ElectricityComesFromAnotherPlanet.com

The project "ElectricityComesFromAnotherPlanet.com" is a website, which was based off of the 1982 Disney movie, "Tron." The layout of the website is Minimalistic, with very few lines and shapes, and comprises of neon colors. The characters of the website are two gnarled and perspective lines that are literally batting a yellow sphere back and forth at each other. According to the artist, that ball represents of the sun, which had apparently spilled from the sky. This animation proceeds infinitely as your eyes focus on the ball being batted back and forth, back and forth, with no music and very minimal sounds.

Through this simplistic animation, the creator, artist Angelo Plessas, wanted to evoke a meditative feel, a sensation that tricks the viewer into believing that time had actually stood still for a moment. Although there isn't much to see in the image, viewers become hypnotic as they watch the ball move in an evenly steady pace, and with none of the lines coming close to missing a hit. It is like a contest, in which their is no winner, but at the same time, no loser. It is a constant state of neutrality, and puts the viewer at ease.

I noticed that even though the ball isn't flitting very fast, it still seems to blur as it moves. I wonder whether or not there is a slow motion going on in this animation. Either way, the blur seems to slow the action down even more than before I had noticed it, and this evoked a feeling of silent patience for me. On the other hand, the blur made me feel dizzy, and could not watch for any longer than fifteen seconds at a time.

Suns from Flickr- by Penelope Umbrico

Penelope Umbrico is an artist, who currently lives and works in New York City. Her concentration being photography, she created a collage of photos by using images that already existed online, images of the same subject. In particular, Umbrico found from the web exactly 541,795 different images of a sunset. She took the suns from each photo, re-produced them as prints, and then arranged them in a chart-like and seemingly infinite grid. The artist found it unique to freeze and sublimate a sunset, let alone thousands of them, within a digital realm.

Even though the sun looks like a small spark in the sky, it is actually far greater in size than our planet itself. So, the artist thinks of the sun eternal and infinitely-expanding. The virtual world, the Internet, is an infinitely-expanding domain on its own, and the artist wanted to portray something naturally eternal through something that is digitally eternal. Watching a sunset outside and in person is far different from viewing it online.

Although the suns themselves are sort of stinging to the eyes, their background colors richly vary as one skims down the grid. For the most part, the colors are very warm and bright, with a few being very dark and cool. Looking at the grid from a distance, it feels as if though the colors are literally flickering before your eyes. There is so much going on in each photo that my eyes can't help but to desperately search for a focal point. I don't even remember which of the photos my eyes laid upon FIRST when I first saw this piece. I feel like this art is playing games with my eyes, but on the other hand, it is a rather charming game.

Firefox Add-ons- by Steve Lambert

When browsing the Internet, the one thing that is hated by all would have to be advertisements. If there is anything I despise, it is the way pop-ups randomly block my view of what I really wanted to see on my monitor. I have even had an occasion, where my little cousin was almost fooled by a pop-up quiz that promised her an Iphone if she answered the question correctly. Even though some of the pop-ups have a "close" button, the advertisements persevere as if they were "okay" buttons.

Los Angeles artist, Steve Lambert isn't very fond of the multitude of advertisements and scams that infest our computer, either. But rather than acquiring pop-up blocks for his computer, he made it so that all pop-ups and unwanted advertisements on your screen are replaced by thumbnails of artwork. Each wave of artworks on screen are based off of an existing gallery or exhibition, which is then replaced by a different wave of images every two weeks. This way, not a single moment on screen will be the same old. Furthermore, the images feature contemporary artists as well as curators.

In a sense, I think this project is a good idea to form a barrier between us and those unwanted pop-ups. On the other hand, having thumbnails of random artworks randomly pop up on your screen could become irritating, and I would appreciate getting rid of pop-ups without the need to actually replace them with something else, with the artwork serving as a scapegoat of sorts.

Elapsed Percentages of my Life- by Sylvere Armange

Sylvere Armange is a French artist, who is the creator of the project known as "Elapsed Percentages of my Life (Do Something.)" This project functions to estimate the artist's time of birth and also his estimated time of death. The estimations are made in percentages, where one-hundred percent filled the entire meter and represents the end of the artist's life. Even though his references included the life expectancy for people in 1986 France, one can never say for sure whether or not this project will be accurate in determining the artist's final days.

