Project 3: Self Eval. (Pictures coming this afternoon)

          

For this third and final project, I wanted to combine the calmer, relaxing feeling I used in my first project with the sense of perspective and sound-with-imagery work I explored in my second project. After playing with the idea of doing another room-based scene for the sense of perspective, I later decided to go for a more abstract route, creating a cloudy, almost dreamy background with spheres floating around in it. The original interpretation was meant to be more magical in nature, but as the project progressed and the music was added, the project took on a more spacey feel, and I decided to bring that out more in the piece in the final stages of design.

            Before even beginning to design this piece, I had to pick a location. My first thought was to project around the pillars to one of the entrances to Goodpaster hall; however, after some consideration and input from classmates, I decided to project on the wall outside the back entrance to Montgomery Hall. This meant that my piece would be best designed as a large, sprawling image instead of a smaller animation. To this end, I came up with the idea of a flowing, sort of whimsical background with some sort of objects floating in it, creating a sense of space and perspective that the viewer could look at for a while and still enjoy. Overall, I wanted this piece to be relaxing to the viewer. This ended up being useful for me, as I had to sit and watch it for upwards of half an hour the night of the projections.

            I started this project in photoshop. I created the image by first creating a few custom “splatter-brushes”, brushes that would spread blobs over a wide area. I then did this in various shades of blue and purple, trying to create an image with several different colors mixed into it. After the base image was created, I used some of photoshop’s blur and distortion effects to blend the colors together, as well as swirling the image to give it a less flat look. On top of this layer, I used another custom brush to spread white dots of varying sizes on top in a separate later and slightly blurred them, giving them the appearance of stars. In the original version of the image, there were also streaks of purple, pink, and green across the front of the image; these were removed later, during the animation stage, when they were found to make the loop of the animation easier to spot.

            The bubbles/planets in the piece were easier to make than I had expected. I made them by using the ellipse tool to create a perfect circle and then using a preset fill setting in which the fill color faces from one color to transparent, creating an almost three-dimensional look. To make the three-dimensional look more convincing, I added lens flares to the bubbles in the colors parts to make it look like the light was directly linked to the color of the bubble. These were created in three different colors in order to create some variety in the image.

            The image was then put into after effects in order to animate it. The bubbles/planets were animated first with some simple patching, and then I made them get larger and smaller over the course of the animation. Second, I used a kaleidoscope effect on the white dot layer I applied earlier, making the layer more dynamic and interesting to look at. I also changed the color balance a few times over the  timeline, making the image shift from blue and purple to red to blue to green and then back to blue and purple. The last effect I applied was the camera; because I had to try to fix this the night of the presentation, there was a minor hiccup in the camera and the animation did not loop smoothly due to the camera stopping before it should have. However, most viewers at the presentation didn’t seem to notice this problem, and I wasn’t about to point it out.

            The music was possibly the most troublesome part of the piece. Though the actual composition of the piece did not take very long, I struggled with getting the piece to loop smoothly for some time, and was unable to get a clean loop going before it was time to show the piece. If there was one piece of this artwork I would fix, it would be this part. The rough loop I was able to produce was very noticeable, and took a bit away from the image, which was meant to be seamless; though the animation itself had a problem as well, it was much less noticeable than this music issue.

            The end result of my work was a vaguely space-themed piece that looped over the course of about a minute. The music was essential in creating this mood; without the futuristic music playing over the image, the setting could have been much more broad, possibly being the original fantasy design I had intended to do before switching to a space theme.

            My work habits were not as good as they could have been due to my SMP due date coming up fast over the course of this project. However, aside from the minor hiccup in the animation and the not-so-minor glitch in the sound file, the art project came together nicely, and I got many compliments on it during the presentation. I think, however, with a little more time applied to the music, I may have been able to fix it and make it sound more seamless. Aside from the animation, I believe the imagery and animation in the piece came together very nicely, and I was very pleased with the results.

            Overall I would give myself a B for this project. Aside from a few minor hiccups the final product was satisfactory, but with a little more time committed to the project those glitches probably could have been fixed. I do, however, think I achieved what I set out to do with this project, given all the compliments I received during the presentation; it was a calming piece that people stood and watched even after it had looped, commenting that it had a calming, spacey feel to it.

