Comments!

These are some of the comments that I couldn't leave on people's sites since their posts weren't up yet...


Flip book

• Sean: I really liked your idea, but I feel like you repeated a bit. I want more! I did like the ending how "The end" just disappears. 
• Matt: Very different! Taking all those pictures must have taken you forever. I wish there was more happening in the pictures... something that you'd never see. 

Grid Art

• Sean: Loved the animation! It was very cool and cute that you used candy. I wish it was longer though. Instead of just spelling out the ART, I wished you did something else... like a picture or dancing. Love the music!
• Nate: Great choice of grid. I never would have thought to use a map. I loved that you cute up the states and moved them around to different spots.
• Matt: Nice color use. Great choice of using ribbons. RGB =)
• Natasha: I never thought to use candle wax as a substitute for glue. It worked really nicely with everything. The color of the wax on the little screens were awesome. 

Xerox

• Matiya: I liked that you use highlighters for color instead of markers. It really gave the xerox a certain effect.
• Nate: Nice repetition of your face. It worked really nicely. You should definitely cut some of the white borders off the pictures for a better effect.
• Sean: The soccer ball mobile was a great idea. You should definitely try to turn it upside down and maybe add more xerox body parts. I felt like it missing something.
• Matt: Too small, but cool idea.
• Natasha: The tree lamp was a really cool idea. 

Performance Art 

• Matiya: The nail art was a really cute idea. It would have been more interesting if you did your feet, as well. You would have gotten more looks for sure! 
• Alaina: I love the dragging keyboard. I like that you sew the cords into your shirt. You should try this with more keyboards attached to you. 
• Nate: Wow. I really liked the meaning of this performance. I never would have expected such an outcome. You definitely learned a valuable lesson from this. 
• Sean: Time Standing Still... what a wonderful idea! I don't think I would have been able to stand there for an hour. You have some stamina! It was great to see how people reacted to you standing there. 
• Alexandria: This was hilarious. It was just crazy to see that only one person offered you help. Our society isn't even effected by something like this anymore. 
• Natasha: I really like the transition in the beginning of your piece. It would have been really cool if you made some antennas and wore it on your head. Great job! 
• Matt: ?

Video Art

• Bianca: I did not know where the video was going in the beginning... it totally not expected. It was really funny and cool. Good job!
• Alaina: I really liked the natural sounds you used. The silent footsteps were my favorite. The change of colors at the end were not expected. I like that the last scene of your silent footsteps were in white. It was like you were walking on nothing. pretty cool!
• Nate: Looooved it! it was so adorable. I did not expect you to do this type of video. The videos and audios you chose were wonderful and it really worked with each other!
• Natasha: Really creative and hilarious! I wish there was some music! Definitely use the mario music and add some mix into it so then it gives a different take on the video.
• Matiya: Really cool use of filters. The black and white one in the beginning reminded me of the classic Godzilla/King Kong movies... especially with the music you used! 
• Sean: Really cool! The end with you walking across the screen was amazing. It would be crazy if you moved the screen when you were trapped in the beginning... if you get more help and decide to re-do it... definitely experiment more! Great job!
• Matt: Interesting! I wish there was audio to the video... It felt like the video ended too short. I wanted more!
• Rob: Newism! what a fantastic idea! I loved that you had separate eyes, nose, and mouth... it was very similar to mine, but complete different intake on mine. Great job manipulating the voices!
• Cayla: I loved the reverse idea! Completely different. You should try reversing the song, as well!
• Alexandria: The audio worked really well with the video. Great choice of video clips that you used. I liked that you went a bit crazy... completely different from I expected from you. 
• Julia: Wow. Your video was so meaningful. I definitely teared up. It made me think of my dad and how I never really got to know him because he left my family when I was really young. You are just amazing Julia! 

Video Art

Originally I recorded each of my eyes, my nose, my mouth, and my whole face. I layered and resized my whole face into my each of my eyes. From there, I just started layering my mouth, nose, eyes on top of my face. After I did that, I exported the video then imported it back in, in certain areas. Then I imported the video again and flipped it upside down and layered it on top of the whole video. Viola. 

I never expected to have something so weird come out, but I like it. The audio that I added just made the video art complete. Love.

