VIDEO ART

This is my video art piece entitle YARD WARS. I was exploring the idea that nothing new can be made, only imitations can be made. Also I was commenting about how in this day and age anyone with any type of camera can broadcast whatever they want all over the world, which is a fascinating concept. I was excited to incorporate what I learned about Adobe Flash into the video. My friends and I had a lot of fun making it, as you can see from the credits. We might make more in the future.

Class for the week of 12/2

This was our last week of class before finals.  We managed to explore video art a little bit more and dive into electronic music's evolution.

By far and away, Bill Viola is my favorite video artist that we have covered in class.  His vivid imagery has been the most compelling so far.  I really enjoy his juxtapositions between fire and water.  The fact that he uses a lot of slow motion allows for the viewer to fully capture and comprehend the images.  Honestly, I can't get enough special effects.  I simply love them.  I'm just utterly impressed by little things like "Who Framed Roger Rabbit."  Viola's man on fire looks very natural and the effects are integrated seamlessly.  I was very much reminded of the Human Torch when I watched that video.  Likewise, his use of water reminded me of Aquaman.  Considering Viola's decision to go with just one man either on fire or bursting with water associates the subject with iconic imagery.  With this iconic imagery, its easy to see why I would associate the videos with ideallic heroes.

On thursday, we went over electronic musicians, some new and some familiar.  There was one musician who created a program that would convert his sketches into sound.  This was a very interesting and exciting concept to me. Unfortunately, the sounds that were made were absolutely horrible.  They were so bad that I had to cover my ears.  It really does make me think though; what sounds would be generated from my sketches?  Would it be pleasant music? Epic music?  Film score music?  Or would it also degenerate into mindless feedback?  I would love to find out.

As for the other musicians, I'm not a huge fan of techno.  I prefer it blended with rock and/or jazz music.  Although I was familiar with Benny Begassi's version of Satisfaction.  My girlfriend loves that song and plays it frequently.  I'm not entirely sure if anything was really taken from the Rolling Stones' version besides the word Satisfaction.  Hmmm...

Well, overall it was a good semester and I learned a lot about artists I wouldn't normally hear about, so it was pretty interesting.  It beats the hell out of normal art history classes, for sure.

PERFORMANCE ART COMMENTS

Taylor-I love seeing people break  cell phones. That was a short, but sweet performance art piece.
Adam- Air brushing is always cool, and this was new exception good job.
John- The Musical breakfast was very satirical to performance art so I thought it was cool.
Berni- Painting with cherries reminded me of Across the Universe, great movie, great piece.

Laura- Your performance art was funny and I totally agree with you that Wii controllers suck.
Ciara- You always do something very unique. kudos.
Ryan- Your piece reminded me of a neo-noir film, very cool.
Perri- I really liked your commentary, it made me think of my own life.
Stacy-Your message was poignant.
Collen- I liked your correlation between beauty and tech.
Brandon- I think you came up with a potential new game show.
Murad- very different and entertaining.
Victor- I liked how you blended tech and musical talent
Makayla- I liked how satirical your piece was, awesome job.
Matt- Your project had that song stuck in my head the whole day...cuz it was awesome!

GRID ART COMMENTS

Victor- pacman is always a good decision.
Colleen- your project reminded me of pointilism, very nice!
Taylor- Your piece was innovative and practical.
Makayla- The lamp was a very "bright" idea, lol
Ryan- Your drawing was good, don't let santiago get u down
John- a very interesting process
Perri-Your lollipop grid was awesome, I wanted to eat it.
Stacy- Once again, you had a project that I wanted to eat.
Berni- good job, very Escher-esque.
Matthew- Awesome amalgamation between guitars and grids.
Adam- The light bright piece was very sweet, great job.
Murad- Practical and pretty
Brandon- A very nice breakdown of a japanese print.

XEROX ART COMMENTS

Stacey-Repetition of the hand was interesting
Taylor-Very artistic and quaint, reminded me of a fairy tale
Victor- I liked how packed yours was
Adam- I feel like yours was a modernized version of an old classic
John- Lots of detail with me goes a long way, awesome
Makayla-The vines really brought the whole thing together.
Murad-Good amalgamation of yourself with the piece
Colleen- The neon colors were very eye catching
Perri- I love seeing animal designs made out of unusual objects, good.
Ryan- The light totally brought your project to the next level, it reminded me of Times Square but in art form.
Berni- A solid design
Matthew- A nice commentary of everyday life.
Laura- The dragon design was awesome
Ciara- A good composition of body parts, nice

Week of 11-18-08

On Tuesday, the whole class participated in performance art.  There was a lot of great, entertaining performances. 