While most people would find it depressing to watch a bar, which represented the lengths of their lives, gradually filling to one-hundred percent, Armange finds it intriguing and motivating, which explains why "Do Something" is part of the project's name. He believes that there are many people out there in the world, who are wasting their lives by doing nothing, and he believes that his project would push those people on their feet, and make them realize that life is not infinite, and that we must use our time in this world wisely. Because once you're dead, there is no turning back.

I consider myself one of the people who would be depressed to have a bar estimating my total time in this world. The bar would motivate me in a sense that I would work harder and faster to achieve my goals. At the same time, I would be living unhappily, constantly glancing over my shoulder to keep death from ambushing me. Deep down inside, I realize that this project is not entirely accurate in its estimations, but the mind is a powerful thing, and I've find myself worrying about small things even though I already knew such things were small.

But aside from that, I am curious as to how accurate the bar will be for the artist. So far, the meter is about three-fourths away from reaching one-hundred percent,which implies that the artist has plenty of time left. In a way, I do hope that the bar is inaccurate because the thought of being able to predict the length of your life accurately scares me.

Can't Hear the Music- by Chris Basmajian

"Alphaville" is a French film that was produced during the 1980s. The plot takes place in the twentieth century, in which a town known as Alphaville is being fully controlled by a super computer named Alpha 60. Under Alpha 60's laws, freedom of speech is prohibited, both vocally and artistically, and so the townspeople are forced to live rather limited lives.

Chris Basmajian's "Can't Hear the Music" is a project, which has been based off of this film. The ingredients for this project includes one active lightbulb dangling from the ceiling, one display screen, and one volunteer. The volunteer will stand in front of the light bulb while watching a scene from "Alphaville" via the display. As he or she watches the display, he or she will tamper with the light bulb, swinging it like a pendulum. As the bulb swings side to side, it will create reflections on the display--and literally within those reflections, he or she will catch sight of two more scenes based off of the "Alphaville" movie.

The light bulb has a really interesting effect on the display because it is as if though the second and third excerpts of "Alphaville" are literally projecting from the light bulb itself. When swinging the light bulb, those excerpts literally tear and rip into the first one, but then cleanly disappear as the light bulb's reflections wear off on the display. The room that this interactive artwork takes place in is dimly lit, by the light bulb alone, I assume, which evokes a very frightening feel, especially because I imagine that the movie itself is not a very happy one.

However, on the other hand, the optical illusion that the light bulb provides is very charming and intriguing to the eyes. I could tell that some sort of software was involved in the creation of this project, and I wonder exactly what softwares that the artist used.

All Horizons- by Christian Marc Schmidt

Christian Marc Schmidt is a media artist, who studied economics in school, which ultimately influenced his present works regarding the environment and social interaction. One of his recent works includes "All Horizon," in which its separate components were brought to him by the aide of volunteer photographers, and then he combined the components together into a project that is now called "All Horizon."

"All Horizon" comprises of about one-hundred fifty photographs, which have been digitally sewed together into a slideshow-like movie that one can access via Quicktime. In the movie, the viewer finds him or herself gazing at one photo at a time. There is a very slow transition between each of the photos, in which elements of the first photo are still temporarily present as the second photo materializes before you. These transitions seem to bring the photos together, and it seems as if though the artist is treating all one-hundred-fifty images as if they had all been taken and shot by his own hand.

The photos were very breathtaking in my opinion, which strongly aided in the serene and tranquil mood of the movie. Whoever volunteered to take those photos were talented, indeed. To me, the transitions between each photo had a very surreal effect to them, and I felt as if though my eyes were aimlessly yet carefreely wandering. It put me in an almost meditative state of mind because of the way many of the photos separately romanticized the world that we all live in. And yet, when the artist placed the images together to form one, whole piece, I wasn't quite sure what to think of it, except that it evoked a very dream-like feel.

Virta-Flaneurazine (VF)

Second Life, otherwise known as SL, is a three-dimensional virtual reality, which was developed in 2003, by Linden Lab, which is an American Internet company. Second Life is a client program, which is free to the public via the Internet. In Second Life, users communicate with one another via avatars and live virtually realistic lives alongside them. It is similar to the Sims, with which you may travel to different locations, get a job, make friends, etc.

Virta-Flanuerazine, or otherwise known as VF, is a psychotropic drug, which affects a person's sense of awareness and wanderment. It causes the person to feel dream-like vibrations, and to find his or herself aimlessly roaming without the slightest clue as to where he or she is. It is as if though you are in a dream, with scenes and environments transitioning seemingly infinitely before you.

