Before I Die

Summary:

The project created by Candy Chang stemmed from her own personal life experience of having lost a loved one and thinking about death a lot during that time. Realizing how important it is to not forget what goals you have for your self before you die Chang began her project. Many nearing death seem to regret that they didn’t get to accomplish life long goals and dreams. The project began as her own experiment in new orleans with certification of approval. The process included putting up boards on an old abandoned building , painting them black and paint stencils in vertical rows of the the open ended sentence “Before i die_________.”

Response:

This project brings deep connections betweeen members of a community. During Art Beat last year in the spring Columbus Ga also had its own Before I DIe walls. Speaking from experience as a participant in the work, i felt very aware of my goals and of my friends and of others in my community whom i most likely did not know.

Question:

Have you had the Before I Die walls in your city? What was your experience with them?

Or have you been able to participate in a similar type of project, what did you take from it?

We Think Alone

Miranda July Interview: ‘We Think Alone’ Delivers Intimate Emails To Your Inbox (INTERVIEW)

 

Summary:

Miranda July is a filmmaker, Performance artist, and writer who created a participatory work called We Think Alone. The project requirements focused on getting a diverse  group of people friends or famous  acquaintances the artist wanted to get to know better, to submit old emails under certain genres given by the artist over time. The process revealed  private messages to the public. Submissions were edited by the submitters keeping privacy part of the work, this caused the idea of self portraiture through the emails to be clearer.

Response:

I believe that the process of getting people to reveal private sides of them selves through old emails was very interesting, even though submissions can be edited before had it still says something about the person about there personality being more reserved. Giving the audience genres on what subject matter to submit made it easier to feel free to participate. If left to just submit general emails the effect might not of been the same.  each submission became a self portrait of the person giving off different types of impressions to the viewers.

 

Question:

Would you easily participate in such an activity?

 

Interactive and Participatory Art

Summary:

In the article Interactive and Participatory art written by Meg Floryan it explains how over time the relation ship between the viewer and the art or even artist has evolved. Many works have always involved a participatory element in the experience of analyzing the work, but now work involve more than just the mental stimulus of the viewers. In a piece done by  Marina Abramovic’s Just-Closed retrospective at MoMA. The work of art is the experience between the voluntary viewer who sits cross from the artist. these are works where the concept is the art and can only exist with the participation of the audience.  The evolution of the genre of art goes hand in hand with how the article says this generation is “plugged in” and “expects instant gratification”.

Response:

I do believe that because technology has evolved, Participation in art has also evolved. when you look back to earlier times more art was to tell history and show status. then grew to contemplate the emotion is created. Work was always about the subject whether it be an idea emotion or event the artist wished to convey with a boundary between the art/artist and its audience, but now the work can be about the interactive experience and emotion between artist/ art and its audience. Kinda of how we can now interact with people across the globe through our online networks, there are no boundaries to keeping in touch with friends or relatives that live far away.

Question:

Do you like art that lets you become part of the work or prefer to only view the work and not be connected to it?

Postdigital & Postmedia what do they mean?

Summery:

Wikipedia defines Post digital as the result of our rapidly changed and changing relationships with new technology, where the attitude is focused towards the human experience  by using digital technology to communicate with the audience in a high tech approach. The art is created for  interaction, also using collaboration.  Reaching to the level of art in science, technology, and human consciousness.

In the article The Post media Perspective, Domenico Quaranta describes his book:

“Postmedia art is the art that comes after the affirmation of the media; and given that the impact of the media is universal and computers can now simulate all other media, all contemporary art is postmedia”……. “There is no longer any painting outside and beyond the media experience. There is no longer any sculpture outside and beyond the media experience. There is no longer any photography outside and beyond the media experience.”

Response:

Post digital in my understanding is the result of having become fully immersed into a world of ever growing technology and focusing on how to bridge the technology twith And Postmedia is art work created after having experienced art that was made using new media. but the terms New Media Art and Postmedia still confuse me a bit, which explains why Quaranta says the terms still need to be identified.

