the visuals. With the radio, if you werent paying close attention you missed some information. I really wanted to listen to one of the comedy shows because i love the work of Abbott and Costello. Unfortunately they didn't have any audio from there performance. I was able to listen to Weber and Fields routine, what did remind me of Abbott and Costello. It is simplistic humor which any age could enjoy. It was quite funny and could see myself enjoying it if our only form of entertainment was radio.

Flip Book

Singing In The Rain

Singin' in the Rain (1952) Original

Original Video

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

A Clockwork Orange Video

 After viewing the two versions, it's amazing what a difference 19yrs can make. In the original "Singin' in the Rain" the song was sung full of joy and innocence. Unlike "A Clockwork Orange" version where the character Alex is beating people. The 1970's brought very radical movements including the exploration and using of drugs. The 1971s "A Clockwork Orange" was a very explicit movie that included a lot of violence, sex, and drugs which were common themes of the time period. The 1950s "Singin' in the Rain" didn't push any boundaries and was more of a film you could enjoy with your family.

EARTHQUAKE!

The movie "Earthquake" was released in 1974. At this time this movie was at the peek of film technology and special effects. They were finally able to create movies that had a realistic feel. The assignment was to ask our grandparents or parents what there reactions were to the movie. I already knew i had a disadvantaged to this assignment being that my Grandparents don't speak English. I had little hope in my asking my parents as well because my father barely speaks English and my mother has the memory of a goldfish. I thought to give it a try anyway. As i assumed my mother could not remember if she saw the movie. i read her the synopsis and she still couldn't recall. But i could only imagine that this movie would have made viewers afraid of what disasters could happen since they had never been portrayed before on film. 

George Méliès & Abel Gance

George Méliès was born in Paris, France in 1861. He was a successful magician who joined the film industry after viewing one of the Lumiere Brothers films.  Méliès was a pioneer to the film industry because before his works most films were silent with the exception to music that would have been added afterward. His most famous film "A Trip to the Moon" was a narrative story and was also considered one of first science fictions films produced. Méliès was able to created interesting films due to his great sense of special effects but soon go became outdated and never advanced with the film industry.

Abel Gance was born in Paris, France in 1889. By the age of 19 Gance had already acted in a stage production. By the age of  20 he had become a film star and scriptwriter. He enjoyed that so much that by age 21 he created his own production company and directed his first film.  His most famous creation was a silent film entitled "Napoleon". This film had outdone any film of this decade with its cinematic advances used to create the battle scenes. These scenes were shot with 3 cameras whose images were later projected on three side by side screens to create an effect that engulfed the viewer.  which created a 3D effect. Which has become a very popular form of film in the past year or two.

History of Jazz, BlackFace Perfomers, and The Stock Market Crash

The origins of Jazz:

When i think of the word Jazz, the first thing that comes to mind is Saxophones and then New Orleans. so when doing research i was not surprised to find that it originated there in the early 1900's. Jazz music is a beautiful blend of Western European music of the time mixed with African American music and culture, including slavery songs and church hymns.

Blackface Performers:

With just hearing the words black face performers you can already assume that it is a racist act. Blackface performances became very popular during the 19th century. Since segregation was still a very large part of this era, white performers would modify their appearance to resemble African American. They would do so by applying dark makeup and exaggerate stereotypical feature, such as creating large lips (shown in the picture above). The performers would also try to portray African Americans with southern accents and 

Stock Market Crash:

Thinking about the stock market gives me a headache and makes me feel like that man in the image above. Its a foreign world to me that i will probably never understand. All i know about the crash of the stock market  weakened the economy and caused unemployment to go through the roof causing the beginning of the Great Depression of 1929. After research many different sites i still don't fully understand what caused the crash. What i do understand is that the 1920's was a time of excess and wealth. No one could have ever guessed that such an economic tragedy could have occurred during a time with such great prosperity. Many people had invested their life savings into stocks. Once the prices began to fall people panicked and began to sell their shares. Millions of shares where sold which made the market drop even lower. This began a downward spiral of losses which finally caused the market to crash on October 29, 1929.

First Timer

Hi, My name is Jessica and im new to this blogging world so please bare with me. I'm a senior at the University of Tampa, majoring in Graphic Design and minoring in Advertising. Im looking foward to what Art & Technology has to offer and hope to learn some interesting things. :D