The Red Project
The Red Project refers to the practice of “redlining” which was once a common practice where mortgage companies would refuse to invest in certain sections considered to be poor, mostly of minority based populations. This created segregation in the US for many years, and was deemed to be “good business”
This project, with its red design for the areas of wireless access, resonates this idea. The interesting thing about this project is the interactive embedded map in which the viewer can look up any area in the world as see the amount of WiFi networks (I have it set right now on Milwaukee). I was disappointed, however, to read that this is not an accurate rendering of WiFi networks but only a estimation (a very well researched one, however, as a team of students traveled around for almost a year collected data from various places).
I don’t know yet what to make of this project in the Milwaukee area. I’m looking at the map right now, seeing the vast amounts of red all throughout the city, not really knowing what to make of the information. I guess this isn’t really my field – geography and cartography and anthropology, so the actual information does not really interest or make sense to me. But the concept is interesting, and I think this is information that should be documented and researched by someone more interested in this field than I am. These artists are pioneers, being the first to create a map like this. Hopefully there will be more to come, and more people to interpret this data.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Deliberative Democracy and Difference
Deliberative Democracy and Difference
This project, I feel, doesn’t really fit in or belong in this site. Not that I think that it is poorly made or didn’t like the project. On the contrary – I think this is brilliantly created and very easy to use and helpful. What has been created with this project is a brilliant way to navigate text on the web very easily (much easier than most HTML webpages). I truly love this project and how they created everything very easy to read and navigate.
I do not agree with the Designer’s Statement (Alessandro Ceglia) when he refers to the project as a “relatively sophisticated system of interaction,” however. I do not believe this project is any more interactive then a book is. The ability to click on a link does not make something “interactive.” In the case of this project, it makes it convenient. Instead of having to turn the page of a book to a certain chapter or look up a reference inside the text is very convenient, and I believe this project is very well structured. But interactivity must engage the viewer in the medium. The project, on the other hand, gives the viewer less of a sense of the medium in its ability to navigate so easily.
In the Designer’s Statement, he also talks about how the project is loosely based on “Dungeons and Dragons,” and refers to the project as a “simulation.” Though I am not a huge fan of Dungeons and Dragons, I do not see the similarity, or how this project could be described as a “simulation.” I feel the designer has tried to make this project more than it is – which is a brilliantly easy way to navigate text – in his attempt to simplify it as well as to make it like a “choose your own adventure style simulation.”
I’m not discussing the text in this project for the fact that it has nothing to do with media of any kind – and is really about the philosophy of democracy – as interesting as that is. Fascinating article that I suggest reading. I do believe that the way it is presented is great. The design definitely compliments the article, and I’m glad the designer did not go through lengths to make the piece “interactive,” though I wish he would not have presented it like such, because it is not. Reading and navigation through the piece in this format rather than through adobe reader or a tradition webpage was much easier and more enjoyable, but as the liquid crystals in my flat-screen monitor strain my eyes, I would still rather read this article in a book than the way it is presented. But fascinating article and fascinating design. I plan on reading more of this 45 page masterpiece when it is not so near the end of the semester.
This project, I feel, doesn’t really fit in or belong in this site. Not that I think that it is poorly made or didn’t like the project. On the contrary – I think this is brilliantly created and very easy to use and helpful. What has been created with this project is a brilliant way to navigate text on the web very easily (much easier than most HTML webpages). I truly love this project and how they created everything very easy to read and navigate.
I do not agree with the Designer’s Statement (Alessandro Ceglia) when he refers to the project as a “relatively sophisticated system of interaction,” however. I do not believe this project is any more interactive then a book is. The ability to click on a link does not make something “interactive.” In the case of this project, it makes it convenient. Instead of having to turn the page of a book to a certain chapter or look up a reference inside the text is very convenient, and I believe this project is very well structured. But interactivity must engage the viewer in the medium. The project, on the other hand, gives the viewer less of a sense of the medium in its ability to navigate so easily.