Project 3: Proposal

Site 1 (Preferred): Goodpaster Hall Entrance Way
-Audience: Foot traffic to/from campus center or academic buildings from students in Lewis Quad, the Greens, or WC. Also possible noticeable from road traffic, but unlikely to be seen well. Not likely to get large amounts of traffic but in a place that is easy to stop and look at it from.
-Foot Traffic: See above. Busiest around dinner time and between classes; somewhat quieter at night during weekdays but may be busier on weekends.
-Lighting Conditions: Some path lamps nearby, along with possible artificial light from windows
-Social Context: Would pay to tie into science-theme of the building, or might be cool to go full fantasy and contradict the building subject; connection/contract would be interesting with the building either way
-Scale: Hopefully to scale with the pillars in the entryway, possibly reaching above if space permits
-Projector Position: Possibly propped on a table across from the entryway; may be nearby some stairs, care should be taken not to make table unstable or easy to run into/trip over. Plug into outlet inside arch if possible.
-Architectural Elements: Pillars/archway, hopefully projection large enough to wrap around/cover these elements. Also near a door and windows, may or may not be incorperated, possibly give glass spots a separate look to them, time permitting.


Photos of area:

Diagramming/Planning:

Site 2: Montgomery Hall Outside Wall
-Audience: Similar to above, though possibly less traffic at times of day when meals are not involved.
-Foot Traffic: Similar to above.
-Lighting Conditions: Some nearby path lamps and possible lighting showing from indoors
-Social Context: Nothing particularly relevant to the building, but might be interesting to go more abstract than in the other location to go along with the theme of the arts.
-Scale: Cover at least part of the wall, ideally most/all of it but realistically more like half of it
-Projector Position: Propped on a table/similar platform somewhere in the stone "patio"-like area near the wall. Would need to be connected to a plug inside the building, but it would not be too far away.
-Architectural Elements: None, really. Just a wall.



Photos of area:

 

Diagramming/Planning:

 

Similar Images:

As I don't really have a portfolio of art, I don't have any material similar to what I intend to do. I can say that the mood will be more similar to Project 1 than project 2. However, I can draw on old artist research to give an idea.

http://www.magierski.pl/portfolio/32.html    

 

http://www.magierski.pl/portfolio

/37.html

More abstracts parts of the projection found in the CO2 Video Cube (http://www.light-harvest.com/), along with the more wavy, design-based parts of most of that group's projections

I hope to add music to this project, but this will have to be developed alongside the piece and I cannot speculate much on it until the piece starts taking shape.

Project 3: Artist Research

Artist Group 1: Obscura Digital



Obscura is a group of artists who strive to create visually stunning multidimentional artwork including, though not limited to, work in projection. Founded in 2000 by Rodger Raderman and having received recognition for their work as far back as 2006, Obscura Digital strives to create work that not only exists within an environment but works off of it, using its surroundings to enhance the sensory experience for the viewer. Obscura Digital's work has been featured in several prominent places and events, including the Sydney Opera House, Coca Cola's 125th Anniversary Celebration, and the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.

Obscura Digital's work, true to its intentions, makes incredible use of the space it is projected onto, the architecture itself becoming part of the piece. The work done on the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is absolutely beautiful (I cannot easily transfer images to this blog but a link to the piece can be found here), with more traditionally architectural-looking projections being mixed along with images like flowers climbing up the building. This piece is a little more subtly colored than many of their other projections, such as the piece done on and inside the Sydney Opera House (link here), which utilizes incredibly vibrant colors that catch the eye and bring the viewer's attention not only to the art piece but the curves and contours of the architecture.

The colors used in Obscura's work really make the pieces work. Sometimes the colors used contrast with each other, and sometimes they blend very well, but they are almost always bright, vibrant, and incredibly eye-catching. In addition to the colors used, the way the shapes in the designs flow along with the structures, especially within the more abstract designs, accentuate the structural strength and beauty of the buildings in a way that an image not designed specifically for that space would not. Together, the combination of colors that almost pop off the structure and designs that integrate themselves into the structure create a very visually appealing work.

This combination of art and architecture is definitely something I'd like to emulate within my own work. I work in the realm of landscape and ambient pieces, where the environment itself is the most important part of the piece, an expansive picture to be taken in gradually with no one piece of the artwork sticking out in particular. I think I could apply this concept to projection onto a building or other structure and really create an interesting and, I hope, immersive piece.

Information from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodger_Raderman
http://www.obscuradigital.com/about/

Artist Group 2: Light Harvest Studio

Light Harvest Studio, founded in 2004, is a group of artists who specialize in large-scale multimedia work. They have been commissioned by multiple big-name companies and groups including NASA, The United Nations, Universal Studios, Adidas, and Daft Punk. Their work consists of pieces done in both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional media.

