Take A Moment

     For this project, I intended to create a short film about taking a moment out of your busy schedule to just breathe and collect yourself because more could get done.  In the end it developed into (this!) the idea of taking a minute for yourself to relax, whether before, during, or after a busy day because it will just help.  This change happened because of editing and because it seemed to become overall stronger.  I was the subject of my film which caused some difficulties in filming.  The main drawback was no one was there for most of the shots to tell me to stop and re-shoot because I wasn't in frame or I had done something that just looked strange on camera.  Another minor drawback that I quickly worked my way around was leaving the camera while I drove off in a car.  I offered to take a friend shopping if she would let me set up the camera, hit the button, and make sure no one stole it while I drove away.  This was helpful because the camera guard was also able to follow the shot for a bit.  The only problem was they didn't know exactly what my vision was, so several re-shoots were required.  Another problem was camera placement.  I realized that a lot of different things go into shooting for a film.  You need to make sure the shot is set up properly and this is really hard if you are your own subject.  I managed most of my shots with the use of a tripod, which in one case was basically essential for getting the shot.
     Editing this video proved far better than the last (the computer cooperated for one thing).  I had all of my shots planned, so the only thing I had to do was sort through them for the part that I wanted, most of them I only had to cut out me turning on and off the camera.  The transitions in between the title and the end scene worked a lot better than normal cuts would have.  They caused it to flow much better than if they had just been cut in.  The editing of what I consider the memory sequence caused the film to have a different feel than when it was in color.  The color just made it look too busy, and although it was what I was going for, the "dreamy" effects made it more seem like a cup of tea was great after a long day.  I did wind up debating between diegetic and non-diegetic sound.  I finally decided upon non-diegetic sound  because it seemed to get the point across better and music didn't really seem to fit.
    The trickiest part of this project, was creating a film with meaning in 6 days.  It wasn't the easiest thing in the world and overall, I feel I could have done much better if I had even 12 days.  There is no easy way to film a lot of material and then have to go through it and cut it down in 6 days.  I tend to feel different every time I watch something, which caused me to change the plans I had for specific clips daily for 3 days.  I am happy with the final result because my idea really evolved from shooting to editing to finalizing.  I am looking forward to the future when I might have more time to make a video and can really have the ability to concentrate on it without the thought of finals looming overhead.

Take A Moment

A short film about taking the time to relax.

Tearing My Hair Out

  

Creating videos from existing videos, really brings to light how important paying attention to copy write law is.  It was something very interesting to explore, and caused me to watch a lot of videos and pick out specific parts before I really sat down to work.  This made the editing process a lot easier.
 One thing that confuses me about copy write law is that I'm not entirely sure why writing (about literature or science) allows so much "copying" but in commercial art it seems so taboo, I personally would be flattered if someone started copying my work.  
     When I first started on Saturday I was having problems with Final Cut Pro X, so I decided to give myself a break and come back to it on Sunday.  On Sunday, the video editing went very well and very quickly because I knew what I wanted to do.  The problems started when I tried to do anything fancy.  I couldn't add titles or effects.  Final Cut would stop responding and then it would basically crash.  The first few times I lost all my work.  Then I tried reformatting my external hard drive (I backed up the data of course)  If all had gone according to plan I would have been done at 10pm and comfortably in bed by 11, but here I am, in the lab at 2:13am trying to salvage yet another attempt at my project so I don't have to start entirely from scratch again.  You may ask, why didn't I save my project as I went along.  I did.  Several times in fact.  Turns out what I did save wasn't a good file (although when it finally would save and work, it was the same format). 
   For projects like this, technology can be incredibly useful and at other times, you just want to chuck things against a wall because they seem entirely hopeless.  It really puts a hamper on getting things done if technology decides not to cooperate.

Update: After finally convincing the computer to agree with me at about 4:30am, I produced this gem, uploaded it to Youtube, and now can finally go to bed.  The picture you see above is only one of many examples of absolute and utter frustration Final Cut Pro was providing. 

Unfortunately there are currently some errors in the gadgets available for viewing YouTube videos in your blog, but when they are working, expect to see an embedded video, otherwise for now, my video is here and on YouTube.

