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.