In the Designer’s Statement, he also talks about how the project is loosely based on “Dungeons and Dragons,” and refers to the project as a “simulation.” Though I am not a huge fan of Dungeons and Dragons, I do not see the similarity, or how this project could be described as a “simulation.” I feel the designer has tried to make this project more than it is – which is a brilliantly easy way to navigate text – in his attempt to simplify it as well as to make it like a “choose your own adventure style simulation.”
I’m not discussing the text in this project for the fact that it has nothing to do with media of any kind – and is really about the philosophy of democracy – as interesting as that is. Fascinating article that I suggest reading. I do believe that the way it is presented is great. The design definitely compliments the article, and I’m glad the designer did not go through lengths to make the piece “interactive,” though I wish he would not have presented it like such, because it is not. Reading and navigation through the piece in this format rather than through adobe reader or a tradition webpage was much easier and more enjoyable, but as the liquid crystals in my flat-screen monitor strain my eyes, I would still rather read this article in a book than the way it is presented. But fascinating article and fascinating design. I plan on reading more of this 45 page masterpiece when it is not so near the end of the semester.
Journal Responses
Just as a disclaimer of sorts, because of the comments of my journal responses from the last session I will go less into a summary of the journal and dive more into my reaction and bias and opinion of the journal. This said, I will be assuming that the reader of this blog is viewing the projects I am writing about, or at least has viewed it, so as to know what I am talking about.
Break in the Chain of Light
I went to the Experimental Tuesday of December 2nd, 2008. I will be commenting on all the showings briefly, then go more in depth into two of the showings.
The first show was Three Hours, Fifteen Minutes Before the Hurricane Struck, a silent 35mm film with still images and text. The next was Elements of Nothing, a 35mm film of assembled layers of imagery with very music over it (piano, bells, and other like instruments), captivating the audience with its imagery. Third was The Breath, a silent film of various shots of bamboo plants. Fourth was Brilliant Noise, a 16mm film that mixes NASA footage mixed with ambient sound (if you can call it “ambient”). Fifth was Observando el Cielo, which mixes seven years of field recordings of the sky with various sounds. Sixth was What the Water Said 4-6, which we saw in class.
Brilliant Noise was my favorite of the films we saw. The sound, as I said before, could be described as “ambient,” although that description falls sadly short from what it actually sounded like (though, like most ambient sounds, it is hard to describe the actual sound in much more specific terms). The sounds of the film I would describe as the sounds of the sun, if the sun did in fact have a “sound.” The film was very grainy and, exposing energetic particles and solar wind, which appeared as white noise on the screen. Interestingly enough, this footage was unaltered in this aspect, exposing what images look like before cleaned up by NASA. The sound fit the white noise-graininess of the film, using a lot of the same kind of sounds that would come from a television set that was not getting reception very well.
The sounds of this film had a lot of the same raw aesthetic feel to them as Aaron Ximm’s did when he presented his sounds in class. Glenn, though not really specifically addressing the issue of authenticity, is very important to him. The sound in this film could definitely be described as authentic, though it also has the feel of distortion to it. I think its very interesting that author of this piece chose to call it “Brilliant Noise.” The program for this showing says that the soundtrack was created by “directly translating the intensity of the brightness into audio manipulation.” It’s not completely clear to me what that means (or how you directly transfer brightness into sound), but the concept is very interesting. Obviously, sound is not an afterthought in this piece but is truly one with the images of the piece as the author goes through lengths to try to create sounds of the sun.