This drug is being used for an experiment regarding the virtual world, Second Life. Scientists would like to know how users of Second Life react and behave to the Virta-Flaneurazine, through the points of view of their avatars. Those who volunteers to the experiment must be at least eighteen years of age, must have had previous experience with drug testing, and also basic experience on how to play Second Life. The experiment will take place in an exam room, where the person will be seated on a chair and with a wall projection of the user's avatar for the public to behold and study the user's actions.

I personally had a lot of trouble understanding this experiment, probably because I have never had experience with any three-dimensional, virtual reality games before. The only games I've ever played were with a controller or a keyboard, but I've never actually immersed my entire being, so to speak, into a digital world. Testing the VF on a person while he or she is immersed in a virtual reality world is interesting, and must truly change Second Life's gaming experience drastically. Some of the volunteers claimed to feel out of body experiences, and feelings of aimlessly floating.

This experiment was conducted by Doctors WD Pappenheimer and JC Freeman. Pappenheimer is a media artist and is currently an assistant professor at Pace University in New York.

Publicity Images- John Berger

In John Berger's opinion, we see publicity images every day, whether on television or outside of one's house. Publicity images overpopulate our world to the point that it has become part of people's lives and seems to build up our sense of popular culture. People see these images and accept them as trends that for the most part may live to expectations that are too high to attain realistically. For example, even though a fashion model's job is to maintain a flawlessly beautiful image, and despite physical make-up concealing his or her imperfections, he or she is still digitally manipulated before being printed on an article or magazine.
Most publicity images "live for the moment," as Berger stated. It would only take a single second in time for that moment to change and comprise a list of interpretations that the previous moment may not have pertained to. Regardless, the images are frozen in one, single instant that is never to change, and because of that viewers tend to judge the subject(s) in the image as if they themselves as real people are limited to very few interpretations regarding attitude and personality. A single pose or posture could mean something different depending on the person's hairstyle, facial expression, and the props that surround his or her. Even the smallest things, such as a smile, could change an interpretation entirely and suddenly throw the viewer's sense of context in disarray.
I agree with Berger when he said that publicity images are there even when we don't realize that they're looking at us straight in the eyes. Without us even realizing, these publicity images tell us how to act. Maybe not everybody agrees on the same trends, but we each follow our own preferences of these images, and we combine their ideas together to generate our own original trends and styles. Even though a majority of the public advertisements set standards that nobody could attain without the help of make-up or digital manipulations, I believe that it's these kinds of things that help us think outside the box in terms of choreography and special effects in movies, video games, and other forms of realistically fictional forms of entertainment. On the other hand, in terms of topics such as glamor, people need to start accepting themselves without having to manipulate their features to the point that it describes them in a way that is not true. Doing so, will just make us even more shallow than we already are and trick ourselves into thinking that we could become like those fantasies in that these public images depict.

My Montage Project

My two photomontages follow a very personal theme, which includes my two cats, Mandy (the Siamese), and Pearl, (the Maincoon.) Mandy was my first real pet, not counting birds and goldfish. I brought her home when she was only nine months old. As for Pearl, I brought her home six or so years after Mandy. Pearl's previous owners couldn't take care of her anymore; that was why they gave her to me.

Mandy and Pearl had always been set on a neutral relationship, although Mandy was more dominant. They rarely showed affection to each other, but whenever they fought, their claws were always sheathed. Whenever one of them would sit on my lap, the other one wouldn't come near. The cats respected each other's territory, and shared me and the members of my house without hostility.

At age fourteen, on October 9th, 2008, Mandy unexpectedly passed away due to multiple strokes. We took it very hard because she was just like a member of the family. Ever since then, Pearl had been acting differently, so I assumed that she must be missing Mandy, too; the photomontages represent this, Pearl trading stares with a ghostly Mandy, thinking about her.

My first video montage reflects my feelings for squirrels who try to cross roads without getting run over by vehicles. Every morning when I drive to George Mason, I see many squirrels lying dead on the road, and I have sympathy for them. The forest belonged to the animals first, but then humans for the most part took that away from them. Now the animals, especially squirrels from my experiences, have to live in fear of the roaring motors of the vehicles. They have to live in fear, crossing every road as if it would be their last.

