Message about Project 1

This project deals with commodification, so I chose to include the jbs watermark as a frame. The project was not intended to be sold in any way, and the video will be made available without the watermark. This experimentation in new media was for educational purposes only.

Project 2 Research Artist 1: Eric Sokolofsky

For Project 2, we were asked to design a public projection art piece somewhere on campus. While browsing for ideas, I came across an artist named Eric Sokolofsky has experimented with many types of digital media, including projecting in a large space.

Eric's Home Page

Sokolofsky is currently a professor at NYU and Pratt Institute and has spent time developingeducational games for GameLab, a New York City based game design group. He attended an undergraduate program at Washington University in St. Louis and practiced architecture for several years. After studying architecture, he became interested in NYU's Interactive Telecommunication Graduate Program and was able to experiment with web and game design, as well as user interface design and programming. He also explored interactive generative screen based art and interactive spatial installation.

Sokolofsky has also contributed to the design of a social networking site called Wallop.

One work of Sokolofsky that has influenced the development of my project is a work called Aperture.

This work addresses how sound and light affect spatial perception. In the art piece, a projector is fixed above the ceiling of an installation space and is used to reverse project onto the ceiling. As the viewer moves through the space, arcs of light generate variations in intensity, color, and motion.

The audio/visual textures that appear alter the viewer perception of their movement inside the space and the artwork probes the viewer to think about how elements of composition affect a humans concept of space and motion which could stay with them as they move through other spaces in the outside world.

This piece makes me think about the affects that architecture on a person's freedom of expression. With the use of a public space in project 2, I intend to create a similar change in the viewer's concept of space and how it can be utilized. I hope to utilize graffiti as a means for expression on a new canvas.

From this project, I can deduct that the elements of interactivity on a audio and visual level have to be present in order to create a powerful project that deals with space. These elements both seem necessary in order to stimulate an awareness of the persons movement through the world. In project 2, I would hope to add the element of sound to the discussion of projection graffiti. It would nicely supplement the visual experience of graffiti as well as echo the ties that graffiti has had to music. I would like the expression to be as fluid and free as possible, to contrast the box-like moment that students are restricted to on their passage to class.

Sokolofsky has many artworks that relay the same messages of interactivity between light and sound. The projects advance the concepts of projection and the spatial relationships that we have to media. To me, Aperture appears in a formal art setting which may limit the idea of freedom and creativity. However, the projects all carry a huge element of experimentation and innovation.

Project 1

Project One is complete!

This is a mashup video which deals with commodification and intellectual property

Shouts out to:

Naomi Klein

Walter Benjamin

RUFUS

SBTRKT

Alexis Lloyd

and all video artists who unknowingly allowed me to borrow their images for the pursuit of knowledge!

TO SEE VIDEO WITHOUT THE MASK, PLEASE CONTACT ME FOR INFORMATION ABOUT PAYMENT METHOD & LISCENSING AGREEMENT.

Artist Research 1

This semester, we have discussed a range of issues concerning the field of new media. We have discussed how the digital age has changed to role of the artist and the audience as well as the classifications of the art object. We have discussed the meaning of originality and the effect of commodification on american art. We have discussed how emerging technology has changed the effects of advertising.

Alexis Lloyd is a successful practicing artist from Brooklyn, New York. She has had "clients such as FOX, Columbia University, American Express, The New York Historical Society, PBS, and others," she currently works for the New York TImes in their research and development department. She defines her job title as a "creative technologist" and references Naomi's Klein's No Logo article about culture jamming as an important influence over her work. She has a BA from Vassar College where here senior thesis, titled "comMODIFIED" addressed remixing and satirizing advertising. She moved on to receive an MFA in Design and Technology and has worked as a multimedia artist/designer for 12 years.

I found Alexis Lloyd from her page on Rhizome but she has her own website where more information about her art is also available. One digital piece that caught my eye was an exploration of advertising's influence on the urban landscape, called Adscape. I was drawn to the fact that the advertising did not contain any cigarette advertising. This piece has meaning to me because it made me realize the power that cigarette advertising has had on me, even several decades after cigarette commercials had been banned from television. I was blown away by the influence that "the marlboro man" had over me in my adolescence.

