Final

For this final performance art piece, I knew I wanted to do something that represented me. Swimming has always been a part of my life. I was on the swim team for 12 years, have taught swim lessons since 2010 and been a coach since 2013. I didn't know if this was considered performance art, but it is to me.

Minecraft

Minecraft has been a very popular game for years now for a large range of ages. It's simple enough to where kids can grasp and play it, and it's more complex aspects allow for people with too much free time to create elaborate and massive to scale works of art. I've seen everything from complete replicas of towns from Skyrim and World of Warcraft to modern cities like Tokyo and LA. It's such a simple game design, but people get sucked in to it for hours. Now I don't have the patience for these types of games, but I admire the people who create these masterpieces. And considering it's creator Notch had issued a statement to fans explaining the decision to sell his studio to Microsoft back in 2014 FOR 2.5 BILLION, I'd say Minecraft is here to stay. 

Bored Panda

Craig Allan creates unique portraits of pop-culture icons using people as pixels to create portraits. Some of his famous pieces are of Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy and the Statue of Liberty, but probably the coolest oneI see is the portrait of Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast At Tiffany’s.
From the site: "Craig’s earliest experimentation took the form of street portraiture, an endeavor that helped him perfect his flair for replicating the human figure and afforded the budding artist a sense of economic autonomy."
I enjoy art from people who look at life from a different point of view, which this definitely is. Anyone can paint a portrait, but it takes a lot of preparation and effort to create something this detailed of that scale. He took something as modern as pixels and made them organic as the medium and the subject. 

 

Tech+Music

The 5 music videos in this link are probably the most advanced and creative music videos I've ever seen. They aren't creative in the Lady Gaga or Bjork kind of way, but more so in the future. They use incredible technology, and even something as simple as HTML 5 to create a music video that whoever is watching it will be amazed and mesmerized. This is the future of music. 
Videos

LED

I think in the past couple years LED lights have grown more popular, and are being used for more than just Christmas lights and household bulbs. They're being used for art, and even clothing, which was difficult to do pre LED. Yes fiber optics were around, but they were expensive and limited. LEDS open the doors for light artists to expand in color and versatility. 

"Handbags that display tweets. Bracelets that charge your phone. Bangles that light up when you get a phone call. Tech and fashion are teaming up to make wearables more wearable."

LED Clothing
Technology and the fashion world are beginning to merge and the results are amazing, I can't wait till all of this stuff is affordable and we can start "looking" like the future. 
Wearable Technology

Gorillaz

We talked quite a bit in class about Miku Hatsune and her virtual vocals and persona, but we forgot to mention the Gorillaz, who have been doing it for much longer than the Japanese. Gorillaz are an English virtual band created in 1998 by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. The band consists of four animated members: 2D, Murdoc Niccals, Noodle and Russel Hobbs, all who have a simian/human appearance. Feel good inc. was their first and very revolutionary single and album. I remember when it got to the radio, people loved the song and the music video, but we weren't aware that the members would never be seen in person. I think this threw people off, I think they were ahead of their time. If they tried to make a comeback now, they would be much more widely received as we burst into the digital future. 

Warcraft

The world of Warcraft universe has grown immensely from a simple RTS game in 1994 to a now fully realized full length movie. The aspect I want to talk about today is the art development. In an age of super realism and immersive world game realm, world of Warcraft has stood as a staple and grandfather to modern RPG's and MMO's. Blizzard has done a great job at modernizing and updating it's games for two decades. Now all the people that have played their games for so long are very excited to see what this movie will be like. Just from the trailer I'm ready to go see it just for the cgi quality. It seems like they put a lot of time and effort into it and it will be interesting to see years of ideas come to fruition. 

2016

 1994

Making something out of nothing

We've all made art out of cardboard pieces at some point in our life, but it was probably in elementary school and it probably just looked like a heap of poo. But what this crew has done to some simple pieces of cardboard is magic. This is such a cool new idea this guy had, to make all those different items out of something we just normally throw away as a society. To make something as cool as a guitar that Fender can claim as authentic and original is amazing. This is low technology material but high in detail and musicality. Talk about reduce reuse and recycle! He could make a whole company from this idea and create amazing consumer items basically from trash! 

Somerset

Upon visiting the Somerset UK site, I found that there is an exhibition in Barcelona called Big Bang Data. It explores the world of multimedia and the web, where artists take on the challenge of creating art out of this. 
I think this installation is a very futuristic and foward thinking way of creating art. We make all this data all the time without knowing it, and these digital artists have found a way to make it beautiful and artistic.
"Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. Explore how the datafied world affects us all through the work of artists, designers, innovators and thinkers." 