Light Harvest Studio's 3-dimensional work often exists as an extension of a structure, either one that existed already and was being built off of or one that was built specifically for the piece. The latter can be especially interesting; one of my favorite pieces of this type is the CO2 Video Cube, and 8.2m x 8.2m x 8.2m cube shown in Copenhagen which displayed various videos and animations in representation of the CO2 produced by one person in an industrialized country in a month. An example of a piece built off of an existing work is "As Above, So Below", a piece done on the Manhattan Bridge which, more than the CO2 Video Cube, accentuates the architecture of the building while at the same time creating the illusion of additional 3-dimensional structure. Both mentioned pieces can be found in the portfolio linked to from this page.

Though subtler than some other projection and video artists in terms of color, what really makes Light Harvest Studio's works shine is how well it works in the realm of dimensions, whether working with existing surfaces or creating the illusion of new ones. The viewer is captivated by the constantly moving images on the surface which seem to bring the structures to life, not simply show a work on a screen. I really like how the artists of Light Harvest Studios have utilized not only color but shapes and lines to really make their art pop.

The idea of creating the illusion of additional structure in a projection project that utilizes an existing structure is something that interests me. I have worked in perspective before, and I believe that pursuing faux-3-dimensional imagery would be taking the techniques I've used to the next level. I might consider using this technique along with multiple surfaces, if the area allows, to create an ambient setting reminiscent of my previous work.

Website: http://www.light-harvest.com/

Project 2: Self Assessment

For this project, I focused more specifically on the combination of imagery and sound to evoke a certain emotion of feeling from my audience. Specifically, I explored creating a feeling of tension, not quite branching into pure horror material but still making the viewer's heart beat just a little bit faster. I decided to explore this avenue of combination of media after my first project sounded better with sound added to it but it didn't really have a devoted music piece for it. I drew a lot of my inspiration from video game soundscapes, as in my opinion the sound design in my favorite game has really made the mood stick with me and this was a phenomenon I really wanted to try to emulate. Both the visual and auditory components of my project were meant to be reminiscent of a video game overworld or ambient environment, where not much is actually happening but the viewer is meant to soak in the setting itself as opposed to following a story that they are being told.

During the brainstorming process for this project, I had a few ideas. Aside from the indoor hallway scene I eventually settled on, which was inspired by the game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, I also consider some more apocalyptic style scenes drawing more along the lines of the Fallout series for inspiration. Ultimately I settled on the indoor hallway scene due to ease of design, though I would like to approach the other scene concepts another time. This may be an approach I take with my next project, if my other ideas fall through due to the constraints of the projection medium.

Like my previous project, I start this project in Adobe Illustrator, creating the line art I would use as a base. Because of the simple nature of this project's design, I spent no more than a few hours in Illustrator, focusing mostly on getting the perspective of the room accurately. Most of the time used in Illustrator that was not dedicated to perspective was devoted delicate line work, making sure the curves of the ceiling looked realistic and making sure all the lines connected properly so that the piece would not look disjointed in any way.

The majority of the work done for this project was done in Adobe Photoshop. Due to the lightly animated nature of this piece, two images were necessary. One was designed to look fairly normal, the other was designed with much lower, foreboding lighting and bloody coloration with literal blood smears on the walls and floor. A lot of time was put into the design of the textures of the piece. I designed my own brushes for the majority of the textures, taking existing brushes and manipulating them to better suit my needs. The bloody scratches on the walls were the most complex texture to create. Not only was a custom brush needed, but the brush strokes were smudges to create a directional appearance, sharpened to make them more jagged in appearance, then blurred a little bit in order to remove a pixelated appearance. Other brushes were more simple; the blood smear brush was a smudge-looking brush that was adapted to vary in shade and transparency in order to create a more realistic appearance of bloodstains. My color choices were fairly straight forward, with the base color scheme loosely taken from photos of church halls and the colors changed to red and brown tones for the bloody image.

A very important part of this piece that did not involve traditional programs used in this class was the design of the music piece I used alongside the art. The piece was created in the music program Logic Pro X. The piece was fairly simple in design, with a low rumble providing a tense base sound and various mysterious sounds playing at random intervals increasing the mood. A heartbeat track was added to the piece as well, drawing from my videogame inspiration where a heartbeat is often added to a stealth or horror scene to make the player subconsciously feel as if the heartbeat is their own and adding an immersive factor to the piece.

