Video Art Piece "A.D.D. H.D."

Here is my 3 Minute Video Art Piece:



The video is called “A.D.D HD” although ironically, the images are not in HD; they are imported into a lower quality, with a mixture of high quality and low quality audio. The images are a mixture of importing with loss of quality and physically manipulation using IMovie and creating the audio in (so the image quality is supposed to suck incase your not sure).

What I had done was record a video error I found out by creating using my HDTV and my projecting cord I use to hook my mac to the TV. I then recorded 3 minutes of that and letting it go to stand by so it would record the default loading screen of the TV and also physically used my hair in front of the monitor. After that I went into IMovie and used the brightness, contrast, colors, and all of those functions to create a “visual painting”. Like many of the video art we had seen in class, I wanted to try to use the “errors” and create paintings, which in the end I ended up recreating images similar to that of Monet’s sunset images, in the dynamic use of color palette, to try to assimilate the idea I was going for. Some parts of the film were recorded off the TV while filming, then imported to the ipod, recorded from the ipod, then recorded from the television screen through the projector thing in my mac and so on.

The audio was all done by recording 4 different audio tracks and layering them on top, one was a weird gurgle noise, one vocal as a conversation of a stupid girl complaining about a boyfriend or something similar, a stereotype, another one of me making fun of myself and my speech. All three of those tracks were physically edited so they would differ in sound bytes. Then the fourth voice was just my normal voice, which if you tried to listen, was basically a “you have no idea what I'm saying because all you see is imagery and the fact my voice cant be heard” which is the whole point of the piece. It would not matter what was being said, the images would be all you see. Yes you can hear the voices and vocals, but because there all going at a mile a minute and blended together, it doesn’t matter what is being said, but what is seen.

Importantly, it’s all about the ideal that our professor was talking about we live in an ADD generation that we are obsessed with imagery.

Performance Art Piece

I apologize for not having any images, i've waited in enough time (no offence gals for not putting the pics up, it's really ok and to everyone who want's pics, but i'm sure you guys remember, i was the crazy person running through the halls with a big green record on my head) SADLY not that hard to forget.

My performace art was supposed to be a bit more complicated, but the pieces I had made so impermant a lot of it just fell off quicker than expected. Originally the idea was to make these layers, a layer of cassette tapes, cd’s and of course the big kimono of recrods. They were going to be destroyed, but as a lover of music I couldn’t bring myself to do it so I had to kinda fake it I guess (why they were velcro-ed on the kimono). Originally each layer would be removed differently, the first would be kinda slow because it was supposed to be artsy (like how people view records, it’s a taboo to ruin them, but no one wants them), then the tapes kinda rough, but a bit artsy, then the cds would be destroyed) along with the hat and stuff I was wearing so the adhesive would settle in and get used to it working, then everything really fell aprt too quick… uber uh oh, so I told myself “just go with what you’ve got, not to bulls- it , but improvise.. like shannel in Ru Paul's Drag Race go for it right?

So my whole idea was about how I am with technology I can rant about how grat it s,but lets be honest how many of us really care about reacods, sure don’t break them, but yet you won't buy them? So it's about the throw away idea of it, once its used and gone that’s it, its no longer pretty. Why at the end I picked up everything and threw it in the trash, its over its done its gone… no more use because I'm finished with it. Which is how I am sometimes with my own stuff, once I'm done its overwith. Like my headphones, cd players, I am the epitamny of the whole throw away society we life in.

Instead I went with my gut and the music and did something random, I liked how it came off.. It's this spontaneous thing about music and art… so even though it was last minute planning, it all worked out and I’m very happy some people liked it so yay for my odd ideas…

So now because of the project, I buy recrods… I mean now I have flashdance, the fixx, phill collins, even grace jones, barry manilow, the motion picture soundtrack to cabaret, and yes I have a record player at home my mom is going to fix and I'm going to take it… there is something wonderful about records, and this sensation that cd’s can’t bring y’know. So I officially am a record junkie, my father said I can have his old Beatles records, even the Jesus Christ Super Star album YAYS (he has the original broadway cast too)! And my mom said I could have her stuff too (which I have always wanted to listen to). So in the end i learned a great lesson from it myself on how i treat the things i do. Plus it inspired me to want to do several self portraits with stuff like that. So I'm going to work on that stuff soon...