Jim Campbell

Jim Campbell's degree in electrical engineering definitely came in handy. His installations are just amazing and beyond my thoughts. "Interactive Hallucination"... woah. Seeing yourself on fire is just crazy. The thoughts and emotions running through the viewers! That must've been something, watching the viewers' faces... the emotions running across their faces when they see themselves on fire. 


My favorite has to be his low resolution works... "The Library" especially. It really does look like there are ghosts walking around in front of the New York Public Library. The process that he went through to produce this piece is crazy. This piece just amazes me. 

Performance Art Video

Originally I was going to do something completely different, but then this idea of walking a TV popped into my head. Perfect! I was just going to walk around, dragging a TV but I had to wear a costume... it just made perfect sense =) 

It was really crazy walking around Ybor dressed like that. Surprisingly, there were a lot of people that did not react to me at all. They just thought it was the norm of Ybor or just didn't want to get involved. 


My favorite part was walking by and some random stranger yelled that he wanted a picture with me. Amazing. I'm a super star! 

Pipilotti Rist

Pipilotti Rist is a video-artist. She actually started out a member of a band and performance group named Les Reines Prochaines. She started out doing super 8 films which are films that are 8 mm wide and only lasted for a few minutes. 


Pipilotti's videos usually have a theme. She likes to make her videos based on sexuality, the body, and gender. Most of her works are considered to be feminist. 


She uses a lot of colors, especially vibrant ones. It really makes everything pop in her videos. 


"I'm Not the Girl Who Misses Much" was hilarious. She messed with the filter, audio, and the speed of it. The audio made the video. 

Musique concrete

Musique concrete is a French term for concrete music or real music. Concrete music is a type of electronic music that uses acoustic sounds. 


It all first started with Pierre Schaeffer around the late 1940s. Pierre Schaeffer was a French composer who's five works for phonograph (Cinq etudes de bruits)were the first works to showcase musique concrete. 


More music technology were being developed after the war in Europe so  there were microphones, phonographs, and magnetic tape recorders. Musique concrete was becoming more developed. 


Music was really starting to become different and well... music.

Joseph Beuys/Laurie Anderson/Klaus Nomi /Leigh Bowery

Laurie Anderson's performance art pieces are quite something. She was such a talented musician, too! Meshing her music skills with her artistic skills was an awesome idea because what came out of it was something different and definitely fantastic. She experimented with a variety of different music and styles with the way she performed live.  

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Joseph Beuys. He was everything. He was a sculptor, pedagogue of art, performance artist, installation artist, graphic artist, and an art theorist. Besides being an artist, he was also a humanitarian. In the 20th century, Beuys was the most influential artist. 


Homogeneous Infiltration for Piano
What a simple work. It was a cover for a piano, but you didn't know if there was a piano under that cover. This piece actually reflected some of his experience in the military with the cross. 


His performance art pieces were well known for the time (he's very patient), sound, and some of the objects he used in the piece like the "How to explain pictures to a dead hare." Um that's a completely crazy but brilliant performance!

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Klaus Nomi. Wow. His voice was AMAZING. Fabulous. It is so fascinating that he sang classical opera and interpreted into his own style. His live performances must have been something to watch. There he was. Klaus Nomi, wearing lots of make-up with unusual, but definitely amazing costumes. I must say, when I first saw his videos I thought "what a strange man" but I get it. He's connecting past with future. Connecting old with new. It's something different and I like it. Really like it. 

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I would like to be in Leigh Bowery's mind, even if it's for 5 minutes. I'd to experience what went through his mind when he came up with all these crazy ideas! It's so different. You can't help, but be drawn to him like a moth to a flame.

Leigh Bowery was influential and still is. You can see his influences especially through Lady GaGa. 

Besides being a fashinista, he was a club promoter (how could you not go to the club when you see someone like him), a model (boy can he model those outfits), a fashion designer (I would love to make an outfit like his) and a pop star (what a diva!).

Xerox Project

Well this project was really weird haha. I had to have my friend hold my leg while I xeroxed myself standing on a high chair so I could reach the copy machine. It was a little scary when I had to do my feet because I had to stand on the xerox machine... I did not want to buy the school a new copy machine... not good haha. It was interesting to see what I was going to do with my xerox'd self. It's a little creepy to see myself staring at me whenever I look at the pillow on my couch. With this project, I wanted to let people know how I felt when someone tries to quiet me.... F-U... that's why I had cut off the fingers except the bird to express exactly what was going through my head. 

