game-like interactivity

as i was going through the first paper in the digital spaces section of our book, digital visual culture, i found the section on game-like interactivity in new media art to be of some interest. the first example the authors give in luc corchesne's portrait one (1990). portrait one is  essentially a "static" portrait of a woman who remains motionless and speechless until she is "activated" when a user moves the mouse. once the mouse is moved, a menu appears giving you a menu of options to communicate with the woman. 

this type of interactivity has always been intriguing to me. the ability to communicate with a computer and have them understand you. obviously, we do it on a day to day basis with computers, it's just when the computer is given human characteristics, it is exciting and somewhat terrifying. on a larger scale, we see this kind of thing in movies all the time and most recently, david, in the film prometheus. it really makes me wonder if humanity will ever reach that point with computers and what sort of advances that would really create.

since portrait one is unavailable to try, i did find a bot modeled after captain kirk from star trek. i played around with it a little while, which was fun, but i had the most laughs watching this video:

you can try it out here.

jochem hendricks

amidst the many artists we're reading about in our digital art book, one of the most intriguing pieces in chapter one was jochem hendricks "eye drawings". in the above photo, you can see the device hendricks uses to scan the movement of the human eye across the page. he then takes the path that the eye creates, digitizes it and then is able to print it out. 

a very interesting concept. i thought it might be interesting to see a comparison between two different people who read over the same page. just to see the differences and similarites. i think a lot could be revealed about personalities in that sense. 

go here to check out his website and other works.

emilio gomariz

i stumbled across this artist's videos and found his website. here's a video and tidbit from his website:

"Emilio Gomariz explores a large area into the digital field. He uses the computer to create imaginary environments and sculptures, which most often are exported and published online as a GIF. Inspired by computer's interface, Emilio works on desktop performances, creating different kind of manifestations by the use of Mac OS X."

comic relief

sometimes i feel like this when i'm talking about art, or when i'm listening to someone talk about art. i've been on both sides of this conversation, mind you. 

digital self portrait

when given the objective to create a digital self portrait of myself, initially i had no clear idea of what sort of narrative i wanted to develop. obviously, i wanted to make something that would represent myself and my interests. i also knew i didn't want to make a self portrait in the literal sense, rather to lean more towards the experimental. as i began browsing through my photos, i happened upon this old rodeo photo from the 70's of my father and my grandfather. my father is on the bronc and my grandfather is on the right side of the photo. i've always liked this photo and the historical narrative it tells, especially since i am close with my father, but never had the opportunity to really know my grandfather before he died. keeping that in mind, i thought of pasting my face onto each face of the crowd. i thought this would add to the historical narrative, connecting present and past in a sort of intertwined and contorted way. it presents myself (many times over) and what is important to me — my family and their history. i've always wondered what it would be like to meet my family members in different periods of their lives, to see what they were like, if our personalities were similar, etc. that was sort of my driving force behind this project. 

dan deacon app

i just came across this article about dan deacon creating an app that allows fans to participate in his performances. pretty rad idea, and definitely falls under the umbrella of postmodernist art.

watch the trailer:

on post modernism, briefly.

in preparation for our discourse on modernism and postmodernism, i've been doing a bit of research outside of the wikipedia article. firstly, i wanted to gain a better understanding of the term "postmodernism" in relation to art. the wiki article described it as, "a body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath." since i found that definition to be kind of boring, i located another one that offered more insight into the movement: "A late 20th Century style and conceptual theory in the arts and architecture, characterized by a general distrust of ideologies as well as a rather 'difficult' relationship with what constitutes art." this 2nd definition really gave me a better understanding into what is the driving force behind postmodernism, as opposed to just knowing that it "developed" in modernism's aftermath (already quite obvious from reading the titles). it seems that where skill once championed over creativity (modernism), the opposite is now true for postmodernism. 

however well our discussion goes on tuesday, i doubt that one movement will be proven superior over the other. it's all a matter of opinion.