Artist Event #2: Boyden Gallery Event with Craig Saper

Artist Event #2: Craig Saper

>Craig Saper

I attended a Craig Saper workshop in Boyden Gallery. Based upon a lecture he had given earlier that day, the workshop involved entrepreneurial ideas, specifically with regards to marketing and creating ideas. Three concepts that he stressed were "Big Tent" and "Circus Tent" theories. The Big Tent was a interactive, interface, information, peer connection and revision tool that would connect people. An example of this was the augmented reality app, in which programmers and artists alike would share ideas to create a virtual reality that would be accessible to an iDevice. The Circus Tent idea was a medium of avant-garde artists who combined speculation ad scholarship to promote new ideas. This includes thinking like an artist, but not being an artist with a defined medium. One of his ideas was that 'electricy' would replace literacy. After this, we were asked to brainstorm ideas, and from that the group discussed how they would use these ideas. 

This means that the artist now has to learn how to be an artist and yet survive in a world in which globalization and universal technology exists. What do people need? What do people want marketed? Creativity at it's base is the most important skill when thinking how to succeed in this world. I personally agree.

Personally, I thought the workshop was interesting and idealistic. To promote the concept of being an artist, while doing something else is the liberal arts ideal. I don't think anyone can just be an artist in this day and age. I know networking is huge, audience is huge, collaboration is huge. These ideas were represented within the lecture albeit sugarcoated in fancy terminology. I think if anything, my only critique would be to increase networking and the brainstorming session within this lecture. We only got to about two or three people's ideas. I know I have many entrepreneurial ideas that I would've loved to share. That being said, I have taken the lecture's ideas to heart and have started to work with that with the forming of the Art Club.

ARTIST POST: Web designers.Artist Post: Khoi Vinh

ARTIST POST: KHOI VINH

Today I am going to be talking about Khoi Vinh who is the web designer (formerly) of the NYtimes.com and various other projects such as http://www.subtraction.com his blog site and Behavior, a design company. Vinh is a vietnamese immigrant who moved to Gaithersburg MD at the age of three and a half. He is a successful graphic designer, and among the honors he received, was said to be one of the top 50 web designers in 2011. He is responsible for the style of grid designing, which he published a successful book: Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design

Here are some of the examples of gridding in web design:

I also looked up design concepts for the NYTimes in order to show you how he employs them directly:

To delve into the artwork, Khoi Vinh tries to create a different layout from the website design in order to have a relationship between the viewer and the times. The times somewhat mimics the newspaper, however Vinh tried to go for a more internet-friendly work.

To critique the work, I feel that the NYtimes, though designed well, is not nearly as user friendly as it could have been designed. Had I been designing the page, I would've had entire sections hyperlink to the article, and I would have different categories for things such as Headlines, Breaking News, Entertainment, etc. while keeping the layout relatively simple. The webpage is a bit too cluttered for my liking. The purpose of a website, in particular a news website, is to draw attention to articles, while also being easy to navigate. I feel Vinh's work partially accomplishes this.

SOURCES:
http://bigthink.com/the-voice-of-big-think/design-of-the-times-khoi-vinh-and-nytcom
subtraction.com
https://twitter.com/khoi
http://www.nytimes.com

Sketch Plans

Sketch 1

Supplementary Events

Digital Poetry: Boyden Gallery

http://www.stephaniestrickland.com

Stephanie Strickland was the speaker for the Voices reading. She started off by reading some of her poetic work, both from printed selections, and from her newly published book Dragon Logic. She showed the audience the computer program meant to mesh Emily Dickinson’s work with the work of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. She then segwayed into her Digital poetry by reading verses akin to ‘technology is seduction.’ The digital poetry was represented by pictures of water combined with stanzas of poetry meant to appear and disappear as the pixels of the videos of water moved. 

(This is a screenshot of the Melville/Dickinson) Digital Poetry Project

Her works tries to harmonize the natural world with the digital world, define digital poetry, and  connect the digital world to literature.

The idea of digital poetry was very interesting. To combine digital art with poetry, while also making a computer formula that will work with the timing of the images in conjunction to the movement of the poetry stanzas was fascinating. The only thing I had an issue with was the fluidity of the images. I felt the text should have changed it's shape more to match the digital images of the water.

