Artist Response 12

For my final Artist Response I want to return to discussing websites made in flash. I am drawn to creating websites in Flash over CSS style sheets because it brings a life to the website that is harder to achieve in the later. If one website can show how flashy flash can make a website. Air Atlantis's Splash page is one of the best I have seen and it is effective in describing what the website is about. Some splash pages only serve as decoration and do not have any function whatsoever. The website loads very fast and the pages are also interactive. Each web page is on the level of some sites splash paintings. They are dripping with detail and creativity and show the staff's advance knowledge of graphic design.
Websites are art that even anyone can see and admire. It's open to anyone as long as they have a computer and interenet connection. I dream that I will be able to achieve the level that these creators have. The examples of their works in the site is also very creative, beautiful and illustrational.

http://www.air-atlantis.com/

Art Response 11

Tivon Rice is a new media artist who works mainly on video installations. One such work is called "Between Here and a Kind of Fleshness." Three projected displays show images of a dog's bare teeth. The three images change throughout the progression of the piece. Besides the images of the moving mouth, there is also a serene capture of water moving in the darkness. Alongside these images are white subtitles. The substitles do not necessarily have anything to do with the images displayed. The image are also accompanied by sound of the dog's growls. The artist's site provides images and videos of the instillation but there is still a desire to see it in person. A projected instillation loses it's power when seeing it over the internet. This instillation reminds me of the installation projects that I worked on earlier in the semester. I believe that installation is now become a bigger part of the gallery space and gallery exhibition. It can be just as artistic as non new media works. This work was inspired by Eliot’s The Dry Salvages. It was created in 2009.

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.

Artist Response 8

In my first artist response for this class, I discussed the quirky website www.mouchette.org. The site at first glanced appeared to be a simple page created by a 13 year old name Mouchette but as the viewer progressed through the pages, this identity crumbles and the visitor wonders who is the true author of the page.

The site "Black People Love Us" works in a similar manner. It includes pictures and text that confuse the viewer on the true identity of the site creator and even the site's purpose. "Black People Love Us" (which will now be referred in the rest of this article as BPLU) is humorous and completely politically incorrect. The site is divided in 7 parts. In each part you explore the lives of Sally and Johnny and their Black friends. The site gives different testimonials on why Sally and Johnny are their friends and how these two understand certain aspects of their lives. The pictures can seem awkward at times but nonetheless entertaining.

Like Mouchette, BPLU looks out of date but becomes timeless because of it's interactivity. Visitors can still post to the site expressing their opinions of the page. These posting vary from appraisal, condemnation, or absolute confusion. The site also provides a link to an email address. Whether or not the webmaster will email them back is unknown. Furthermore in the section, "stuff our friends care about" is a list of different site that include, the million man march, Nation of Islam, and the United Negro College Fund.

BPLU is a very unique site. It may seem out of date, and politically incorrect but that is what makes the site works. I would not want to change it any way.

Project Madrugada

Even though there is still sometime before the class gets to the final project, I have already decided that I would u se that time to focus on my art portfolio site. It will be called Project Madrugrada and I will use this entry to just collect my thoughts.

Madrugada

Opening animation

homepage
Description: Changes time of day from morning to night. Possibly flashes the words madrugada at the morning time. Or this will be the page for early morning.

About me/ background:
Description: Day, sun, clouds, light blue, birds chirping, light colors, sun rays.

Works:
Description: sunset, sun setting, translucent moon, warm colors, gradient, translucent stars Orange, reds blue, silhouette
Sub Categories: Games, Art, Design

Contact: Shooting stars, regular stars, full moon, cresent moon, moon cover in clouds, fireflies (lightning bugs) Light appear from the darkness
Description: Night

Ideas/References
www.madeforeachother.com
Kazuo Oga's work (ghibli)

Art Response 7

Last class we saw a marketing tactic by GE of using art to convey an idea or product they are trying to sale. I am not saying that commercials can not be an art forms themselves, but in GE's example and the example I am about to give, these two companies push beyond the normal advertising of photographs or film and use less conventional methods.

Frito Lay's recent campaign features a series of animated shorts that end up conveying why it's brand of chips and dip are made for each other. The site, www.madeforeachother.com is completely interactive and immerses the viewer in a new and colorful world full of different characters. This strategy is successful in my opinion because it still sells the product but it makes the viewer less aware of it. They become interested in the actual artwork instead.


The site takes a while to load but it greets the viewer with an interesting loading screen in which the counting numbers greet each other then drift off to space. Depending on the speed of the computer and internet, the process can take several minutes or 30 seconds. These numbers count to 100. When that animation is finished it takes the viewer to the actual world of these characters.