Electronics Alive V: Animation Screening

So I had the chance during my digital art class one evening to go see the animations being shown in the Reeves Theater (why I love Megan Voeller, she’s really great, and Santi was there so yays) I tried to write all the animations down, one again my stupid self can’t read my own handwriting (to my father it’s still a clear-cut sign I should be a doctor or lawyer, look I love John Grisham Novels ‘n all, but no ain’t gonna happen, sorry pops). The animations we’re so amazing! I loved all but I think… 2? I can’t remember, but I remember Yankee Girl, it was so powerful in the pilots last few minutes, the music relived WWII, all of it was FANTASTIC! Even the first animation with two elderly folks in the wheel chair, that was really amazing and so funny. You felt like you were part of the moment, you felt every single bump in their imaginations, you could feel the air, and taste everything… to me animation has really reached a peak when you can feel those things in something that is not ‘real-time’. Machu-Pichu post was really good too; I loved how innocent a lot of these films were (a lot of puppets, the Marie Antoinette one was hilarious, I couldn’t help but giggle).

That French School Supinfocom, is really kicking some serious a-- in animation. I mean even the one about the giant tar-like monster I forgot that title too, but that one reminded me so much of Sphere, which is a book by Michael Crichton, but also a film that had, Samuel L. Jackson, Dustin Hoffman, and Sharon Stone. I loved that movie so much, I found a lot of animations to have a theme similar to things I had loved, it was great to see so many 3D-animation films that were intriguing for everyone.

Click Here to watch Yankee Girl

Click Here to watch Machu-Pichu Post

S.T.E.L.A.R.C

I finally got a chance to explore Stelarc's site, his work is really interesting and beyond amazing. Next to Bob Violla, I found another contemporary artist I really enjoy. The idea of making the human body a canvas is always interesting to me. I mean while the whole class was squirming over people being cut open, I find it beautiful. Truly sublime, death can be transpired into a beautiful object of beauty. Like a butterfly, I mean only 3 or so days to live, yet when they’re on the side of the road as a whole or crushed, there is this unique beauty about them that is amazing… I saw this one piece he had done called “blender”, that is incredibly similar to Orlan’s procedures, he along with Nina Sellers had a liposuction procedure and placed in this strange looking sculpture. I can figure why people do get so grossed out, I mean yes I do get easily sick, but when you pull yourself out of the materialistic senses you see this ideal in a different way. No one talks about the physical torture one must go through in order to achieve; I guess that is why to me a lot of people get sick. It’s hard to pull one’s self out of what is natural, when reality is this is what happens. His work is amazing, even the stuff about the exoskeleton… it’s, to me it’s something I expect to come a phenomenon that will be permanent in our society years from now (This is coming fro ma girl who grew up watching sci-fi movies, yes I love everything big Michael Crichton fan). His suspensions were soooo amazing. To me that was his best work, his newer stuff is more shock factor and just as amazing how he utilizes technology, to me though the piece in which he suspended himself using Rocks in Japan was really beautiful and serene. You couldn’t help but admire his physical posture and the whole imagery. To take images of him must have been really amazing, it’s just… breathtaking. I really enjoyed going through his works, and seeing some of the more shock-factor imagery, they were really great. The body transcends from this physical being to nothing more than a body base, or a manikin in which other forms attach its’ self to create a work of art. Personally, all this stuff he has done along with Orlan, I couldn’t… still it brings you to a point of amazement of how performance artists transcend the more traditional forms and surpass art and how important it was to contemporary art now. I can’t tell you how seeing all these performance artists has really influenced me as an artist and a lover of art.

Electronics Alive V: Artists Reception

I really meant to blog about the artists reception, but again my lazy self didn’t so I’m trying to catch up but I'm getting there! I’m so gonna award myself with a cookie! Just because I’m just that damn great yes?

Anyhow, I really enjoyed going to the reception there was so many great digital art pieces, Bruce Wand’s image was great…. I mean yes being exposed to it previously with the Buddha light painting was great and all that jazz, but still... seeing it in person, even as a print was just… really amazing. I brought my mother and brother to the reception and she really liked it… I liked almost all of the pieces, I think there was one that I didn’t understand very well, but that’s me sometimes I'm clueless on a lot of things, but there was a few I can’t remember well, my handwriting sucks, even though I wrote the titles, but I have the brochure still so I’m trying to recall the ones I can.