The two pictures and the music were combined in Adobe After Effects. Being my first time using the program, I had considerable setbacks using it, which ultimately resulted in several unproductive hours trying to get effects to work only to be forced to start over a few hours in. The animation was created by setting up a camera to zoom in on a focal point over the course of a minute. The two images flashed into each other, loosely corresponding to the music’s heartbeat and other sound effects but not quite syncing up in order to create a sense of dissonance. Some fade and an effect called burning paper were added towards the end to fully enhance the work.

My work habits were more effective than they were for my first project, working on the project for at least an hour at a time a few times a week outside of class. However, my time management was still not quite up to par, as I was left without time to finish every piece of the project that I had set out to do. Had I set a few more hours a week aside to work on this project, and perhaps worked on it more during spring break, I may have seen more desirable results at the end. However, I do believe my work habits were enough to achieve a solid product and I am not unhappy with how things turned out.

The final project seemed to achieve the goal I set out to achieve. When I showed the piece in class, the room went dead silent, the tension clear in the air. I was glad to receive positive remarks on the piece, and one classmate was able to identify the videogame from which I’d derived most of my inspiration, which makes me believe I was successful in achieving my goal. While I was happy with the combination of music and image as well as with the coloration of the piece, the design of the hallway itself was very simple, and in the future I hope to create more complex images of a similar type. Also, due to my only getting to the point where I was ready to use After Effects at the last minute, I was unable to finish every aspect of the project I wanted to include, resulting in a piece that, while effective, was much simpler than I had intended it to be. If I were to elaborate on this project, I would definitely go back and try to add some more complex imagery as was originally planned. On the side of the message of the piece, however, I feel that I was very successful in what I set out to do, both in terms of my own opinions on my piece and judging from the reactions of my classmates.

Had I achieved every goal I set out to meet with this project, I might think I deserved an A for it. However, since some adjustments were done last minute which resulted in time constraints being stricter than anticipated, my goals were not all realized. Due to this being in part the result of work habits, I give myself a B+ for this project, as while I was unable to get everything I wanted to do accomplished I still believe I managed to achieve the overall result I was striving for.

Reading Response: New Media: Guerilla Culture to Gadget Art

Whether to resist or embrace the new, the novel, is always a question in the back of someone's mind when the "next big thing" comes out no matter what the subject matter, and art is no exception. In fact, I would argue that art is especially vulnerable to this sort of question. Whether something is or isn't art is the sort of conversation I hear over and over again, particularly in relation to newer mediums. And yet, even when something is largely considered art, that acceptance by the masses in itself may play a part in lessening the message that art sends. Commercialization can only be truly effective in well-accepted media, and the process of commercialization often sterilizes a message in order to make sure it appeals to the masses, careful not to offend or criticize anything that might be well like out of worry that consumers may be lost. If these messages are so sterilized for the public, though, has the medium ceases to be suitable for art? Or is the message itself unnecessary? It would argue that the message is important, at least for art to truly have a purpose rather than simply be a pretty piece in someone's collection. After all, I would argue that one is rarely offended or inspires by a piece of art itself but rather by the meaning one perceives behind it.

The idea of technological art in itself does not sit well with some parts of the masses, but it is when the very definitions of art are stretched in the name of the message that the public gets riled up. It is by acting for the sake of the message and using art as a medium, rather than creating art to express a message, that these norms are stretched, denying commercialism the sterilization it desires in order to make some sort of point. These messages may not always be positive, and the techniques used to express them may not always be easily identifiable as art, but their presence suggests a desire to express oneself in new and unique ways, whether to grasp the attention of the public or simply to gain a new angle of perspective on an issue.

Despite its resistance to commercialization and standardization, guerilla art, as it may be called, is absolutely the art of the masses. It is not art to appeal to the masses but rather to speak to the masses, to express a message they may not otherwise hear about, to show an angle that the masses may not always be able to see in mass media, or to introduce something new that may be perceived as negative or unacceptable by those who would wish to censor it. People identify with it in a way that they do not to mass produced media, as it has more personality and, truly, more genuine and relatable a message. It is the guerilla art movement that has been able to give rise to new media art, giving it a place to begin where such new ideas may otherwise have failed due to poor reception. Readily available tools in the hands of a population eager to spread its own messages and ideas to the world, whatever they may be. This is, of course, in stark contrast to what may be considered the 'fine arts', what you would consider to belong in an art gallery. These fine arts are in no way a bad thing, but they are not necessarily relatable or accessible to everyone in the way that new media art can be.