Projection Mapping

I think projection mapping is a revolutionary idea added to the art world. There are thousands of possibilities with what to do. This one I found from http://www.drawlight.net/projection-mapping-eng/ is in expo Milan, and immerses the viewer into a completely underwater world to create a 360° immersive projection aiming to simulate a slow descent into the abysses. It comes alive every fifteen minutes with an amazing and unique show dedicate to the sea and its depths. It's one of the most beautiful things I've seen.

Temple

I love movies, especially sci fi and fantasy. I look all the time for new trailers and teasers of upcoming movies, which is how I found this little gem. We watched blade runner in class, and this seems like a similar setting and time period. Just from the little snippet we get from the teaser, I see a decent amount of cool and new technology that is suggested to be in the near future. I think it's movies like this that give tech companies and visionaries the ideas to move forward with some of the technology they see. I will definitely be seeing this movie 

Edit: found out this already released so am now going to watch

James Jean

I stumbled across this artist while browsing, and I'm already impressed and mesmerized.
 http://hypebeast.com/2015/12/james-jean-apple-pencil-art
I'm always amazed at these types of artist who can just create art out of thin air. I love his style and color usage. To make a digital image look like a colored pencil drawing is just beyond talented in my opinion. Sooner or later digital art is going to take over and become the most widely utilized form and media. Eventually paint will become obsolete. 

FFVII

Square Enix is coming out with a remake of one of the best video games of all time: Final Fantasy 7.
They released the teaser earlier this year at E3, the biggest conference for video game announcements. Now why remake it you ask? Well it was one of the highest grossing games of the 90's and has one of the largest followings of any franchise in the gaming world. Final fantasy is an immersive, ever changing world that at that back in the day was a huge leap towards the future of gaming. It was originally released in 1997 and quickly became a consumer favorite. Now I was only 2 at that time but around 2003 when I got a PlayStation 2, I came across Final Fantasy 10. That is my favorite game of all time, so now that I've heard how in the gaming community there is such an excitement for the 7 remake that I may just have to see what all the hubbub is about. It's amazing to see how far game and programming engines have come since 1997. The first vid is the remake trailer, the 2nd is the original version.

Speedy Graphito

I clicked on this in the syllabus honestly because it had a funny name. But I should have guessed it was all graffiti art. I think this as a style or respectable art form has grown greatly in a short amount of time. Pre 2000 it was seen as vandalism and tasteless. But now people are creating whole art shows out of graffiti that can really be quite beautiful. Yes they're still being strewn about on buildings all over the world, but now the public is giving notoriety and fame to some of these artists. I enjoyed looking through this site at the different styles and uniqueness of the pieces. I'll put below some of my favorites.

Media art

I decided to share my favorite and least favorite installations from this http://www.mediaartdesign.net, just simply because there were too many to talk about individually.

Favorites:

Ones I think are not so good:

Crystal Universe

I came across this link while browsing Facebook, and I thought it would be perfect to share.
This is an art installation in Tokyo, that when you walk through, makes you feel like you're in an endless room. You personally can change the way the lights move and their color. They can even take the shape of different galaxies. "It’s like Aristotle’s theory of causation meets TeamLab’s manipulation of digital lighting."

Biotech

I found this interesting article via my Facebook feed, and was surprised/interested since we had just recently frequently discuss this topic in class.

http://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/biohackers-insert-glowing-leds-their-hands

I don't think I would want to be the first testers of this technology, as there are a lot of things that can go wrong. I'll wait 30 years and see what comes about then, before I decide if I want to be a cyborg.
It's still interesting to see that this is already becoming reality, which is why I was so surprised when I saw this in my feed. This leads the way for medical implants that can detect, it leads the way for cosmetic tech and things I can't even imagine.

These are definitely brave people to get this brand new surgery, let alone one performed by a tattoo artist! Who knows what the future brings in this field.

Dawn of the Mac

1984: The Apple Macintosh personal computer is introduced to the world.

Wozniak priced the computer at $666.66, because he liked repeating digits. This price actually surprised me, as the first ever personal computer by IBM was $1,565. That doesn't sound like a lot, but today that would be about 5,000. It was clunky, slow, and could only do basic commands. 