Pryings - Acconci / Orlan

Wow. This is such a crazy video. I would never be able to sit there and let that man try to pry my eyes open... a punch probably would been thrown in his face! 


The message was that we need to open up our eyes and see what's happening around us... especially since feminism was occurring around that time. Women needed to open up their eyes and do something about their rights. 

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Mireille Porte... also better known as ORLAN. She's a French artist that is really well-known for her performance art of her plastic surgery. Oh my was her plastic surgery graphic... "The Reincarnation of Saint-Orlan." 

Her body was her canvas. She's so out there, but it totally works for her. Her work wouldn't be what it is if she stuck to a guideline. 

Fluxus

Fluxus means "to flow" in Latin. In the 1960s, artists, designers, composers networked with each other. They were able to blend their different artistic skills together. 


It is said that John Cage's music, like 4'33", was where fluxus first appeared. George Maciunas recognized and was influenced by this piece and so he organized Fluxus... there first even took place in 1961 in NYC. A year later, they had their first in Europe. 


There was a do it yourself air to Fluxus and they definitely encouraged that. Simplicity was their theme and was really influenced by Dada's values. 


Some well-known Fluxus artists are Yoko Ono, John Cage, Joseph Beuys, and Nam June Paik.

Bauhaus

Bauhaus is "House of Building" or "Building School" in German. 

Bauhaus was an architecture and design school in Germany from 1919 - 1933. Walter Gropius founded the school based on all the arts working together. In the beginning of Bauhaus, an architecture department did not exist. 

Bauhaus was actually a merge of two schools, Grand Ducal School of Arts and Crafts and the Weimar Academy of Fine Art. 

Un Chien Andalou

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This is the second time I've seen this movie. My first time watching, I was so confused by what was happening in the film. I don't think the film is really about anything. It's surrealism, so it doesn't have to make sense. Surrealism is all about abstraction of reality. Surrealism art can make sense, but at the same time not make sense. Make sense? 

This film reminds me of dreams. In dreams, nothing makes sense. You jump from one thing to another in dreams, that is how this film rolls. Something would happen and the next thing you know, you're on a beach, but you were just in an apartment. It makes sense, but it doesn't. Love it. 

The interpretation is up to you

Grid Art

 This has to be one of my favorite projects. I never expected to work with an air filter and tissue paper! It took hours upon hours, but the end result looks fantastic. This was really something... 

Dada

Dada is crazy.I don't even know what to say about the Dada collages. They are amazing, interesting, and crazy all at the same time. 

I feel like everything in the collage describes the artist... it is a part of him. It could be a dream, something that happened to him, or an event that occurred. 

Video Games

Why are studios creating/releasing video games alongside a movie?


Well I think that's an obvious answer. Money! Money is the root of all evil... I mean answer. When a movie is released, it will probably make millions or even billions in profit. Why not double that profit with a video game? Video games are very popular. With a game attached to a movie, the movie will increase its popularity.


Movie watchers will be enthralled by the movie and would want more... Video game is the answer. It is perfecto. These people want to a part of the story line and now they can do that with a movie. An example is AVATAR. How many people were fascinated by this movie? Um everyone! How much did the movie make? More than $2 billion! The video game grossed almost $1 billion! Wow. That's a lot of money.


When studios produce their own games, they don't have to share the profit or pay a fee to the other company. Cha-ching.. more mula for the studios!


If you want to gross a big profit, produce a movie and release a video game alongside it. You will be set.

Tetris

I never thought about where Tetris came from or who the genius that created this awesome game. The name of this genius is Alexey Pajitnov. He designed Tetris, programmed it, and release it June 6, 1984. Wow. Tetris has only been around for 26 years. The term Tetris actually came from tetra and tennis. Tetris was released on home computers, game consoles, cell phones, calculators, etc. This game was everywhere! Later, different versions of Tetris was released like Tetris DX, the New Tetris.


When was the first time you played Tetris? I think I was about ten years old. I remember the game was on my family's PC. I used to challenge my sister at it and we'd go at it for hours. I was the winner of course.

MZTV

Wow.


So much information on this site! I would like to visit this museum for sure. So interesting to be able to learn everything about television. That's a lot of history.