Three Hours, Fifteen Minutes Before the Hurricane Struck was a silent film. This film, and other silent films during this showing, reminded me of John Cage’s 4’33” piece from 1952 (in which Cage wrote a piece which informed the musician to play nothing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds). What I realized while I watched these films in silence in the Union theatre is that there is never really true silence unless you plug your ears. The sounds of the fans in the room, the sounds of people shuffling in their seats, and the sounds of my own breathing were only amplified in this environment. It became the symphony of the piece. I became very aware of the sounds (and self conscious of my own as I watched) while this piece was being shown. Glenn Bach talked about this in his lecture (and in the readings posted), about how we go through life numb to many of the sounds we hear because we filter them out, and that is really the point of sound art and the concept behind what Aaron Ximm does. Sound artists are trying to get the rest of the world to realize the sounds around them that they have grown numb to, to focus on the everyday mundane noises and find beauty in them.
The first show was Three Hours, Fifteen Minutes Before the Hurricane Struck, a silent 35mm film with still images and text. The next was Elements of Nothing, a 35mm film of assembled layers of imagery with very music over it (piano, bells, and other like instruments), captivating the audience with its imagery. Third was The Breath, a silent film of various shots of bamboo plants. Fourth was Brilliant Noise, a 16mm film that mixes NASA footage mixed with ambient sound (if you can call it “ambient”). Fifth was Observando el Cielo, which mixes seven years of field recordings of the sky with various sounds. Sixth was What the Water Said 4-6, which we saw in class.
Brilliant Noise was my favorite of the films we saw. The sound, as I said before, could be described as “ambient,” although that description falls sadly short from what it actually sounded like (though, like most ambient sounds, it is hard to describe the actual sound in much more specific terms). The sounds of the film I would describe as the sounds of the sun, if the sun did in fact have a “sound.” The film was very grainy and, exposing energetic particles and solar wind, which appeared as white noise on the screen. Interestingly enough, this footage was unaltered in this aspect, exposing what images look like before cleaned up by NASA. The sound fit the white noise-graininess of the film, using a lot of the same kind of sounds that would come from a television set that was not getting reception very well.
The sounds of this film had a lot of the same raw aesthetic feel to them as Aaron Ximm’s did when he presented his sounds in class. Glenn, though not really specifically addressing the issue of authenticity, is very important to him. The sound in this film could definitely be described as authentic, though it also has the feel of distortion to it. I think its very interesting that author of this piece chose to call it “Brilliant Noise.” The program for this showing says that the soundtrack was created by “directly translating the intensity of the brightness into audio manipulation.” It’s not completely clear to me what that means (or how you directly transfer brightness into sound), but the concept is very interesting. Obviously, sound is not an afterthought in this piece but is truly one with the images of the piece as the author goes through lengths to try to create sounds of the sun.
Three Hours, Fifteen Minutes Before the Hurricane Struck was a silent film. This film, and other silent films during this showing, reminded me of John Cage’s 4’33” piece from 1952 (in which Cage wrote a piece which informed the musician to play nothing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds). What I realized while I watched these films in silence in the Union theatre is that there is never really true silence unless you plug your ears. The sounds of the fans in the room, the sounds of people shuffling in their seats, and the sounds of my own breathing were only amplified in this environment. It became the symphony of the piece. I became very aware of the sounds (and self conscious of my own as I watched) while this piece was being shown. Glenn Bach talked about this in his lecture (and in the readings posted), about how we go through life numb to many of the sounds we hear because we filter them out, and that is really the point of sound art and the concept behind what Aaron Ximm does. Sound artists are trying to get the rest of the world to realize the sounds around them that they have grown numb to, to focus on the everyday mundane noises and find beauty in them.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Killer Entertainments
Project: Killer Entertainments : By Jennifer Terry : Designed By Raegan Kelly
You can view Killer Entertainments Here
This project is composed of three different screens in which clips are played on. The viewer decides when to view these clips and if they want to view them or just skip to the next one. There are also a series of dots around the screen in which content is written about various topics related to the clips. At random while playing the clips they will stop and certain words will come up on the screen, sometimes leading to longer descriptions, and other times simply fading off the screen when your mouse scrolls over.