Today for significantly less, you can get a computer a fouth of the zize, with 1000x the capability and possibilies. Laptops now are so powerful they have screens as good if not better than TV's, and can play games at the highest graphic quality and speed. 

I remember the earliest computer games I played was in the late 90's, they were pixilated and simple but they were the most fun I had. I would fake sick just so I could go to work with my mom and play on her extra computer because it was better than the one at home. 
One of my favorites was Zoo tycoon, and a Land Before Time game. There was little content and were learning games, but zoo tycoon was the first customization game I played and it amazed me. From there I played multiple generations of Sims, and whatever the library had that looked interesting.

Now, I look to play the latest games from Steam that have he best graphics and story. A lot of games now have over 300 hours of game play like Skyrim and Fallout, which is an enormous advance in such a small amount of time. 

One of my recent favorites is the newer assassins creed games - Syndicate and Unity. They're both incredible in the graphics department, each having a to scale city- London and France respectively. They're extremely accurate and realistic and playing it really brings you back in time, and can explore parts of the city that still exist today, that you would definitely not be able to explore. I can climb to the top of Notre Dame and Big Ben, run over the roofs of the suburbs and go into the London Dungeons. Developers these days are pulling out all the stops to amaze players.

Just because, here's a side by side of the first game I can remember playing and a new favorite: Land Before Time (1997) and Assassins Creed: Unity (2014)                                        

Art in the News

My art in the news was finding a a dance art installation created with the Kinect movement tracker addon for Xbox. They created point movement lines from points on the body to create a person out of lines on he screen that moved the same as the person in front of the kinect.
   

An experimental project using Kinect sensors to motion capture a choreographed dance piece sends the resulting point cloud data dancing into life.
as·phyx·i·a is a collaborative effort and experimental film created by Maria Takeuchi with Frederico Phillips, and performed by Shiho Tanaka.

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/motion-graphics/watch-stunning-motion-captured-dance-art-of-asphyxi/

This could lead the way for new ways to create video games, art etc. 

Flip book

I split my flip book in to two separate stories. However since it is on a paperback book and not the specific type used for a project like this, it does not flip properly so it is impossible to see the story develop.
The first is about a little creature that emerges from a maze, discovers a flower that opens to grant him a wish- in this case wings. He flies up and up over the clouds, draws back his bow to shoot his arrow, which eventually loges itself in the throat of a giant snake, who's tail ends in the the mouth of a cave.
The second starts with a house rising up with balloons attached to it, very high. The door opens to reveal a bird who jumps out of the house head first, then proceeds over a lot of pages to dive, ending up neatly splashing into a lake. This was cleverly named: Swan dive.

https://youtu.be/CpswlQqL7_o

I've included a few pictures just to give you a sense of the story, since the video is hard to see.

1982

               I titled this blog 1982 instead of something more specific to the movie because I think there were a lot of ideas and speculations within the plot and details of the movie that were more of a generational ideology from the culture of the decade.  

            Personal feelings about the movie quality aside there were many forward and futuristic thoughts that went into it's development. Lots were inaccurate, some are already established now and some could be developed in the near future.

One large inaccuracy is the development and society description of LA. In the movie it's heavily Asian influenced, with culture and language alike. It is also dirty, dark, industrial and crime ridden, which is very different from the sunny artistic California hub we know today. Buildings are triple the height and the city itself if quadruple the size of LA today. Lots of the city seems like slums, and there is one corporate building to rule them all. In the 80's pollution was becoming a well known and wide spread problem, and I think that emphasis is in the movie as well, with the large nuclear towers in the beginning.

                                                         
Another mistake was the technology they proposed would be in 2019. Some was correct, like the eye "exam" test they had for the robots, which could be described similarly to retinal exams of today. Video chat is also correct, but it's even better now than they could even do with movie magic in the 80's. They also had videos and adds on the buildings, which is all over the place today from time square to art installations and concerts.

There are also major wrong hits with technology like hover cars and fully working humanoid androids, with feelings and judgement that could be mistaken for a human. We also aren't fighting off world and needing robots to fight for us for the expansion of earth. We also don't need a ship to take excess humans to these colonies.
        So obviously the developers and directors of this movie were going for a dystopian society focusing on overpopulation, pollution, and the abuse of technology gone awry. 
        The movie as a whole was not my favorite, the story itself and characters could have been developed better, but it was an interesting watch to see the guessing of forward thinkers from 34 years ago. 