Project #2 (May be updated)

Project # 2: Research

Artist #1: Hethe Srodawa


(Source: http://hethesrodawa.blogspot.com/)

Hethe Srodawa is a professional concept artist who lives in San Diego. Currently he works for Rockstar Games, but he has also done work for Trion Worlds, Inc., Brain Tangent Entertainment, and Superscape. Being a video game concept artist, he has done work for several well-known games, including Grand Theft Auto V, LA Noire, and Red Dead Redemption. I did not know he worked on video games when I came across Hethe's work in a Google search, but it would explain why I am drawn to his work. Even the work he did not do directly for a game reads like a concept art piece - and rightly so, given his career as a concept artist - and I am heavily inspired by such work.


(Source: http://hethesrodawa.blogspot.com/)

I'm hoping to create tension in my next piece, in contrast to the relaxed feel of my first project, so to see both outdoor landscape work and interior environment work that both embodied the sort of feeling I'm hoping to encapsulate naturally drew me to Hethe's work. The colors are largely subdued, brighter or more bold when the eyes ought to be drawn to a particular part of the piece but otherwise allowing the viewer to take in the landscape as a whole, getting used to the environment over time. I really admire this in an environment piece. Whether peaceful or tense, immersion is super important in creating a successful environment, drawing the viewer in and making them wonder what might be around the corner if they could walk around inside.


(Source: http://hethesrodawa.blogspot.com/)

While I would not call Hethe's work realism - his work is often of clearly fictional landscapes or environments -  They certainly have enough of a realistic quality to them that they COULD be real, if that world was the world we lived in. (This is true of his character art too; though I have not included those pieces here due to his landscape environments having more relevance to my own work, I will be including a link to his blog at the end of this entry should you be interested.) The lighting and colors of the pieces are often someone stylized, but at the same time the pieces are very down-to-earth, the shapes a bit rough around the edges which just makes them that much more believable.


(Source: http://hethesrodawa.blogspot.com/)

I am heavily inspired by video games in almost all the art I do - The project I'm working on right now is inspired by a few, including Amnesia: The Dark Descent as far as ambiance - and to see the work that a professional video game concept artist does is very enlightening. The feeling of the scenes I have included in this post in particular are relevant to both the work I am doing and work that I hope to do in the future, a tense atmosphere that isn't in-your-face scary or intimidating but the longer you look at it you can sense a dissonance in the air, as if the order - or disorder, as it might be - that you're seeing isn't the whole story. It draws you into the piece, and I hope to combine this sort of ambiance with sound to produce a full piece that has a good sense of immersion and atmosphere.

Hethe's Blog: http://hethesrodawa.blogspot.com/
Hethe's LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/hethesrodawa

Another cited website: http://kotaku.com/5866552/the-dusty-concept-art-of-red-dead-redemption/

Artist #2: Feliks


(Source: http://fel-x.deviantart.com/art/Over-The-Stream-390667641)

I could not find a last name for this artist, as every source I found for his art only referred to him as Feliks aside from some signatures on his art that I could not read properly, so the information I could find on him is limited. What I do know from his DeviantArt profile is that he currently lives in Southern Poland and that the art styles he enjoys most are realism, comics, and abstract art. While his pieces are not reminiscent of comics in any way not particularly abstract most of the time, realism plays a large role in his personal work.


(Source: http://fel-x.deviantart.com/art/brook-331214515)

What drew me to Feliks' art first and foremost was the amazing lighting he utilizes in his pieces. As an artist who is both interested in working on landscapes and who struggles with light in her own pieces, I am blown away by how real the light and shadow in Feliks' work is, creating scenes that look three-dimensional and real enough that I could almost walk right into them. Though the pieces are not quite photographic in their realism - the colors are just that much crisper and the textures just a little more smooth than reality - I don't think they need to be. The environments within each piece are still absolutely breathtaking.


http://fel-x.deviantart.com/art/mountain-landscape-299142250

Feliks uses realistic colors and shapes in his pieces, but even so they aren't quite as subdued as the colors one would see in a real landscape. The greens and floral colors of the flora are brighter and clearer, the figures of both the natural and man made features of the environment are smoother and cleaner, and the view of the horizon is bolder and easier to see than in reality, creating an environment that is, arguably, more enticing than a real place. Not only does it look like a place you COULD step into, it looks like a place you would WANT to step into and walk around for hours, not necessarily going anywhere but simply appreciating the beauty of the place. It creates an opportunity to daydream, even for a few moments in passing, before moving on to another piece and another environment to mentally explore.


http://fel-x.deviantart.com/art/Lake-300432406

As I have already mentioned, landscapes and other similar environments are something I like to explore and my work, and these realistic yet whimsical pieces that Feliks creates serve as a model that I can strive to one day emulate. By seeing the way he uses light and colors, I can better understand what goes into a piece to make it truly look like a landscape and not just a picture on a screen. I hope that by looking at these pieces and trying to understand them as environments, I can better my own work and move towards creating pieces that look like a place you could explore. I hope to combine such landscapes with my growing experience in soundscape design to create truly dynamic landscapes that draw the viewer into them through multiple senses.