Mine was reminiscent of Gilbert and George's performances.  I played "Prayer of the Refugee" by Rise Against on my Zune player while pretending to play the guitar hero rifts.  The point of my performance was that in this new technology driven age that we live in, someone can play/create music without necessarily being musically talented or know how to play a real instrument.  I tried to get into it as much as possible, though I was a little nervous.  At some points I tried to activate star power but to no avail.

On thursday, we explored video art.  I'll be honest, I'm a sucker for special effects.  So the films using green screens or video manipulation were the ones that stimulated me the most.  I can't wait to use a green screen on future projects.  The videos we watched gave me some ideas about what to do with my video art project, which I've already started on.

The only video art film that we watched that I despised was the one where the actor kept repeating the same lines over and over as the quality was reduced each time.  I understand the point that the artist was trying to make, however the video wasn't entertaining enough to justify the length of his film.  I believe entertainment should be a big part of art because if you entertain the audience while trying to explore a controversial/next-level concept, the audience will be more likely to listen.  And even if the audience didn't agree with or understand your idea, at least the artist still made an entertaining project.

Class of 11-6

Today we continued "learning" about performance art.  I won't lie, I straight up hate most performance art.  I don't consider it art.  I would much sooner call crayon scribbles from a 6 year old art, before I give the same title to performance art.

I believe I discovered where a large part of my hatred comes from. Performance art is the reason most non-artistic people have a preconceived notion that art is silly, irrelevant, confusing, boring, and/or talentless.  And those thoughts extend to the artist as well.  People may think artists are pretentious, psychotic weirdos. As an art major, that annoys greatly.  Performance art gives other art a bad name.  

I honestly believe that had I not gone to class today and slept in, I would have had a more interesting experience, mainly because my dreams are usually really awesome.  I don't know what else to say.  There was nothing educational or interesting about class today.  I wasted my time, I should have slept in.

This is a photo of my xerox project.  What I was aiming for was to capture the randomness of personality and transpose it onto the board.  I chose to use some distortion because I felt like that better represents my distorted view on things.  The Marvel logo on the name-tag suggests my higher aspirations, so the viewer learns something about me as well.

Classes from 10/23 to 11/4

I am bunching these four classes together because they all involve performance "art."  I figured I would wait until learning more about it and write a more substantial blog rather than a series of shorter blogs.

Let me start of by saying that I have a real problem with performance art.  I just don't think I have it in me to classify it as actual art.  But I will refer to the performers as artists for the sake of blog clarity. Most of the time I feel like performance artists are just doing crazy things for the purpose of being crazy.  They are just acting out like angry teenagers.  They are simply trying to disgust, bewilder, anger, and/or sadden the audience for no other reason than to just do it.  And yes I know that art should invoke an emotion from the audience, but these performance artists are going about it in immature, unsafe, and unnecessary ways.   All in all, I feel like performance artists are only being pretentious.  

Pretentious is how I sum up performance art in one word.  Its not satirical, its not entertaining, its not mind-opening.  It is merely extreme on the behalf of extremeness.  Sometimes they try to be satirical, but they are too extreme for  the audience to comprehend the satire, making the satire pointless and nonexistent.  The artists know full well it will be hard or impossible for the audience to understand their meaning, but they continue to be extreme and confusing anyway, and that-THAT is why performance art is pretentious.  

Basically what it comes down to is that I believe performance art is not art for the same reason snuff films are not art.  Horrible for the sake of horribleness is not art.  Bad for the sake of bad can be acceptable if done in a comedic fashion (like cheesy B-movies), however, performance artists usually don't do comedy.  This is mainly because they think they are doing something substantial, another hint of their pretentiousness.  But without meaning or purpose, I don't believe it is substantial and therefore not art.

Granted I know there are people out there that do consider performance art as art.  And I can kinda see why.  However, if performance art can be considered art, then where does it stop?  Why aren't SpongeBob SquarePants cartoons discussed by art critics?  Why do people give Michael Bay a hard time for making movies with just action and no substance?  Why aren't comic books displayed in the Louvre?  Its just that I think that it is unfair and almost hypocritical to consider performance art art and not something like saturday morning cartoons or comic books or crappy films.

But its not all bad.  I did enjoy Stelarc's pieces, mainly because of the sci-fi element.  I also like his work because I can see satire and entertainment in his efforts.  He could be satirizing how technology is consuming our everyday lives or asking where does science end and life begin?  Also his pieces are functional and very intricate.  His work looks very realistic, like people will one day be able to walk with robotic spider legs.  It makes him seem more like an inventor than an artist.  And thats what an inventor is-- and artist.  And while performance artists are trying to invent new art, I feel like they are mostly jut failed inventions.  And no one really cares about failed inventions because they don't work.  And since they don't work, they're not art.

And now I shall get off my soap box.