I used to watch Felix the Cat all the time, but I did not know that Felix the Cat was television's first star, a cartoon cat! That's just interesting that W2XBS made a cartoon and not an actual person TV's first star.


As years pass, the hours of television watched have increased. This is mostly true for children


For some reason, I did not know that Marilyn Monroe tried acting first! I sure feel uneducated =) but thanks to MZTV, I now know. Television really helped Marilyn Monroe become the famous icon that she is now.


This museum has so much information to share!




http://www.felixthecat.com/history.htm

Wired!

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/10/cinema-breakthroughs-busts/?pid=1205&viewall=true

This article was very interesting. There were a few movies listed that I haven't heard of, but the majority of them we actually talked about in class.

One movie that really jumped out at me was Jayne's Mansfield The Girl Can't Help It. The movie switching from black and white to color when the actor snapped his finger and the picture turning to widescreen with the help of the actor pushing the picture. That's really amazing especially during the 1950's. What creativity and unique techniques to make the film really stick with the audiences.

Flip Book

This was fun! The coloring took me FOREVER to do. My markers started dying so I had to run around asking people to borrow their markers! I wish I had gotten a bigger book so my tree could be bigger!

Quiet Please

It's very different not watching anything. I feel like I have to listen more closely to the program. I can't go to the bathroom or do anything else or I'd miss something really important! It is much better to close my eyes and listen to such a program because it lets my imagination runs. I'm able to interpret this program in my own way because there is no picture to go along with the story being told. This is very different...

http://www.otr.com/ra/Quiet%20Please%2047-06-08%20(001)%20Nothing%20Behind%20the%20Door.mp3

I'm singin' in the rain...

The musical film, Singin' in the Rain, came out in 1952. The most prominent song of this musical was "Singin' in the Rain" by Don (Gene Kelly).  The song was sang because Don was in love with Kathy. He was bursting with happiness and love that he was singing and dancing in the rain!


Clockwork Orange was a film produced from a novel in 1971. In this film, Alex was singing "Singin in the Rain" while beating up a man and ripping off the clothes off the woman he was about to rape. In this situation, Alex was singing this specific song due to him taking pleasure in violence.


There was such a big difference in just 19 years. Where did all this violence come from?


In the 1950's, Rosa Parks and the Civil Right's Movement were occurring.


The 1960's was probably when violence escalated. Change was starting to happen. John F. Kennedy was president, Martin Luther King's protest, opposition against the Vietnam war, Apollo 8, the man on the moon, and the death of JFK and MLK. There was so much violence in this decade and racism was so prominent in society. Everything was changing because people wanted America to be a better place, but instead America turned out to be just a dream.

Earthquake!

I couldn't ask anyone in my family about this because they knew nothing about it.

This major earthquake happened in 1971 around the San Fernando area in California. It took only 60 seconds to take the lives of 65 men, women, children, and injure more than 2000 people. Another 49 died where the hospitals collapsed. It is so crazy that in less than a minute, so much damage can happen. What if the earthquake lasted 30 minutes? Can you imagine the major damage that can arise? 

Three years later, Earthquake was produced using the actual events that happened in 1971 as part of it's plot. 

Earthquake used Sensurround in the movie theatre to give the audiences the sensation that the earthquake is really happening right then and there. That would scare the bejeezus out of me. And of course from this movie, a park attraction was created at Universal Studios. What a ride that would have been.

Mother Nature can really do some damage when unexpected. 

For damage pictures from the earthquake...

http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/cgi-bin/search.cgi?search_mode=exact&selection=San+Fernando+Earthquake,+February+1971|San+Fernando|Earthquake|1971

(http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/states/events/1971_02_09.php)

Georges Melies

George Melies was a French filmmaker quite known for his special effects. The film, A Trip to the Moon or also known as Le voyage dans la Lune was made in 1902 and was one of Melies' most famous film. He used the stop trick effect or actually accidentally invented this effect. This stop trick effect is when an object or person is filmed on camera then the camera would stop filming and that object or person would move to another position or off the screen. This would create the illusion that that object or person has magically moved or disappeared. Melies was very creative with creating special effects for his films. He even hand painted colors in his films and multiple exposures. He was one of the very first few to use these techniques. If he didn't, where would films be today? Would special effects be the same? Would science fiction films be what it is today?