Including Adscape, Rhizome has four digital artworks by Naomi Klein, all of which, in my opinion have a foundation in a similar type of analysis; evaluation of art in the in modern capitalist framework.

Adscape

Google Image Search: The First Amendment

MyWashington Square

The Ad Generator

The second artist who I have found to be pertinent to the discussion of art in the digital age is SBTRKT, a DJ who makes electronic dance music using computer driven editing software and digital synthesizers, while appropriating samples from pop culture. SBTRKT, pronounced "subtract," remains anonymous by wearing a mask at every performance. Despite the fact that no real narrative can be contracted in the audiences mind, SBTRKT gaining popularity in the EDM scene. This concept indicates a breakdown of the traditional art narrative, and expresses the accessibility of production and distribution as a result of emerging technologies.

I discovered SBTRKT through sharing music with my friends. We independently explore music through websites like beatport.com and share our interests when we get together. This represents a critical change in the musical world, because artists no longer need to seek nation television broadcast or a successful record company to produce their work. He also offers an interesting take on the discussion of culture jamming, as well as appropriation and intellectual property. After hearing SBTRKT, I found this article in SPIN magazine which is available online. It offers some insight that I would not have had from listening and aligns his work more with the topics we have been discussing rather than just pop entertainment.

I googled some other images of SBTRKT, and in line with the subject of appropriation, I didn't feel it necessary to cite these, although I might have to change that....

Project 1 Sketches

For Project 1

I plan to utilize some pop music videos and pop culture movies/ television series to explore how lasers and space and technology have become a selling point for new programming or advertising for the latest and greatest must have product.

I hope to tackle some issues concerning commodification of art and the use of media to manipulate the audience. I want the piece to be over the top: to produce sensory overload for the viewer.

Here are some samples of clips I plan to use.

MASH UP

For the first sketch of the class,

we were asked to create

a mash up using final cut pro 7

In doing so we would learn basic editing functions

in nonlinear editing software,

experiment with appropriating another person's work

and

· Subvert the meaning of a commercial image to cause viewers to rethink the visual symbol as a carrier of meaning

I chose to appropriate a clip from "SpaceBalls" by Mel Brooks in which the enemies fail when choose to switch to "ludicrous speed" because "light speed is too slow." I manipulated some filters and basic editing tools in final cut to make this vide0

Project 2

Project 2: Art in the Public Space, Projection

For our second project, Tina and I hope to use emerging technologies to reframe and re-contextualize the artistic medium of graffiti. Through this interactive process of performing the artwork live in a public setting, we hope to open up audience minds to new ways of expressing themselves. This project explores some aspects of urban life, an element of contemporary culture that we feel deserves some more attention and awareness. We understand the communicative power of creating a public art piece and see it as a great opportunity to create community exchange of ideas and services. Ideally, if all technical obstacles are accomplished, we hope to include other elements of urban culture that would promote freedom of expression and motivate viewers to create social change in their own way.

A huge element of social change that we hope to address with the urban theme of our project is to promote awareness of the homeless community. Essentially, we hope to reactivate concerned community members to take a stand on community issues that are commonly ignored.

Hip-Hop is an important element of urban culture and expression that could be address. It could enhance the piece to add a soundtrack of hip-hop that promotes social change as a way, again, of reframing urban means of expression as a positive rather than a negative.

We have several ideas for possible places on campus, each with varying degrees of exposure and mood. The idea we are most enthusiastic about involves projecting our graffiti based work onto the side of a mover’s truck. This initial canvas seems like it could draw in the potential viewer to take a closer look at the “vandals.”

It also echo’s the idea of a “vehicle of expression” and has undertones of the industrial and urban nature of contemporary society. Not to mention, its just badass.

We also have the possibility of projecting between Schaeffer and Montgomery Halls, in a long alley like situation. Another possible choice would involve the second floor deck overhang. With this area we could create a caveman like scenario, hinting at the long tradition of humans expressing themselves on walls.

Whatever we choose, generating interest in the community is a vital factor in the creation of this work.