Here's a couple of articles where she discusses her electronic literature, art, and writing:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/182942

http://www.stephaniestrickland.com/essays

What I think is particularly awesome about her work is that artists could use this idea of Digital Poetry and bring it too a new level. What if you created a work of public art that allowed viewers to manipulate the water and watched how the stanzas matched what they did? What if you did this with, instead of poetry, music. There are so many possibilities to do with this idea. Overall, I loved the presentation in Boyden Gallery, and I want to try my own spin on Digital Poetry!

LOST

Here is LOST :)

Reaction: Internet Loneliness

Raw Reaction:
This scares me. I know when I ask myself, "What are the most important inventions of all time," my mind immediately jumps to things like, Fire, Agriculture, Writing, and then... The Internet. It's odd to think that igen'ers live at the beginning of such a revolutionary time. We now have access to a fabric of the real and yet intangible. AI, the Internet, the uncaring impassiveness, and the reliance on the media, in particular the internet scares me. The reading itself challenges that. The reading itself, particularly the structure, how it forced you to focus on many things at once, very much like the internet was rather witty. I didn't realize it was intentional. In a way the author is mimicking how one interacts on the internet. He brings about some scary and relatable points, particularly with how the internet is a disguise, and that we exist as both, a person and an internet persona.

Analyzing a Paragraph:

"Access to computers and the Internet completely changed the way that I consumed information and organized ideas in my head. I saw information stacked on top of itself in simultaneity, no longer confined to spatiotemporal dimensions of the book. This information was editable, and I could copy, paste, and cut text and images from one place to the next, squirreling away bits that felt important to me. I suddenly understood how much of myself I was finding through digital information."

The paragraph opens to discuss how consuming information occurs. How multitasking and immediacy is now expected, basically because of the internet's expectations. Reading, having to wait to know, having to process information in a slower way is rather irksome. Having information that you can scroll through, change, and alter is an incredibly immediate and empowering thing that the internet provides. It chips in the the human psyche and survival process. For me personally, since I have done so much work online, I grow impatient with hand-drawn medium. There is no "control Z" if I make a mistake. There is no immediate editing, especially with more permanent mediums. I prefer the immediacy of digital art. In a way that scares me. 

This is a crazy image. I couldn't find the artist, but I feel this is an incredibly serious and amusing internet. We do, as a society, need to protect ourselves from the "easiness" of the internet. We reveal way too much to the internet because we can't see the people accessing it. It's scary. It's unhealthy. You can do things you can't command Z. 

This work too, "Facebook Bliss" is also incredibly powerful.

How the artwork works is you press the bliss button and it mimics increasing friend/notification/message requests. It represents our narcism on FB. Facebook is making us lonely.

http://www.anthonyantonellis.com/bliss/

"  What happens when the power runs out, when we get disconnected? Where will we have left to go?"

DM Portrait

Here Goes:

LOGO REMIX

Voila:

Extra Ai Features (And Progress Rep

Greetings Fellow Classmates!

So I wanted to elaborate upon two tools not mentioned in class.

The first, which I have been using all of the time is the PAINTBRUSH TOOL.

What's so nice about the Paintbrush tool?

You can add lots of colors to create an interesting look. My personal favorites are the charcoal tool, the watercolor brushes, and of course the generic 1pt tool found under the sidebar menu.

ANOTHER TOOL

This is more of a rant about a ton of different tools. HOW TO SHADE TO LOOK LIKE AN AIRBRUSH.
Guess what I'm going to bring up

The Gradient Tool. Since I'm not good at explaining, I'm linking this.
http://designs4ux.com/five-diffrenet-ways-of-shading-in-adobe-illustartor/

Regards,

KEELY

P.S. Posting DM tomorrow!

VECTOR ARTIST:

VECTOR ARTIST: Chris King

Before I begin, I must point out this website:

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/

Yes. That's exactly what you think it is. So go. Go check it out and be inspired.

K, Digression over.

Chris King is an English artist who majored in media production with subfields in animation and character design. He is a professional artist and has worked for many companies including the Oxford University Press and The Guardian Guide.

Here's some of his work:

Cool huh?

Chris King's work is rather ambiguous, however most of it pertains to technological sci-fi characters. Again, he is a professional illustrator, thus his work goes towards that.

