Artist Talk

CMunoz_Abstract

“Technology is bad, fire is scary, Thomas Edison was a witch.”

CMunoz – Artist Talk Notes

Michael Rees

A breath of fresh air after the previous speaker. Michael was such a charismatic speaker who I felt was very passionate about their work, and as such I was quite drawn in to his lecture. I enjoy how he’s actively branching out into newer forms of media, and being at the forefront as they come out, Augmented Reality being one example. I also enjoy how he invites other artists to use AR to makes works on his own works in the gallery space. That is a concept I have not seen previously.

Readings

Exhibitions, Institutions, etc.

After making our own fictional exhibitions, it was quite nice to see a list of various different exhibitions. However, I did not enjoy that each exhibition within the reading only had 1 image to show. Made reading that descriptions to these exhibitions not too friendly to reflect on or approachable.

Faiyaz Jafri

I take back my opinion on the previous lecture series, this artist not at all resonates with me. In fact, I actively abhor the motifs he employs in his works. I believe it is very lowbrow how he constantly refers to Disney properties and compares them to more “adult” themes like the events of 9/11; its concept is so over done that it gives the viewer very little to reflect upon, very little to think about. It’s not very profound, nor does it add to a conversation. Not to mention the quality of most of his work is crude, and displayed in an unironic manner, which can distract the viewer immensely.

Artist Talk: Preliminary Thoughts

Inspirations:

Melissa F. Clarke

Ice Gouge

Glass Menagerie

Sila

Concerns:

• Conservation
• Immigration
• Police Brutality
• Contrasts
• The passive implementation of technology into society and culture.
• The relationship between the living and the realm of technology.
• I have other political concerns (but I elect to stay away from those)

Past Work:

http://avianawarenessaudio.tumblr.com/

Avian Awareness Audio – Proof of Concept

Avian Awareness Audio – 3D Waveform Series

 

MOONMOON_OW Series – Stream and Chat

Overwatch Series – Support

Guest Lecture – George Griffin

This lecture was not too pertinent to my field as I do little to no work in that style of animation. However, I do appreciate the strenuous work this artist puts in to his pieces. Though much of what his work commented on was lost to me (aside from the commercials). The least resonating of the presentations so far for myself.

Readings

Chart

…

Exactitude of Science

I’m not entirely sure how to respond to this. I mean, it’s correct yeah, but it’s not at all practical. Precision and accuracy need to be sacrificed in order to accommodate for other factors like scale and tangibility.

Intro to Baudrillard

After reading this piece, I slightly understand more the concept behind the exactitude of science. Recreating reality, whether through movies, virtual reality, and other modern visual media, is a daunting task comparable to making a 1-1 map of a country. The limitations presented with each medium, are what drive the difficulty. However, as technology evolves, these limitations will be gradually broken down until there’s hardly any worth noticing.

selection from Simulacra and Simulations

…

VR Art

Nicole Ruggiero, “No ESC”

https://www.nicoleruggiero.com/project/no-esc/

This was the first VR art piece I’ve ever experienced, and that experience was also the first time I ever used VR. This piece was exhibited at VR World NYC during the event “Virtually Real,” a curated show that bridges the gap between virtual reality and fine art. Due to requirement of needing a headset, this piece, like all other VR pieces, forces the viewer to have an intimate experience with the content shown, and guides the viewer to ignore the outside world they were just in. In this piece specifically, it lets the viewer explore the space around them, lets them follow the narrative presented to them, and gives them power to manipulate the world around them however they wish to with the materials given to them (Which in this case, happens to be violent weaponry) . The piece is programmed to be fairly short to allow for a steady flow of participants, like 5 or so minutes, but in-game that time doesn’t feel as short due to the immersive experience the viewer is having. I enjoy seeing how artists pace their work for VR pieces and how that factors to the experience.

Readings

Seeing these pieces from 2-3 decades ago really shows how far technology has come. Much of the vr devices back then were very claustrophobic, choppy, and very low quality, and thus would hamper the experience of viewing an artwork in the medium. When someone is more frustrated using the device to see the art, then the art is not come across well. It’s a good thing more progress has been made in VR technology to allow for full motion tracking, better screen DPI, larger screens, and higher frame rates; this will allow a genre of art have boost necessary to become more explored and showcased.

CMUNOZ_dataForm_ Information transmogrified (Updated 10/17/18 4:22 PM EST)

Guest Lecture – Willa Koerner

I was a bit late to this lecture, and thus I at first was confused about the subject the guest speaker was lecturing about. However, after figuring that she worked as an artist resource rather than art itself, I found the information she was giving to be very helpful to artists soon to be graduating. From what I could gloss over from one of her Zines, much of the resources are for artists currently working in the field or about to. Over all this was refreshing to see as a lecture and wouldn’t mind seeing more like them in the future.

Readings

Bodies, Surrogates, Emergent Systems

Atsuko Tanaka

 

Harold Cohen

 

Chris Burden

 

Antunez Roca

 

Stelarc

 

Jim Cambell

 

Ken Feingold

Readings:

Johannes Gees and CALC

One of the pieces I had originally selected for my exhibition proposal. I really enjoy how user submitted input and data, especially at a scale like this in both size and chronological terms, can mold and change a composition. Though, I may substitute this work for another as I continue working on my proposal.