        

3D

I came across this link while browsing Facebook, and I thought it would be interesting enough to share. We talk about 3D printing a lot in class so when I saw all the possibilities that it could accomplish I was astounded.

http://www.dorkly.com/post/71480/the-top-20-times-3d-printers-were-awesome#item-1

Normally this is a website who does jokes and video game memes, so I thought it was pretty cool that they had a slide show like this.

I think the last one was my favorite, or the rubber dress. Think of how many people that could help in under developed countries. I enjoy fashion AND technology so I looked more into this. If I had any skill with a 3d printer and the human form when it comes to clothing, I would definitely become a 3D  printing fashion designer.

http://www.irisvanherpen.com/womenswear    This designer has broken ground into the industry already. This is the clothing of the future, this is what I picture when I think of futuristic society fashion.

Here are some of my favorites from multiple designers:

http://fashionista.com/2015/07/3-d-printed-fashion-collection

Lattice

Grids are all over the world. Even in places we wouldn't expect. I wanted to create an inorganic looking, stiff, geometrical grid out of something that is very pliable and organic. I wanted to use different colored metallic wire originally, however I was unaware at how expensive that would be. So I went with twine, that varied in blue hues from dark to light. I also wanted to create a sort of optical illusion with how many lines I made. To do this I thought of using different shapes, as well as angles that normally aren't seen in a grid, as they are usually horizontal and vertical lines. I started with the largest outer square, then the triangle, and lastly the small light blue square in the center. Then at 1" intervals I weaved diagonally. Last I made a big X going through the center of the largest square. Doing all these created an eye catching geometric pattern that is aesthetically pleasing. It may be hard to see in the picture but I put it at an angle to where the lighting creates a second shadow, making it seem like there are more lines, which creates the optical illusion I wanted. This project taught us to look at the world through a different eye than what we're used to.

Art Show

This was my favorite piece at the show. I liked the texture it shows, and when you get close to it, you can see it almost looks like wax. The colors show fun to me, that the artist really enjoyed making this. I like also that they used organic and geometric combination but still managed to merge them successfully.

This second painting I enjoyed as well because of the illusions that the artist decided to scatter throughout the forefront and background of the piece. I like that there is a lot to look at, even though there is clearly a central item of focus. I also like the super graphic nature of it, the skull is very stylized which I like because it shoes the personal aesthetic of the artist.

Photography

   Photography as a technology in my opinion is the quickest evolving, and most beautiful. It covers so many sections: Documentation, Advertisement, Discovery, Medicine, Anthropology, Entertainment, and probably a lot more I just can't think of.
It let the way to movies, magazines and more detailed newspapers.
Nowadays they are used for so much that we take advantage of it. It isn't a new and fascinating thing anymore, it's part of every day life. Instagram and Snapchat are 2 of the most popular social media outlets and they're both based solely on photography and short video clips.
Photography has helped with the discovery of how things move, and a 21st century adaptation of this just happens to be one of my youtube channels: The Slow Mo Guys. They take interesting or unknown items or motions and slow it down enough to see every little detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WKU7gG_ApU (start at 2:45)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OubvTOHWTms (start at 2:50)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs7x1Hu29Wc (2:40)

Operas

  Of all the opera links, I enjoyed The Magic Flute the most. We are a very visual generation and I think the colors and dancing and more "acting" that went on is what appealed to me. It seemed more of a play than an opera but that may be what is blurring the lines between operas and plays these days. I think producers of operas have this 21st century challenge of needing to stay relevant and keep the attention of a generation that in general can only keep their mind on something for like 30 minutes at a time before getting their attention taken from something else. Even now on YouTube, something that is a very current phenomenon has this same challenge. If someone watches a video it's rare that they get through the whole thing before they see something more interesting on the side bar and go to watch that.
    And with operas, with being in my opinion a dying art form, they have an even bigger predicament in this. They have to stay relevant and entertaining. The magic flute was the only "opera" that I watched the whole way through. The others I only watched 1-2 minutes of and I got the general idea. Magic flute had dancing and modern extravagant costumes and a more digitized background, which kept me wanting to watch it the whole way through, even though it was only 4 minutes long.
 