I personally love his style. I really want to be able to do work like his. It's incredible, and I'd love to have enough design/AI proficiency to do work like this! 

-Keely

Music Sketch

Here it is:

Ew. My Face.

Ew. My face.


Portrait Options:

Vector Drawing #1

Vector Drawing #1

Here it is!!!!

Regards,

Keely

Artist Post #3- Kandisky

Artist Post #3: Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was a Russian born artist and musician. He focused upon abstraction within his works, particularly when representing music within paintings. It is debated that he had perfect pitch, which referenced his claim that he "saw" colors in music. His abstract works caused controversy among his compatriots, among both the Russian, German, and Parisian art cultures.

Kandinsky was also a theorist on art. He focused upon the spirituality of making art and music. He outlined the types of painting with one of his major works (Du spirituel dans l'art) as impressions, improvisations, and compositions. One can see this within his works and their specific titles.

QUOTE: "Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul."

The images below represent his experiments with art: 

As a critique, I think is is the coolest artist I have encountered. Why? HE USES MUSIC! That is incredible that someone who is gifted in the arts of music can literally put this embodiment of music on paper. Though I don't really care for abstract art, I feel that Kandinsky could not make his work any other way without bordering his art upon illustration.

Sources:

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/kandinsky/

Concerning the Spiritual in Art: Wassily Kandinsky

brainyquote.com

***

EXTRA: So because I am so inspired by Kandinsky, and as I am a musician and composer myself, I am taking one of my pieces that I have composed and am doing art to it in the Kandinsky style.

Not perfect. Not at all, but a start.
As a note, each of the four parts (vln1, vln2, vla, cel.) are represented in a different color.

Photoshop Project

Here is what I got!

Regards, Keely

Artist Post #2- Chris Metzen

Artist Post Number Two:

Chris Metzen

Chris Metzen is a digital artist, game designer, animation guru, voice actor, and entrepreneur. He works for Blizzard Entertainment and is responsible for many artistic choices within the company such as designing concept art and video game plots for World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft. Currently he is vice president of Story and Franchise Development at Blizzard Entertainment, and, among many of the duties he holds, specifically does character design. He has a history of doing illustrations, concept art, and scenarios for the company as well. Chris Metzen has been creative director of many of the enterprises of his company. He also has published an independent graphic novel.

In an interview with MTV Geek Chris Metzen comments upon his favorite mediums: "I’m a paper-and-pencil guy. I hate drawing on the computer. I used to enjoy using inks and colored pencils for my colored work, but pencil’s always been my favorite. I’m only missing the digital boat by about 17 years or so, so I still hold out hope..."

Here are some more examples of his art:

Yeah. I think they are cool too! Here are some examples of the video game versions of his characters:

Chris Metzen's work is awesome. It represents the inner nerd within us all; the nerd who got the break and capitalized that imagination into creating video-game characters. He creates alien, demonic, and fantastical creatures on paper and converts them to playable characters, NPCs, and bosses. 

With regards to Metzen's work, I think it's amazing. He puts a lot of attention into details within his graphite/paper works. He is a fantastic artist. Though he is not nearly as good at digital art as his co-worker artists he is still incredible. I admire him because he is an example of an artist who took his work and dreams past the studio and into the real world to make it come alive in a money-making way. The fact that he capitalized on both imagination, innovation, and made a bucket load of money is an inspiring success story. 

Here are his coworkers digital art. They are pretty cool too. I might need to do a blog post on both of them.

BUT I digress,

Just as an extra, I was experimenting with Metzen's style. Here are the results:

Regards,

Keely

Sources:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1068321/

http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2013/02/19/brushing-up-on-the-art-of-blizzard-with-chris-metzen-and-sam-didier/

www.wowwiki.com

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/File:Tassadar_SC1_CineDeathOvermind2.jpg

http://www.outofoursystem.com/2012/08/03/fantasy-artist-spotlight-chris-metzen/

http://www.deviantart.com/photography/journalism/?view_mode=2&order=9&q=videogames

http://www.taringa.net/posts/imagenes/13112813/Top-10---artistas-conceptuales-de-video-juegos.html

http://www.wikipedia.org (IMAGE)

Photoshopping Bad Pics

Experimenting With Ugly Photos! Here are the Results:

*note: It looks like one of those acrylic church postcards from Grandma, no?*