Mungo Thomson's [Copy Last Blog Title...Insert Here]

Photo Credit: http://mungothomson.com/project/silent-film-of-a-tree-falling-in-the-forest/

   

    I can think of no better title for this blog post and Mungo Thomson's work than The Art of Exhibition, which I've already used last time, so I thought I'd elaborate a bit on whose Art of Exhibition it was.  Thomson's artwork is very much on the art of exhibition, which when looking at his website is not very obvious from the projects he has posted.  In a lecture he gave in the HAMMER Lecture Sereis, an exhibition in his own right, he talked about how his work was exhibited.  His work, by nature, is very scarce online whereas some of the other artist's presented on, such as Ryan Trecartin, used the internet and more modern media to exhibit their works and even add meaning to them.

   Although Thomson's art is often distributed and  not available for viewing online, shows he wishes for the art of his exhibitions to remain in the exhibitions themselves.  His Coat Check Chimes 2008, installed in the Whitney Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York  really expresses that his exhibits are meant to be interacted with and it is all about the art of the exhibit.  Not only did he do this specifically for this area replacing all of the 1,200 wooden coat hangers with his own, but used it to bracket his exhibit and admitted, if you don't check a coat, you don't see it although you might hear it.

   His exhibition of Silent Film of a Tree Falling in the Forest, 2006 really had interesting contrast with our Watching exhibit.  He made the room dark while ours was white, he made it a little harder to see the main focus of the piece, while we made it accessible.  Thomson shows there is a huge art to exhibition, which people may not realize is present in the work of other artists.  Their exhibition decisions of, "Do I put it online?"  "I am putting it in a museum!"  "I want people to come and see it, I'll only put teasers online", really share something about their art and the way they want it viewed.  Thomson is really able to express this idea in his art.

The Art of Exhibition

        Today I spent a large portion of my day preparing for Watching: An Exhibition of Digital Photographs before the Opening Reception.   Before reading Margaret R. Lazzari’s The Practical Handbook for the Emerging Artist, I never realized exactly how much work goes into creating an exhibit.  Counting the time everyone put in, it took over 30 hours, which would have been exhaustingly hard for only one person to do.  I was responsible for the Facebook Event Page creation, which required a lot of collaboration with the person who wrote the Artist’s Statement, the person who created the posters, and the people who provided the photographs.  I was initially very nervous about setting up the exhibit, but working as a whole, with everyone providing his or her opinions and coming to a consensus created a much better exhibit.  This also happened with far more speed than one person could have done it with alone. I was very excited about framing the Inkjet prints we created and displaying them, however when the final touches were put on the exhibit (due to technical difficulties photos unavailable, but coming soon!), it soon was obvious that the most interesting part of the exhibit was the magazines.  By themselves the magazines would not nearly have been as interesting, but when present to complement the pictures, they stole the show.  The magazines held the attention of the visitors far longer than the pictures did.

Mary Ann Doane describes digital media as a media “of pure abstraction incarnated as a series of zeroes and ones” in her Indexicality and the Concept of Medium Specificity.  She mentions that the “finger’s preeminent status as the organ of touch” is eliminated with digital media.  In a sense she is correct, however in another sense, that is not necessarily valid.  Digital art is a media created through abstraction, but it can be incarnated through various printing processes, or possibly even film.  It can be displayed in a gallery, as can any other art.  Galleries do not often let viewers touch the art within (naturally there are exceptions), so there is no use of the finger’s status as the organ of touch in any of these galleries.  When I walk through an art gallery I often wonder what to do with my hands so as not to reach out and touch the artwork.  Art needs to be preserved, and to do that, original pieces cannot be touched, while digital pieces can, because they can be remade.  There is no fear of degradation.  Our gallery had the aspect of touch, through utilization of collections within a magazine, and really caused the audience to show interest.  They were able to interact with the art and really understand the artist’s theme by having the magazines present, but also show it to a friend who may have been across the room, without them having to move.

I believe this experience has shown that there is a wonderful place for digital media in this world.  Obviously video cannot be touched, but it can be experienced over and over again in large quantities and with large groups of people, same with digital photographs.  There is no fear of ruining the original, because any copies made and displayed are exactly that, copies.  Digital media has created the ability to share art far differently than it has been shared in the past.  There is no fear of degradation of the original if it has been copied into a physical format.  This seems to open up many doors for art exhibitions that unfortunately people aren’t quite utilizing yet.