The whole project is about the war in Iraq, and the video clip are various clips taken by soldiers, mostly from hand held cameras taped to their helmets. The clips are mostly of different firefights, and there is a disclaimer as the viewer enters the site explaining that they are disturbing.
The aesthetics of the three video screens is very interesting. It gives the viewer the option to play more than one video at a time. It gives the viewer a sense of surveillance. The information around the screen can be read while watching the videos. It is a very interesting project that would take a lifetime to go through everything.
You can view Killer Entertainments Here
This project is composed of three different screens in which clips are played on. The viewer decides when to view these clips and if they want to view them or just skip to the next one. There are also a series of dots around the screen in which content is written about various topics related to the clips. At random while playing the clips they will stop and certain words will come up on the screen, sometimes leading to longer descriptions, and other times simply fading off the screen when your mouse scrolls over.
The whole project is about the war in Iraq, and the video clip are various clips taken by soldiers, mostly from hand held cameras taped to their helmets. The clips are mostly of different firefights, and there is a disclaimer as the viewer enters the site explaining that they are disturbing.
The aesthetics of the three video screens is very interesting. It gives the viewer the option to play more than one video at a time. It gives the viewer a sense of surveillance. The information around the screen can be read while watching the videos. It is a very interesting project that would take a lifetime to go through everything.
Act/REact Exhibit
Scott Snibbe’s Deep Walls (2003)
Camilla Utterback, Untitled 5 & 6 (2003)
Deep Walls is an interactive display that, at first glance, is 16 loops arranged in a grid, constantly playing. Once the viewer steps into a certain area, they find that one of the boxes in the grid is a video of themselves, doing whatever they are doing. Once they step out of the area, they find themselves as a constant loop on one of the 16 boxes.
While I was at the museum, I observed a couple for a while and their reaction to this. They were hesitant to even step in the frame at first, slowly testing out the grounds, not really fully understanding what was happening. When they realized how the apparatus worked, they started experimenting. One of them would walk into the frame and fall over once they hit the “edge” of the frame, as if it were a solid wall. They had a mock fist fight in one frame. And, my personal favorite, the guy grabs the girl and kisses her and, after about five seconds, the girl pushes him away and walks out of the frame.
What this array of loops soon became is an anonymous diary of this couples time in this museum, up for everyone who passed by it to see. This interactive piece differed greatly from Camille Utterback’s Untitled pieces. The Untitled pieces were like huge canves in which the viewer interacted with in many complex ways, creating a kind of “wake” that eventually made an image. After the viewer leaves, however, there is not much evidence of the viewer being there, as the pattern on the “canvas” is much too complex to understand. The artist, Utterback’s pieces, is more important and more evident than the viewer.
With Deep Walls, though, the viewer becomes more important than the original artist. Since the concept is a very simple concept, easy for anyone to understand quickly, the artist is forgotten quickly, as the people up on the screen are more important than the person who set up the display. The phenomenon I’m trying to get at is that the viewer’s become the artists. That is exactly what happened with the couple I was observing. They were attracted to this piece because the piece was not simply just reacting to them – they were creating the piece. More than just being fun, because everything the viewer does is recorded and looped forever, the viewer puts his or her own stamp on the piece.
Utterback’s Untitled pieces lack this recording aspect to them. They instead just react to the viewer. The viewer, however, is able to experiment much more with the media because of its extreme complexity. As I was playing with one of these pieces, I started noticing the subtleties of how certain movements I made destroyed certain aspects of the piece and how it, at the same time, created others. It gives the viewer the sense that they are “painting”, which is Camille’s intention behind these interactive pieces. I’m not sure how it gives this impression, but something about the background of the piece (or, I should say, the slow healing process) gives it a sense of brush strokes and paint. This piece, instead of being a diary, is more like a poem. A very complex poem that not even the poet understands (the poet being the viewer).