Madame Butterfly

Madame Butterfly was probably the strangest video I've ever seen...I understood some parts but was mostly saying "what the hell" (excuse my french) most of the time. I guessing this was some sort of love story that went horrible wrong? Apparently this sailor went around pretending to love all these women, spends a night with them to get them pregnant. He then goes back once the women once he thinks the babies are born and grown, then takes them for himself with his actual wife? Perhaps him and his wife couldn't have children of their own so this was the next best thing? This wouldn't've been as strange of a story if it weren't for some of the very very odd details. Not sure why the child had to stay attached to the umbilical chord...or why the mom had to be flung like a kite by it..or why she had to dismantle herself and then become a butterfly? Not sure if this is supposed to be some really messed up love cycle? The ONLY underlying life moral I could perhaps see from this is the cycle of abuse. Man pretends to love woman, turns out to have another life, woman becomes depressed but get's herself back out of it, then just finds another man and continues the same thing over again.

Regarding the Paradise cover, it seems to me that A Capella is becoming more popular with 1: the popularity of Pitch Perfect and 2: reality shows like The Sing Off. I am actually a big fan of one of the winners of that show, Pentatonix, who has also made A Capella popular. Even with the rise of technology for altering voices and sounds, there is still a market for very talented people, and I think the general public is really enjoying this, as sort of fresh air from the computer made sounds and voices of this century.
This is one of my favorite videos of theirs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPWPa-HMpj8

9/11

My memory of 9/11 is slightly vague but specific as well, no matter how odd that sounds. I remember being in my neighbors house, an old woman me and my nana would visit occasionally. At this time she still had her dog so I liked to go over and play with it. I remember nana came in to bring me home, I was sitting on the floor with her dog Honey. Then the news came on her old TV, with the images of the first tower smoking. Nana rushed me home and that's all I remember. I do remember having the 11 minutes of silence in school the next day. Everyone in the school stood out in the hallway. I didn't understand at the time why all the teachers were crying.

Early history of multimedia, VideoGames and Paris

  Like most Roman and Greek architecture, the Colosseum has the basic principles of Large scale, and for the public. Although we are baffled nowadays on how these huge structures came to be in relatively a short amount of time given their technology, it is still one of the grandest ancient structures today, in line with the pyramids. Like the Parthenon, the Colosseum of Rome had an immense amount of detail and consideration in it's placement and design. The Romans took a lot of pride in their architecture and art, and it shows. A lot of the realistic and ornate detail of the Roman empire's creations was lost after the beginning of the middle ages. It is astounding that these structures have stood the test of time and be in relatively good condition. I'm amazed on how much planning must have gone in to this arena of public spectacle. If it took them 10 years to build it, I wonder how long it took them to plan it out! From consideration to the statues in each of the arches, to the underground pulley system, it's amazing how the Romans of the first century did this with only a minimal amount of technology.

  Along these lines, lets talk about Notre Dame and the church of St. Ignatius in Rome. It seems to me that in painting, artist of the time really enjoyed the idea of making a structure or canvas larger than it seems. In St. Ignatius' church, we have a similar motif on the ceiling as the Sistine chapel, in where a large scene is depicted, but with an incredible amount of detail in making that space look infinite. My guess is that these churches didn't have the money or space to create monuments like the Notre Dame, so in order for it to look grander, they made the illusion of a bigger space instead.

   As for the Notre Dame, I don't believe there is a more incredible and more well preserved piece of architecture anywhere in Europe. I recently played a game called Assassins creed: Unity, in where you play in a to-scale replica of Paris during the 10 year period of the french revolution. Now it is an amazing game for several reasons, but my favorite is that every building is exactly how it is in real life. So in this game, I have had the opportunity to climb to the top of Notre Dame, simple district homes, other churches of the time, and see paris in the late 1700's. Every stone, every minaret and window is an exact replica. It's hard to explain so the link below is actual gameplay of the main character climbing to the top of this famous church.  In my eyes this is a perfect example of Art and Technology in play.

(if you skip to 1:00 that's where he starts to climb)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1KPOEtoISE

hw1

WWE wrestling is that of a spectacle, however I disagree with this article saying actual regulation is just a show and rigged as well. It takes a tremendous amount of strength physically and mentally to be a wrestler.

Technology is something very different from science my opinion. It requires a much different thinking pattern than that of science. They are in the same field yes but the ideas, principles and knowledge needed is very different. A biologist is not going to be able to build a computer from scratch an on the other side of that a programmer is not going to be able to identify the proboscis of a Platyhelminthes under a microscope. A lot of science fields deal with the natural world: Geography, biology, chemistry physics etc. Technology is basically the complete opposite as it deals with the enhancement and production of inanimate objects. The only connection I could see between the two is in art. There are ways to create amazing types of "art" in science as well as with technology.