Artist Response 10

I wanted to talk about another website for my Artist Response that was also made in flash. This site is made to advertise for the Zune Media player. After the loading screen the viewer is greeting with soft sounding music and a vector graphic of the Zune media player radiating from a black background. The site gives the option to click 6 sections: music, pictures, radio, videos, social and podcast. Each link brings the user to a colorful world fill with animation unique to its designated section. The website shifts through different songs as one song ends then another begins. It creates a world the user can travel in while listening to varying genres of music.

The clickable arrow acts like a ship sailing across different worlds.This site is similar to Madeforeachother.com because they share the similarities of multiple characters in an imaginary world. However the viewer traveled throughs the worlds in madeforeach other by scrolling up and down. The zune site goes through the different pages in a format reminiscent to a vortex. All the characters are made out of animated vector graphics. As the viewer moves through space, the characters in the space adjust to the viewer's vantage point while continuing their animation.

Unfortunately, the internet connection and the processing power of the computer can hinder the site's perfomance if it cannot handle all the graphics on the page. There are a lot of things on screen. It is hard to focus on each page because there is so much on screen. Traveling through the site can also be naseating because of it's format and the constant shift in perspective and vantage point.

Overall, it's a cool site with an interesting interface but I believe the site concetrates more on being flashy than informative.

Artist Response 9

The art group Ztohoven specializes in manipulating and reconstructing different digital mediums that people interact with in day to day life. One project they implement was changing symbols and characters of traffic lights in Prague. Instead of having a man walking for the "Walk" instructions, ztohoven will replace it with a guy laying down. This instillation is amusing but it is nowhere near as controversial as their piece, "Media Reality." The group hacked a weather broadcast and digitally inserted an atomic bomb explosion. During the broadcast the camera pans throughout a scenic landscape. Nothing is out of the ordinary until the camera goes through a patch of fog. Then, in the far distance, a bright mushroom cloud spurts out of nowhere. The camera quickly pans back to focus on it and subsequently the reception becomes worse and worse till it's replace with nothing but white noise. Considering the subject matter in the clip, this alteration did not cause widespread panic. The artist were convicted for distorting truthful information but the charges were then dropped.

Many people take news for granted so a project such as this would keep viewers on their toes. I believe that this project would have not been successful in America and would have put the artists in even more trouble than they would have in their country. This country would also take swifter action as well. One thing about digital artist that makes them so powerful is, they are working in a medium in which they could easily distort reality if they wanted to.