In connecting the arguments I gave to guest John McKinnon’s lecture on Monday, October 13th, he talked about a lot of the same aspects. He compared Utterback’s Untilted pieces to a painting that the viewer creates, and showed us an interview of Utterback in which she explained how she had to make the piece simple enough so that the user could easily understand that they were interacting with the media, and yet complex and subtle enough to interest the viewer for a long time. This is exactly what happened to me as I was interacting with the piece. I began trying to figure out how to manipulate the piece in certain ways and to see how it really functioned.
John McKinnon also talked about the Deep Walls piece, showing another video with a Scott Snibe voice over. Snibe described the viewer’s reaction to the piece, talking about how they were usually hesitant at first, not at first understanding how they interacted with the piece, until they discovered themselves in one of the boxes. Once they realized more about the piece, that it loops after the viewer steps out, the viewer becomes more comfortable with it and with the anonymity of the silhouettes. This is exactly what I observed with the couple at the museum.
In both these pieces, to different degrees, the viewer becomes the artist. This differs greatly from virtually every other form of media, in which there is a sharp distinction between the viewer and the artist. With these pieces, this line becomes more blurred. I think that is the purpose behind interactive artwork: to inspire. By making the viewer become a part of the work, and by making them, to some extent, the artists, these pieces inspire the viewer to create their own art.
Camilla Utterback, Untitled 5 & 6 (2003)
Deep Walls is an interactive display that, at first glance, is 16 loops arranged in a grid, constantly playing. Once the viewer steps into a certain area, they find that one of the boxes in the grid is a video of themselves, doing whatever they are doing. Once they step out of the area, they find themselves as a constant loop on one of the 16 boxes.
While I was at the museum, I observed a couple for a while and their reaction to this. They were hesitant to even step in the frame at first, slowly testing out the grounds, not really fully understanding what was happening. When they realized how the apparatus worked, they started experimenting. One of them would walk into the frame and fall over once they hit the “edge” of the frame, as if it were a solid wall. They had a mock fist fight in one frame. And, my personal favorite, the guy grabs the girl and kisses her and, after about five seconds, the girl pushes him away and walks out of the frame.
What this array of loops soon became is an anonymous diary of this couples time in this museum, up for everyone who passed by it to see. This interactive piece differed greatly from Camille Utterback’s Untitled pieces. The Untitled pieces were like huge canves in which the viewer interacted with in many complex ways, creating a kind of “wake” that eventually made an image. After the viewer leaves, however, there is not much evidence of the viewer being there, as the pattern on the “canvas” is much too complex to understand. The artist, Utterback’s pieces, is more important and more evident than the viewer.
With Deep Walls, though, the viewer becomes more important than the original artist. Since the concept is a very simple concept, easy for anyone to understand quickly, the artist is forgotten quickly, as the people up on the screen are more important than the person who set up the display. The phenomenon I’m trying to get at is that the viewer’s become the artists. That is exactly what happened with the couple I was observing. They were attracted to this piece because the piece was not simply just reacting to them – they were creating the piece. More than just being fun, because everything the viewer does is recorded and looped forever, the viewer puts his or her own stamp on the piece.
Utterback’s Untitled pieces lack this recording aspect to them. They instead just react to the viewer. The viewer, however, is able to experiment much more with the media because of its extreme complexity. As I was playing with one of these pieces, I started noticing the subtleties of how certain movements I made destroyed certain aspects of the piece and how it, at the same time, created others. It gives the viewer the sense that they are “painting”, which is Camille’s intention behind these interactive pieces. I’m not sure how it gives this impression, but something about the background of the piece (or, I should say, the slow healing process) gives it a sense of brush strokes and paint. This piece, instead of being a diary, is more like a poem. A very complex poem that not even the poet understands (the poet being the viewer).