Feliks' DA: http://fel-x.deviantart.com/

Reading Response: Distracted Reception:

This reading discussed the idea of art as a form of distraction, both in a positive way or a negative way. It states that art is not only a distraction but is received in a state of distraction, used to distract ourselves from other distractions in a way that does not create more distraction but rather brings the viewer back to attention because they are distracted from whatever it was that was distracting them before, at least for a moment or two before they are against distracted.

As the above slightly tongue-in-cheek explanation might suggest, this reading seemed a bit repetitive to me, though the idea that it was trying to get across was fairly clear. For hundreds of years, humans have used art as a distraction and created art in search of distraction. Whether 'distraction' is a bad thing or a good thing is open for interpretation on a case-to-case basis, though. On one hand, if art is too distracting without also contributing attention to something constructive, it can take away from tasks that need to get done and more important subjects that need the viewers attention more urgently. On the other hand, every day life is stressful, and constructively distracting art can lower that stress, at least for a little while, before the viewer has to get back to whatever task happens to be at hand. So is distraction by art a problem? In high quantities, it can be, but if it's 'constructive' distraction that in turn brings attention to something worthwhile or simply helps relax the viewer from high stress levels or other unpleasantness I would say it is not a problem.

In the modern era, as interactive art becomes more and more common in the form of video games and other technologically produced work, it is important to keep this idea of distraction in mind. We are often enthralled by interactive art that speaks to us, whatever it may be, and this is a good way to introduce important ideas to the viewer, or in this case the user, as a way to bring attention to them while at the same time acting as a distraction. At the same time, though, we ought to be careful not to make these works too distracting without creating any sort of attention, and if we do, we should not indulge in such works too often.


Reading #2

The author of this reading seems to have a problem with the pretension that seems to surround art in the modern era, stating that

"Next time I see another 16mm film projector rattling away in a gallery I will personally kidnap it and take the poor thing to a pensioners home. There is usually no intrinsic reason whatsoever for the use of 16mm film nowadays except for making moving images look pretentious, expensive and vaguely modernist, all prepackaged with a whiff of WASPish art history" (Rourke 2013).

He also mentions a modern "refusal of class" in the modern digital art world, and in the world in general, artists trying to create without being defined by a class, place, economical standing, etc. To them art is not elevated on a pedestal but is simply another aspect of life, and the subjects of this art reflect this idea. In general, he seems to make a case for "real" art, art that is relevant in some way to real life and real ideas that speak to the everyday man, and not art that puts abstract symbols on a pedestal for high-class citizens to wonder about. It is this sort of art that truly speaks to the masses and is the base for artistic revolution. The idea of the glitch rides on the back of this idea, as being a part of mass-produced digital media which is constantly reproduced and reformatted and redesigned in this sort of mass media sharing.

Project 1: Self Assessment

I based my project on a landscape I had imagined for one of my original stories. As an aspiring author, I felt that if I could put this landscape on paper, it would help me move forward in putting together the rest of the story as sort of a concrete base to work from. My intention was to imagine what a subterranean environment might look like if bio-luminescent life were more common than it is in the real world, along with making it look like someone could live there, even if there were no signs of animal or human life in the piece.

I began my project in Adobe Illustrator, sketching out the basic line art of the piece. I had initially intended to create an environment that looked more civilized than the final product did, but creating shapes that looked like inhabited places and putting roads and other signs of a town or city into the environment was proving to be a challenge, and as time was limited I opted to skip these shapes in favor of a more simple environment with just a river, mushrooms, stone pillars, and a cave. Though the resulting environment looked very simple, it still satisfied the subterranean look that I had been aiming for.

I then imported the line art into Photoshop in order to begin giving the piece more depth. I began with the base colors, grays for the rock surfaces, bright colors for the mushrooms, and blue for the water. I then added textures to each piece, making custom brushes for them to make them more like I wanted them to look, though I lost my first water brush when Photoshop crashed and I couldn't seem to recreate it. Finally, I added some fog and shading to the piece, using the timeline to animate the lighting of the mushrooms as well as the movement of the water and fog.