Necro Enema Amalgamated

I don’t know really what to make of this work. Though personally, I do not enjoy art that utilizes strobe lights, or any flashing lights to assault the viewer’s perception.

Hans Haacke

This piece is interesting in that visually displays in an accessible manner the amount of news that is transcribed around the world in real time. This is also why sort of upsets me, because of the great amount of paper needed to print out all this news. If the point was to compare itself to the amount of newspapers that are printed daily, then I would say it’s very effective.

Critique reflection

The critique was incredibly informative, and helped greatly in narrowing down what to select for my proposal. I believe I will focus on more tangible pieces of data visualization similar to that of the first piece I selected from Melissa F. Clarke. I will also look through the site, Flowing Data, Su Jee recommended me. I’m also glad I could help send some ideas to my peers, Ofer, MK, and Su Jee especially.

Guest Lecture

Nevada

I really enjoyed this short film for its writing and voice acting. It was not only comedic at times, but the dialogue between the couple felt ad sounded natural and unforced. This made for a seamless experience that never took me out of immersion of the relatable story being told. Voice acting can make or break a film, so it was great seeing an animation elevated by its strong voice acting.

Can you call me back

The voice acting in this short film was not as good as the previous, but the clever writing and the visual gags made up for it. The silly visual gags enhanced the dialogue to make the intimate situation much more comical and enjoyable.

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Readings

Johee Park

I find Johee Park’s work is very appealing to the eye. I find this is mostly due to the sleek and clean style she illustrates in combined with the sheer scale of works and how they wrap around a space. The space itself molds that artwork and in turn makes it unique as it is more site specific at that point, so no re-installation would be the same. Her use of vinyl printing and space is something I might want to pursue in my own work.

Taezoo Park

Taezoo Park’s work is interesting, as personally I hate leaving old technology cluttered around in my own home and tend to keep it boxed away somewhere. Seeing that same potential technology piled up like trash heaps made reflect and put into perspective just how much old technology I do store without having need for it or having a method to dispose of it effectively without harming the environment in some way.

Daniel Rozin

I have seen this in my undergrad classes and I have always found it cool and clever. I don’t believe I could ever achieve, or want to pursue that level of engineering and coding to create something like this, but it serves as a great inspiration for me for its utilization of light and shade to create forms within a wooden surface.

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Preliminary thoughts on Exhibition Proposal

Data Visualization: How it connects nature and humanity to computation and algorithms.

Melissa F. Clarke – Ice Gouge – 2014

The scales of the glass pieces are derived from data and research of glaciers.

Étienne-Jules Marey – Walking Man – 1890

Ben Laposky – Oscillation #4 – 1952

Johannes Gees and Calc – Communimage – 1999

User submitted mage quilted

Guggenheim Museum

One Hand Clapping

Wong Ping’s work left me uncomfortable and disturbed in both from its subject matter and aesthetic, which I believe was definitely deliberate. He uses the sleek and minimal style common in today’s aesthetic design for modern UI and makes it ugly and visually displeasing, which works to enhance the disgusting narrative in the animated film. Overall the work is executed well, but I couldn’t stomach watching it for long.

Samson Young’s work, on the other hand, was very attractive and easy to take in. Walking through and around these sculptural instruments was a very relaxing. Although, that was in my initial walk through the room; interestingly, when I returned to the room much later, the sounds in the room were much more dissonant and random compared to the lounge style jazz that played initially. This might have been caused by viewers only walking on the outside area of the sculptures because I noticed when I stepped into the inner area of the sculptures the soundscape reverted back to the lounge music of previously. If intentional and not a coincidence on my part, I say it was great way of using space to play with the viewer experience.

Duane Jianyu, Cao Fei, and Lin Yilin’s work I have very little to say on as their meanings were mostly lost me. Though Cao Fei’s video with the choreographed dancers and the (inflated?) large octopus was humorous to say the least.

Giacometti

Giacometti’s exhibit was interesting to say the least. I enjoyed his paintings and miniature sculptures more than his main sculptures. The detail within the miniature sculptures was appealing to myself and many other who I saw stopped to look; it’s evident that much of his work attracts the view to move closer and inspect the details. I also enjoyed how well he transferred the grimy sort of aesthetic from his standing sculptures into his his paintings, and like I mentioned previously, this sort of aesthetic pushes the viewer to get closer to the work and find the details within the tonal muck of sorts. Much of this grimy aesthetic also reflects the depressive and anxious tone that is conveyed in some of his work, like the Nose. It was also interesting to see how much more grand and elongated his sculptures become from the start of his career compared to the end.

Readings

The artist works from this reading set that interested me were John Cage’s and Tony Oursler’s. Jonh Cage’s sheet music for the radio intrigued me because of it’s unique viewer experience that is entirely dependent on time, location, and probably device as well. Creating a truly unique user experience is something I’ve experiment previously in my own artwork with sound and processing, though very simple. I hope to experiment more into this once I get a better understanding of processing this semester.

I’m also impressed by Tony Oursler’s work with the mapped projections on the trees, how natural and seamless the projections are conveyed on the foliage. I have never gotten the chance to learn about mapped projections in undergrad, so I hope to learn more about this style during my time here at Pratt.