William Kentridge an Example of Reverse Remediation

Summary:

Remediation was a term written about by Jay Bolter & Richard to define how one media can influence another, changing its identity. Remediation is not only the refashioning of older media by newer media, but can also be the reverse were the old can influence the new. One good example is work done by William Kentridge  whose work in animated films. Kentridge’s work is a process of drawing and erasing on a single sheet of paper while photographing his progress to create a stop motion film. He use’s charcoal, an old drawing medium, giving a new look to animation in his process.

 

Response:

Remediation was an unfamiliar term to a some what familiar process that appears in the studios of fellow art students or in visiting artist exhibitions over the years. Kentridge was one of the artists brought up as an example for a Narrative Illustration class i took a while back, but just as it did, when i first encountered the process of remediation or reverse remediation, it is still quite fascinating. There is definitely more to explore when the doors of remediation are open.

Question:

Is Remediation in art something you would choose to explore outside of a course project?

Convergence Culture

link to reading: http://digitalmediaconcepts.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/jenkins_introduction.pdf

Summary:

Convergence Culture, -where old media collides with new media, a book written by  H. Jenkins. This book is about the relationship between 3 concepts: media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence. One example Jenkin gives of this occurring is the story about a high school student that circulated in the fall of 2001. Dino Ignacio had created a Photoshop collage of Sesame Street’s Bert interacting with terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden as part of a series of “Bert Is Evil” images he posted on his homepage for laughs. Not long after Bangladesh-based publisher had scanned the Web for Bin Laden images to print on anti-American signs, posters, and T-shirts and used Ignacio’s collage. From his bedroom, Ignacio sparked an international controversy. Jenkins’s other example focused on technology, cell phones these days have multiple purposes function devices. Companies no longer make single function phones, meaning we can’t exactly go back to lower tech or in Ignacio’s case you can’t undo the media convergence that occurred with his image you can only let it pass and move forward.

Response:

I believe that  convergence is very convenient and useful for work, school, or leisure i can keep up to date on what i need to know to not be behind. Emails can be sent and viewed from my phone and apps allow me to work on projects on the go if i must. a phone can be a scientific calculator a game boy and be used by small businesses as a register.  But if one is not wise with their online identity like in Ignacio’s case there can be negative results.

My questions to you:

Do you like the way devices have multi purpose, or is it a negative experience?

Are you careful about what you create and upload?

have you ever experienced or witnessed [on any scale] a similar case to Ignacio’s story?

How to E-mail Your Professor

http://web.wellesley.edu/SocialComputing/Netiquette/netiquetteprofessor.html 

In the article link above “How to E-mail Your Professor” by Wini Wood, discusses the formalities students should use when writing e-mails to their professors. From the results in the Wellesley College Project on Social Computing, the article lists important to-dos and what to avoid when writing an e-mail. Many college students do not know how and where to begin when e-mailing to their professors.  Writing in a formal manner cannot go wrong. When addressing a professor by e-mail it should be approached like a business letter. So it is important to address their name as well as the content respectfully and appropriately.  Which means avoid using smileys, informal greetings such as hi/hey. Always proofread and address the topic in the subject bar. This author stands to point out that it is important to be serious with e-mails compared to the everyday instant or text message where basic formality and grammar is usually not used.

Reading the article above and having discussed it in class with peers, I realized that while I see starting in a formal “Dear, Prof. Such and such” e-mailing dialogue as common, others do not go as formal. Or do not know if it would be appropriate to do under certain circumstances. Circumstances like what if the Boss you are e-mailing is not e-mail literate? Is it proper to show your own level of literacy or write as they write?  I found the article to be very helpful to students whom have had no experience in the ways of e-mailing.

Now is the time when older generations are finding it hard to understand what of the newer generations are doing on the computer. Newer merchandise is always coming out allowing multiple functions on a single device. I found it interesting to have my mother about check-ins on Facebook, “Is Facebook following where people go and posts it?” I reassured her that checkins are done by choice from the person’s phone app. They just turn on their GPS/Wifi to look up the location and post it “people want you to know where they are, to show you what they like and enjoy” which was not so much the case in older generations after discussing with my peers. The world was more private which gave me more understanding to her concern.