Though I was, on the whole, satisfied with how my piece came out, I think with a little more time and effort than I was able to put into it it could have come out even better. The water animation and shadow shading, in particular, could have had more to them, and perhaps a few signs of animal life could have been added, such as small glowing bugs or a pair of eyes in the cave. The simplistic feeling of my piece is nice, and adequately conveys a soothing subterranean atmosphere, but in some ways it feels a little barren, just a little bit lacking. The smooth flow animation I was able to do, however, does add to the ambiance of the piece, giving the environment a happy, calm feeling to it as opposed to a creepy or mysterious feel. In the future, I will set aside more time than I had for this project to work on the piece in order to get a better sense of the shading and coloration my pieces need, as well as to add more complexity to the piece if necessary.

Overall I believe, taking into account effort and outcome, I deserve a B for this project.

Project 1

Image sometimes disappears on the blog, but viewing it in a separate tab should work.

Project 1: Artist Research

Artist #1: Wojciech Magierski

(Source: http://www.magierski.pl/portfolio/37.html)

Born in 1983, Wojciech Magierski is a polish digital artist who works primarily in the realm of digital illustration and photo manipulation. He has spent 7 years in the digital art industry, and his work has been featured in advertisements for several companies, including big-name companies such as Samsung. Magierski has also featured prominently in magazines such as Advanced Photoshop Magazine.

(Sources: http://www.magierski.pl/portfolio/26.html and http://www.magierski.pl/portfolio/32.html)

I see a lot of use of the surreal in Magierski's work. This is especially clear in his less obviously commercial work, but even in the Samsung advertisement above there is a hint of the whimsical. Though a clown fish is a real creature, the way the water around it swirls around it catches the eye more than more realistically portrayed water would. The effect is eye-catching, and yet subtle, which is interesting for an effect that is essentially a fish jumping out of the screen at the user of that object. This subtlety is a good choice, though, as it does not completely detract one's attention from the technology being advertised, which is, of course, ideal for any art used within an advertising setting.

(Sources: http://www.magierski.pl/portfolio/32.html and http://www.magierski.pl/portfolio/37.html)

By and large Magierski does not use many bold, contrasting colors or shapes in his work, preferring a more gradual flow between colors. Even when a piece uses very different colors, the transition from one to another is never abrupt, but rather subtle, blending together to make create a rather soft, ambient feel, even when the content of the piece is not particularly soothing. To me, this says he does not want to draw the viewer's attention to any one thing, but instead wishes for it all to be experienced as a whole, with smaller details revealing themselves over time given more time for viewing. I can really appreciate this approach to art, as it encourages the viewer to take time to appreciate the piece rather than looking at it once, thinking "Oh, that's cool", and moving on to the next piece.

(Source: http://www.magierski.pl/portfolio/37.html)

The ambient feel of Magierski's work is something I would like to emulate in my own work. The subtly colorful and ambient feeling of his pieces, whether in landscapes, portraits, or more abstract works, really speaks to me as an inspiration. Such color schemes and subtle shapes are appealing to me, and since my first project is a landscape piece meant to incorporate several colors within a natural environment, a gradually flowing color scheme might allow the viewer to observe the landscape as a whole environment before their eyes wander into smaller details. 

Information on Wojciech Magierski taken from: http://www.magierski.pl/page/about.html

Artist #2: Adam Spizak

(Source: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Tweet-This/1930231)

Adam Spizak is another Polish artist. His work lies primarily in the art of photo manipulation. Many of his pieces lay within the realms of portraiture or otherwise include humans, primarily their faces, within them, but there are other sorts of pieces in his portfolio as well. He is a self-taught illustrator, learning through trial and error to use digital art programs such as Adobe Photoshop. He has done work involving some very recognizable characters alongside his more individual work, including characters from the Game of Thrones series and Iron Man.

(Source: http://www.behance.net/gallery/eraser/213707)

According to Spizak, there is a back story in every single piece he creates. In an interview he stated that he did not want to be like some other skilled artists that "design rubbish, pointless designs just because they got the skills", instead focusing on telling a story, conveying emotions within every design and every piece. I can absolutely believe this, as none of the works by him I have looked at have ever seemed static. Whether they include humans in them or not, within each one there seems to be something going on, a scene taking place within the still image that we have only captured but the tiniest piece of. This method of creating a piece of the action makes pieces of art a lot more interesting to look at, in my opinion, and is a great way of grabbing and then keeping a viewer's attention.