In connecting the arguments I gave to guest John McKinnon’s lecture on Monday, October 13th, he talked about a lot of the same aspects. He compared Utterback’s Untilted pieces to a painting that the viewer creates, and showed us an interview of Utterback in which she explained how she had to make the piece simple enough so that the user could easily understand that they were interacting with the media, and yet complex and subtle enough to interest the viewer for a long time. This is exactly what happened to me as I was interacting with the piece. I began trying to figure out how to manipulate the piece in certain ways and to see how it really functioned.
John McKinnon also talked about the Deep Walls piece, showing another video with a Scott Snibe voice over. Snibe described the viewer’s reaction to the piece, talking about how they were usually hesitant at first, not at first understanding how they interacted with the piece, until they discovered themselves in one of the boxes. Once they realized more about the piece, that it loops after the viewer steps out, the viewer becomes more comfortable with it and with the anonymity of the silhouettes. This is exactly what I observed with the couple at the museum.
In both these pieces, to different degrees, the viewer becomes the artist. This differs greatly from virtually every other form of media, in which there is a sharp distinction between the viewer and the artist. With these pieces, this line becomes more blurred. I think that is the purpose behind interactive artwork: to inspire. By making the viewer become a part of the work, and by making them, to some extent, the artists, these pieces inspire the viewer to create their own art.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Blue Velvet Project
Instead of discussing “articles”, I am going to discuss “projects”, since that is what my journal is really about (refer to the previous post).
The Project I am Discussing is Blue Velvet, By David Theo Goldberg & Stefka Hristova -
Design by Erik Loyer
You can view Blue Velvet Here.
Blue Velvet is one of the projects in the Difference article of this journal. It is a flash animation that I feel is the best of all I’ve seen so far in this journal. It is about Hurricane Katrina and discusses in the introduction how it dives into the history of New Orleans, making the viewer aware that the disaster of Katrina was not just an act of nature but a complex web of political and social histories.
The actual project Blue Velvet captivates the viewer from the beginning with a well made static image of a cityscape, with a red button in the lower right corner with the word “begin.” Once you click it, text starts falling from the sky and going in and out of focus as it moves around the screen. There are very peaceful sounds of the ocean.
If you click on one of the words, everything changes. The word falls through the cityscape, turning it shades of gray instead of shades of blue and green, while the sound instantly changes to what sounds like an African drum circle. To explain everything else that happens in this complex transition would take a while, but basically the whole point of view of the screen lowers, so that the viewer feels that he is in the earth, and a short article is given relating loosely to the word that was originally clicked.
The evidence that this project points out refers mostly to how segregated New Orleans was before the hurricane and how this has come to be over the years. Because of this segregation, there was more hazards and less assistance or safety measures taken in the poorer areas like the 9th Ward.
The Project I am Discussing is Blue Velvet, By David Theo Goldberg & Stefka Hristova -
Design by Erik Loyer
You can view Blue Velvet Here.
Blue Velvet is one of the projects in the Difference article of this journal. It is a flash animation that I feel is the best of all I’ve seen so far in this journal. It is about Hurricane Katrina and discusses in the introduction how it dives into the history of New Orleans, making the viewer aware that the disaster of Katrina was not just an act of nature but a complex web of political and social histories.
The actual project Blue Velvet captivates the viewer from the beginning with a well made static image of a cityscape, with a red button in the lower right corner with the word “begin.” Once you click it, text starts falling from the sky and going in and out of focus as it moves around the screen. There are very peaceful sounds of the ocean.
If you click on one of the words, everything changes. The word falls through the cityscape, turning it shades of gray instead of shades of blue and green, while the sound instantly changes to what sounds like an African drum circle. To explain everything else that happens in this complex transition would take a while, but basically the whole point of view of the screen lowers, so that the viewer feels that he is in the earth, and a short article is given relating loosely to the word that was originally clicked.
The evidence that this project points out refers mostly to how segregated New Orleans was before the hurricane and how this has come to be over the years. Because of this segregation, there was more hazards and less assistance or safety measures taken in the poorer areas like the 9th Ward.
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