The Vanishing Lady 1896

Abel Gance's Napoleon

Napolean is an epic silent French film written and produced by Abel Gance in 1927. The plot of this film is based on Napoleon Bonaparte's life. But that is not why this film is important. Gance's use of technology to produce/direct/edit this film was ahead of his time. He used a technique called "Polyvision" which is now known as Cinerama. Basically, Gance used a triptych sequence projected onto a screen, this was the early version of what we now know as widescreen.


Just amazing that this is where widescreen/Cinerama first started.


(IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018192/)


Kevin Brownlow discussing Abel Gance

The Great Crash

The crash of the stock market in 1929 or any year is something I don't think about or do I want to. You'd think I should know what happened as this is my country and economy blah blah blah. I don't like to think about money =(


Anyways, wealth was a big thing during the roaring twenties. People had lots of it and was using it excessively. So why did the market crash? The market prices were increasing like crazy and everyone thought everyone else could handle the high prices, but boy were they wrong. People could not handle the high prices so there was a dramatic drop in the market so that caused the prices of the stocks to go way down. Major money was being lost during this time. This caused a chain reaction to everything else happening in the country. Properties were losing their values as real estates weren't doing well. The chain reaction led up to the Great Depression that lasted for decades.

"The mask which the actor wears is apt to become his face" ~ Plato

Why does Black Face exist? Around the early-1800's, black people at the time didn't have any rights or say so they were ridiculed and poked at for fun by the white Americans in minstrel shows as a form of entertainment. These white Americans would paint their faces black to imitate the blacks and would make a performance out of it. 


Blacks even painted their faces black to be able to be apart of this era's entertainment!! Amazing how people thought and acted during that time period. Because of this form of entertainment, racism and stereotypes for every single race/ethnic group exist today and people think it is okay, but is it? 

All that Jazz!

When you hear the word "Jazz", what do you think of?

My mind automatically thinks of the deep double bass, the seductive saxophone, the arrogant trumpet, the confidant piano, and the crisp drum set. Together, these instruments create amazing music that have so much emotion and history. 

Where did jazz even come from?!

Lets jump back in time to just right after the Civil War. Slaves were still in existence and working in the fields. To get their mind off the work, sun, and life, the slaves would sing. These songs they would sing were called "Blues" which originated from Africa. Blues is a combination of mood and structure from the African and American music. As time went by, these work songs from Africa were passed around and slowly changed. These changes through time and culture created what we know as jazz. Examples of jazz can be heard from great players like Louis Armstrong,  Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and many many more. 

This acid jazz piece is by Miles Davis called "Mystery." 

MYSTERY- MILES DAVIS 1992
Uploaded by GLITTER-GLITTER. - See the latest featured music videos.

Madama Butterfly

Madama Butterfly has been on my must watch list for a while. After Santiago showing a scene from the opera in class, I definitely have to go get a recording of that opera and watch it.

I've always been fascinated by music/singing. Of course I can't sing, but I just love to close my eyes and hear anyone sing (hopefully someone that can carry a pitch). Singing opera style is amazing. It takes so much talent to be able to carry such pitches and difficult notes and act at the same time! Even though operas can be long, I love them. So far I've only been able to see one awesome opera called Lucia di Lammermoor. It's really good! 

This short stop motion animation is so awesome and amazing! Kudos to the artist for being able to make this creative version of the opera, Madama Butterfly. The artist told the whole story in less than 11 minutes versus 2-3 hours! This animation is captivating with the details and symbolism. The part where she gave birth and the end were my favorite parts... so much emotions and creativity!


Here's another version of Madama Butterfly 

First Day

ART 211 was my first class of the day. I was hoping my first class on the first day to be easy, but it was intense. I think I might have peed a little in my dress. I didn't expect Santiago to go crazy and rip up someone's work. What a shocker. I'm just a little scared that this class will kill me this semester. I feel that this class will push me beyond my comfort zone. I like. I love my zone, but I won't learn anything different unique if I just stay there. I like technology. I like art, as well, but I don't know much about it. There's so much to learn from both separately, but together it is something completely different. I can't wait to learn more. I don't have much experience of art. I wasn't exposed to it much when I was younger. I'm trying to change that. I wish to learn more and see how it works with technology to create something out of nothing. So simple, yet complicated.