People Watching in Photo Part II

Transforming my People Watching project into a magazine took quite a bit of work.  I had to completely reevaluate my original idea in terms of presentation.  Putting a series of three pictures into a magazine format would have proved challenging and would have left something out if they were to be grouped together.  I came to the conclusion it would have to be either a series of 4 or a pair of pictures instead of a series of 3.  Creating a series of 4 pictures did not seem best to convey the idea of a single moment captured in time because it would be split up over a series of 2 pages.  This is not what I intended, which is why I chose pairs of pictures over a series of 4 for the magazine format.  Morphing my series into pairs proved difficult when taking pictures out of existing series, but it allowed for more variation in the pictures I was able to use because I was able to pull out any one of the series and still have it work as a pair.  Often it became stronger as a pair rather than a series.  The move from threes to  pairs allowed for my set to have a little more flow, but yet still be open for interpretation.    I wanted a sequence that conveyed movement to others as I saw it, just as Robert Frank wished to "create a form that enabled him to convey his understanding of the country with such strength, conviction, and immediacy that it would engender similar experiences in others," as Sarah Greenough points out in her "Transforming Destiny into Awareness: The Americans".  Frank did this by establishing a specific order, which he didn't change through any of the editions.  I on the other hand have established a sequence, which was cut down to a pair.  I do not wish to cut my pair down to a single picture because this will disrupt the idea I am trying to convey.  The order of my pairs does not mean much, but the fact that they are paired helps me to better convey the idea of movement and where it takes us.

People Watching in Photo

       I wished to capture the idea of "People Watching" with this series of photographs. People watching is what you can learn from a single glance, but what you can learn from a moment of seeing.  One can gather an understanding of mannerisms or habits from a brief moment in time. The activity of people watching shows there is a increasing presence of awareness of the whereabouts of people as well as their activities.  As Philip E Agre mentions in "Surveillance and Capture," there are many new ways of tracking people's activities (for example through UPS's package tracking systems and camera surveillance).  This increased presence of photographic technology hasn't seemed to change everyday human behaviors much, which is what I intended to capture with series of three photographs.  Cameras and technology allow people to "gaze upon the previously unknown"as Richard B Woodward puts it in "Dare to be Famous: Self-Exploitation and the Camera" and in some sense do create a hunger for it, by the ability to share the unknown or hidden (a non-photographic technology example).  The knowledge that cameras are out there and can capture your personal moments, does stop people from having them in public.  In fact, some people choose to ignore cameras, while others might be so used to their presence they are oblivious to them.  I took a portion of my pictures in a tourist area so that the presence of the camera would not be out of the ordinary and I could easily capture some personal moments.  I also chose to create sequences of three photographs because this provides a stronger sense to the viewer of the big picture of what is happening and a person's mannerisms.  A single shot may be an accurate depiction of a single moment in time, but that picture without some context of other pictures can create a misinterpretation of what actually occurred.  A series of pictures better allows the viewer to see the context of the moment and not misinterpret two people walking together for two strangers walking side by side that happen to share a glance.

Is What You Did Last Night Hurting Your Computer's Potential?

                                                                    (an xkcd comic)
         

      Computers have come far over the past few decades and allowed humans to increase efficiency. Despite how far humans have come developing computers, reading excerpts from Theodor Nelson’s “Computer Lib/Dream Machines” and working with computers this summer have both made it clear people don’t know nearly as much as they could and even should about computers.  Most people use what is available to them as illustrated by the above web comic.  This may not necessarily be what is the most convenient.  A vast amount of unrealized potential lies within computers and technology. Most people use computers to surf the web, create word documents, and share artwork, this isn’t all computers can be used for.  Douglas Engelbart touches on the productivity of computers in his article "Augmenting the Human Intellect" by discussing his referencing system using "thought kernels" and using the way people think to create a useful program. Theoretically everyone is capable of creating software to fit his or her needs. Individualized software would be the most effective way of increasing productivity because the program would be designed to promote productivity in each particular user.    Unfortunately sharing information from an individualized program would become problematic. For example if you do not own Microsoft Word, then you would be incapable of opening a .doc document in the same format the creator intended it to be seen in. Sharing individualized programs becomes problematic because a person may not understand how to use the program that you designed for you or as Tim Berners-Lee puts it, your program may contain viruses.  Sharing information is part of the reason the Web exists according to Tim Berners-Lee. If people could not share the information there would be little point to creating it.  This is why free services such as Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc. exist in such quantity.  As Lev Manovich discusses in his article "Art after Web 2.0," these free services provide a common platform for people to share information and ideas about art and other things. This idea of sharing information is part of what has helped us advance so far with computers but because common platforms exist, people do not need to create individualized programs to suit their own needs. It is clear some productivity and efficiency potentials of computers have been sacrificed to allow the population as a whole to use computers to share work, art, and what they did last night.