The Frito Lay site really enforces the idea of "made for each other" by making the site into a game where the viewer unites the lost partners by clicking on the character and then its partner. An animations plays and then they return to their regular states most of the time. Inside of this game there are other games and even movies of the commercials often shown on TV.
It can be very hard sometimes to drag the screen but this could be mouse issues and not the fault of the website. Not all characters do what I expected them to do. I think some of them do not have partners, and if they do, it was hard to find them. Nevertheless I was entertained by this site.

This website, and the GE flash piece can show how powerful flash can be as a program.

Art Response 6

The 1952 movie Neighbors is a stop motion short that tells the story of two neighbors and their confrontation over what is and what is not their property in relation to a small flower that is settled right between the two properties. It was created by Norman McLaren and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. It's an early example of new media. The use of stop motion gives the two characters the freedom to defy gravity.

I would like to discuss a bit more about the technical aspects of this film. McLaren pushed the boundaries of stop motion with this film. It becomes more than a technology trick but a conveyer of emotions. THe film does not have any dialogue. The communication of the two characters to the viewer are from sound and movement. For example, the flower cowards in fear when the two men fight. The men jump and slide around the grass after becoming completely infatuated with the flower. As humourous and as dazzling the movie is, it does have a moral: "Love thy neighbor."

Flash text project review

I was happy to hear that my flash project was well received. I have to admit that at first, I was unsure of what I was going to do but everything began to flow together after I just pushed myself to do it. The original idea was going to be much different. I was going to make something similar to a music video but with interactivity. However I was not sure how to pull it off.

This project reminds me a lot of the previous project I made with the storybook. It takes something that people take for granted and flips it upside down with a little comedic humor.

Once I finally had an idea of what I was going to do, the questionnaire was easy to do. The coding was a little tricky though. I had to settle for if statements for things that would have given the user a more unexpected output. I wanted to be able to parse the number and have the number added to another number or changed to a random number but then this became more complicated than I wanted it to be. However, this project does encourage me to make good use of Lynda.com. I purchased a session of it, I should put it to good use.

Artist Response 5: Up Up and Away

In Up, Up and Away, Philidelphia artist Micheal Bell-Smith creates extravagant pixelated images of real and imaginary places. One of the cities in the panel looks remarkably similar to Tokyo while others seem less specific. The panels drift upward on the screen to be replaced by new images in a cycle that last 6 minutes and 40 seconds. The images are full of bright colors but Bell-Smith works within a limited pallete. In one image of a city the foreground reveals a green landscape with trees that slowly shifts to a yellow, then purple, and finally blue cityscape. The viewer can see each pixel the artist makes to build up to these images. When I first saw this work at the hirshorn it reminded me of games on the sega genesis as well as games on the gameboy and it's later generations.

The viewer is brought to a different place in the matter of seconds. It's almost challenging to really appreciate the details of the pictures before being introduced to another one. This artist frequently uses pixels in his images but I consider up, up and away one of his masterpieces.

Artist main site: http://www.foxyproduction.com/artist/view/5

Lawrence, Sidney. "Cinema Hirshorna"23 February 2009.
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/lawrence/lawrence4-25-08.asp

Artist Response 4 (Animator vs. Animation)

Alan Becker's, who also goes by the name albinoblacksheep, quirky animation called Animator vs Animation shows the different elements of Flash Professional 8 while be engaging and comedic. The flash movie blurs the boundaries between the user and and Becker's animation. It brings physicality to the characters he makes.

The movie starts off with a movie clip Becker makes labeled victim. The victim eventually breaks out of the symbol's bounding box and fights the creator's mouse with keyframes, line strokes and assortment of flash tools. The unique aspect about this movie is that the character and the user both interact with Flash's interface in different ways. At one point Becker tries to delete the animated character in the menu but the character crawls up and scratches the word delete out with the pen tool. By the end of the movie, majority of the interface is either altered or completely destroyed.

It helps to have a previous knowledge of Flash to enjoy the movie. Some of the tools' functions would be confusing otherwise. In one such example the symbol named victim creates copies of itself to attack the user's arrow. If someone did not know what actions symbols performed or even what a symbol is, the joke would lose its value.

Since the movies is about the flash interface created in flash, it is important to see how the artist might have made this movie. It first appears that he only used a screenshot as the background. This is not the case however since in one scene the keyframes from the movie slide on to the work area in every which way. The interface interacts with the characters so much it's hard to seperate the flash animation from the possible screenshot. The result is a very complex workload.

The movie can be found at http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/animator.

Artist Response 3

Rubikcubism is a site that includes a collection of icons, paintings, and photographs redone in pixels. However the pixels are made from the individual squares of a Rubik’s cube. The process starts with the original painting or icon transferred digitally into pixels. Then the artist incorporates this into a collection of Rubik’s cubes. The works range from replications of high art such as Edouard Manet’s “Luncheon on the grass” and Ingres’ “La Grande Odalisque,” to popular culture icons such as Pacman, Mario and Clockwork Orange.