I enjoyed “crow” a lot, that was so beautifully done you could feel the texture of the bird as it morphed it was amazing. I love imagery that forms into other substances… its really amazing. “The plush life”, “the salmon dance”, “oktapodi” and “blind spot” I mean I saw those three everyday for two months, but I loved them and it’s now stuck in my head. “Witness” was really intriguing, I remember one titled “oasis” that was really neat the way the artists integrated interaction, it was so cute (yes I'm using cute), it was really spiffy and also the piece titled "Thread and Carbon, Oil and Steel" by Sally Grizzell Larson, was WOW.. a really powerful image. As a whole, the whole reception was great, there was so many morphing, interesting pieces… all of them were really great and fun. It was a great experience.

Plus the performance piece was great.. SANTI!!! ignore me I was all giggles when seeing our proff's face and Kendra's.. why not it was cool, and it was a really great piece...

Electronics Alive V: Christina Hung

Christina Hung was really fun to listen to. As an art major, hearing printmaking terms was like “I totally get that”, and it was great for her to associate the arts with biological study. Especially when she said if you contaminate the subject, it’s like in printmaking with lithography (which I have finally done in printmaking and it’s/… as task, but the results come out really lovely! I need to finish my plate and start on my big one for printmaking, which I’m soo glad I can do bigger scale work… it’s still a big scar monster, but I’m getting better with it and it’s a good feeling!). I felt that was the best thing how she integrated the uses of two mediums to create a work of art. Since most of the time, science is mostly associated with the arts in the case of photography (from what I know), s to see a woman mind you incorporate science and art, is really great. Her and Cynthia Lawson, both are just really amazing. I loved Christina Hung’s idea of making the vector maps with the germs, it was. Very ironic in a lot of ways, and using a voice with her work. The American vectors were so clean, but showed a good point about the war, no matter how clean or concise, its a dieasease, a germ, an infestant that continues to grow and contaminate. Even the aftermath of how the germs contaminate the whole dish. This is how war works, and it sure as hell ain't anything you want to be near... especially in the aftermath no matter what happens.

Even more so I enjoyed the hearing about her “flaws” and mess-ups, there’s this human ideal to when artists make mistakes. The masters you can’t help but be in awe and feel no piece has a problem, but like Chris Valle says, all pieces have a flaw and live I’ve always done with the masters I find them and still appreciate it. Her story about how the piece was infected because of the brick, and I thought it was hilarious and such a normal mistake we all make. I love hearing from intelligent women who are into the arts, I mean so far a lot of women minus a few and Cynthia I know are just so… stupid? And “omg I can paint” egh… I like a fun girl, but no… so to me again it was great seeing women who have a mind, a concept, and a like/love for what they do… If I didn’t get back into the arts I was planning on being a marine biologist I have a love for science as well… even the idea of mixing chemicals, I would love to do that. So maybe in the future I’ll explore that more in graduate school, or even here in Tampa, who knows.

Electronics Alive V: Bruce Wands/MTV3

Bruce Wands was really nifty. Although to most of my classmates it was one of those ‘boring’ lectures about digital arts, (and I must admit it was too much for me in the morning, I started yawning out of being tired, not boredom so mucho sorry to Bruce!), but I really was interested in what I learned, I’m seriously considering getting that book he had written. It looked like it was filled with all sorts of information about artists that would in the end be very beneficial for me.

His Buddha light paintings were nothing but divine, and his lecture on electronic music, wowzers. I was never a big fan of digital art, growing up in kw there is very limited or none, so I was traditionalist in the sense, but when I got into college, I grew out of that and stopped being an immature brat about art and started to be open to lots of things. He gave a lot of great info and help for those of us that want to pursue art, digital or traditional… it was really nice to have a lecture like that.

Later in the day I got to see the lecture about MTV3, honestly I had seen advertisements, but I had never watched it. After hearing the lecture and how they go through their development plans, it was rally spiffy and neat. Whenever I have nothing to watch I do I go to MTV3. It’s so much better than regular MTV, the music is great and their infomercials are just, not right but incredibly hilarious. It’s more fun than versus other channels (even though yes I do watch vh1 a lot, still). It was really good to have those two lectures on that day; It was both educational and inspirational? (god that sound kitschy), but it was information I could always keep with me, and have a better understanding of.