(Source: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Desktopography-2013/11463849)

Due to his use of photo manipulation in his work, Spizak's work often takes the real and makes it surreal while still not completely wiping the realism from the piece. Human faces become more abstract works while still maintaining their shape and remaining recognizable. Animals maintain their shape and general colors while finding themselves in a fantastical, unearthly environment. I rather enjoy this combination of the real and the digital fantasy world. It creates a very interesting contrast and intrigues the mind upon viewing, grabbing the audience's attention and making them want to know more about this scene that has appeared in front of them.

(Source: http://www.behance.net/gallery/Things-Behind-The-Sun/1129937)

Though Spizak uses contracting colors in his work that definitely cause certain parts of the picture to pop out, I do not believe this causes the viewer to overlook the parts of the piece that do not contain these colors. Rather, I believe that this use of contrasting colors helps to create the dynamic, story-telling scenes that Spizak strives to create, giving the piece life and energy. I would like to do such a thing in my own work, using colors in the right places in order to give the impression of an active setting, even within a landscape-type piece like the one I am working on.

Interview found at: http://design.tutsplus.com/articles/adam-spizak-interview--psd-3723

Reading Response 2

This reading discussed the differences between older and new mediums of art. Though it did not discuss such recent mediums as computer software and other purely digital methods, it did cover art techniques up to the invention of film.

I found the tone of this reading to be slightly difficult to interpret, as in one section the 'newness' of newer mediums, particularly motion pictures, was described as unfeeling and mechanical, and in another it might be described as being a better medium than painting and other traditional art methods when paired with a modern day audience. Regardless of the overall tone of the piece though, the message was fairly clear: The modern audience interfaces with modern "art" in a different way than traditional "art". The piece referred to the 'essence' of a piece of art, of any medium, as its 'aura', and defined it as the effect distance has in the relationship between art and observed. The greater the distance, and I suppose the mystery, the greater the aura, and I suppose by extension the more open the piece is to various interpretations. In this way, film and photography could be said to have less of an 'aura' than paintings or sculpture. Film, whether stationary or moving, does not allow for the same type of open interpretation that a more abstract piece, whether pictures or words, does. Whether this is a bad thing or not though, I believe, is open for debate. While a film cannot provide an open arena for interpretation as easily as a painting, it can provide a more complete sense of immersion, telling the story it means to tell more vividly than could be provided by a painting or a sculpture.

While this medium was not covered in the piece itself, I cannot help but give and honorable mention to video games as art. Whether video games are, on the whole, considered art is still a hot debate in some communities, but I have found in recent years that video games can tell a story in ways that other mediums of art could never hope to achieve, specifically in the way of immersion. Video games also have an advantage over film in that stories can be open ended, allowing for that sort of open interpretation that critics of film say is lost. A game need not even have a story, allowing the player to make up their own story as they go should they choose to (If you want an example of largely story-less gaming as art, look up a game called Proteus.).

Section Review: Section VIII

While this section is fairly short, it gives an interesting insight into the differences between film and live acting, which could be considered a disconnect between the old and the new. Live acting, the section states, provides a personal link between the actor and the audience, allowing adaptation to the audience and portrayal of cult values, or values which are not necessarily meant to be seen by the masses but to be experienced by those they have intrinsic meaning to. On the other hand, in film there is a connection not between the actor and the audience but the actor and the camera. This results in a more static performance, which may be argued to be a less feeling and personal performance. In addition, what the viewer sees on film is not the result of one piece but of many shorter pieces cobbled together to make the finished product. Film, it is argued, is not a medium with which to present values to the few but rather to present a story to the many.

Project 1: Preliminary Notes

General concept: Subterranean scene, glowing parts that potentially dim and brighten as an animated loop?

Glowing parts:
-Mushrooms
-Some rocks
-Some plants
-Some animals (? May or may not include based on time constraints)

Big parts:
-Waterfall
-Stalagmites/stalactites
-Bridge and paths
-Rock ledges and caves
-Fungi and plant life
-Given time, small animal life (e.g. bugs? Very small by scale)


Possible angles:
-Overhead shot
OR
-Close up on one cave

Movement/Animation?:
-Glowing fungi/plants/rocks
-Glow is different colors, different colors dim and brighten at different times?
-Emulate day/night cycle? Dependent on time constants
-Water flow/light reflections?