In the translation of paintings to pixels, the image becomes abstracted. This is an extreme example of how the quality of work is dependent on the pixels. Many of the pictures are undecipherable up close but easy to recognize in their thumbnails. In this era, pixels are almost synonymous with digital media. A pixel on a computer screen or bitmap image can be very allusive but the Rubik cube gives the object tangibility. The works on this site are not digital but I believe that they have such a strong relationship to the digital format because of their use of pixels that it is almost the same as a bitmap image printed to physical form. However, in this case the image is constantly going back and forth between the digital and traditional media.

Artist Response 2

I found out about this artist on Drawn.ca and followed the link to his site. Recently, he created a voice based drawing program. It is the etch and sketch of the digital age. The picture to the left is one the artist made. According to the site, the level of the volume adjusts which way the lines will go. Low volume will turn the line counterclockwise, while high volume will turn it clockwise. The user can make the line straight with a medium volume.

I decided to give the voice program a shot. Unfortunately, it did not work as well for me. All I was able to get was a dot. I adjust my microphone setting, and experimented with my voice abut nothing happened. I even tried putting my headphones to the microphone. However, others were successful with the process and their work can be seen on his page. Some used their voice, others music, and some even used television shows.

I think this is another great example of how sound can be used to make images. This program takes a few steps away from traditional drawing. It also shows how new media art can really differ from traditional media. The draw to this project, that currently does not have a name, is that it needs interaction from others to work. It is just like a blank piece of paper in a way, it needs someone to create the image no matter if it is by hand or by voice.

Digital Art Contests, Scholarships, and Flash movies

I wanted to submit a list of useful contest and scholarship info I found around the web. Many you can use Flash as the program of choice.

Contests

Expose7 Contest
Due Date: February 23
Prizes: Winners get their work published in the book
http://www.ballisticpublishing.com/books/expose/expose_7/callforentries/
Media: 2d and 3d digital art (photoshop, painter, Maya etc...)

NVArt Surreal Contest
Due Date: March 2 (my birthday..sorry had to add that)
Prizes: "$10,000 cash + 2 NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 4GB - 240 CUDA Processors."
http://events.cgsociety.org/NVArt/04/?utm_source=CGSociety&utm_medium=900px&utm_term=surreal&utm_content=hero&utm_campaign=launched
Media: 2d and 3d Digital art

Adobe® Design Achievement Awards
Due Date: June 5
Prizes: "Win a trip to Beijing and cash"
http://adaaentry.com/?trackingid=EGMUA
Media: "The entry must have been created primarily (over 50%) with Adobe tools."
Categories: Browser-Based design, Non Browser-Based Design, Application Development, Mobile Design, Installation Design, Animation, Live Action, Motion Graphics, Illustration, Packaging, Photography and Print Communications

Contest/Scholarships

Jay Kennedy Scholarship
Due Date February 6
Media: This is a contest that focuses on cartooning


Illustrators of the Future
Prizes:1,500 Quarterly 4,000 annually
http://www.writersofthefuture.com/17/rules/ilofrules.html
Media: Any

Flash Movie:

An interesting Flash movie I saw.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/animator


Hope that helps. If anyone knows any other current digital art contests, I'll put it on my list.

The story of mouchette

The website www.mouchette.org is an interesting new media art work that deals with anonymity and popularity on the internet. On the front page of the site Mouchette claims to be a 13 year old girl living in Amsterdam. However, after consistently reloading the page, her location changes from living in Amsterdam, to living in Walla Walla, living in a garden, living in Eindhoven and so on. Even her profile picture changes when the page reloads. Each pictures is of someone completely different. The site also contradicts itself by theme and content.

It can be very dark at times. It often talks about death and suicide. The link suicide kit describes of a kit, "that allows children of all ages to play suicide. It's a new toy." The site feels outdated but I like how it's interactive. Responses from the visitors keep the site new and fresh.The more the visitor explores the site, the more they realize that Mouchette is not a 13 year but someone older or a possible group of people.

The internet is a powerful tool of communication. It also grants the power to assume any role a person desires. People have become extremely popular just because of their internet identity. In pop culture, a prime example of this is Tila Tequila who currently has over 3.5 million friends on the social networking site myspace. In mouchette.org, Mouchette has links to sites that praise and adore her but also those that criticize her(http://ihatemouchette.org/ .) The site also talks about the name as a trademark. This phenomenon is seen more and more in the facebook/myspace generation. People consistently compete to be the one with the most friends and use that popularity for their advantage.


If anything, mouchette.org shows that you can not be one-hundrend percent sure of the identity of the person. At the same time it shows that using the internet's power does have it's advantages.