In my second video montage, I was trying to simulate a kidnapping. The first scene is supposed to represent the shadow of the kidnapper materializing seemingly in thin air. Where did he/she come from? Who is he/she? Nobody knows. That was why I made sure that the kidnapper's face couldn't be seen throughout the video. I took a scene of my baby cousin crying, making it look like that the kidnapper is taking him away. Then in the last scene, the kidnapper's shadow disappears, representing that he/she has taken the child without anybody knowing and has vanished with him.

My third video montage was a bit different. The scenes are based off of a video I made a while back of my niece, who absolutely adores dancing. Normally we would watch her dance, everybody clapping and cheering. For this montage, I made it look like that nobody really cared about her dance, thus the scenes where people stand up and leave. At the end, she finally stops dancing, realizing that nobody would pay attention, and then she holds her head, contemplating.

"Game, Game, and Again Game" by Jason Nelson

"Game, Game, and Again Game" is a digitally animated poem that was designed by the artist Jason Nelsor. This poem has been designed in a video-game-like fashion, where you as the player progress through the lines of the poem. The game's art design looks as if though the artist was timed at most ten seconds to draw everything. All of the art looks like quick scribbles and sketches, something that little children would most likely draw. These scribbles are animated in Nelsor's game, either to bar you as the player in your path, or to help the player progress through the poem and thus through the game. The game is divided into thirteen levels, and you have unlimited chances of trying again if you are touched by the vile creatures trying to bar your path.
Every level has a dream-like feel, where objects animate in ways that they could never do in real life, and lines from the poem appear in thin air. Occasionally, icons appear on each level, which reveal a video regarding the artist's life as a child. Overall, this game's theme focuses on the known and accepted logic, facts, and philosophies that keep our world stable. Nelsor's game plays on the world's stability by making it unstable and throwing all the facts and logic in disarray. This explains why so many aspects of the game's levels do not seem to make sense. Even the icon that you control as the player is nothing but a seemingly meaningless scribble. Furthermore, the artist seems to play with the way people switch from the belief of one philosophy to another, unable to make up their minds. The videos of his childhood seems to reflect the fact that people develop their own beliefs and philosophies through experiences growing up.
I understood overall what the artist was trying to convey through his poem; however, the lines of the poem were so vague to me. At the same time, the game's levels, animation, and sound effects brought out tons of reactions from me. When playing the game, I literally felt like I was lost in some sort of unstable environment that was on the verge of crumbling, and I couldn't decide whether or not the poem's lines were trying to guide me or deceive me. To me, the game didn't require much skill because there were only two controls: to jump and to walk. At the same time, with such limited controls, completing the levels required more thinking, and made me ponder about the poem more often that I had expected to.

AMomentOfSilence.tv by Andrew Venell

Andrew Venell is an artist from San Francisco, California, who works with various amounts of media for his work. He has created two-dimensional as well as three-dimensional art, his theme focusing on popular culture and the way it gives meaning to our everyday lives.
One of his projects includes the video piece, "AMomentOfSilence.tv," which is a link on the Internet that functions as a place for one to mourn and contemplate about those who are long gone. If you actually access this link and examine this artwork, you will see nothing but a black screen that is animated with blurry static. The blurry static looks no different than a usual case of television interference. Furthermore, there is absolutely no sound, allowing you to concentrate on your own thoughts. The length of this video is unlimited; it lasts infinitely, like a never-ending circle. It is as if though the artist is taking into consideration every single moment of silence that had occurred throughout our lives and accumulated them into "AMomentOfSilence.tv."
From now and until forever, I will be debating whether or not this should be considered a work of art. On the other hand, this piece seems to be full of meanings and interpretations, none of them being conjured by the artist himself. To me, the meanings are formulated by the viewers, those who actually come to this art to have a moment of silence. Not everybody has a moment of silence for the exact same person or event, thus there are various reactions and use of imagination that comes from the viewers. I appreciate that the artist is sensitive to those who follow the moments of silence for the sake of soothing their own sorrows. On another note, the moment of silence itself does play a role in our everyday lives, and as one tragic event after another passes, I feel like I can relate more and more to this art.

The War is Always Home: Martha Rosler

The photomontage series "The War is Always Home," was created by the Brooklyn artist, Martha Rosler between the 1960s and 1970s.  The series consists of ten photographs, which compresses victims of the Vietnam war with the surroundings of peaceful households.  Although the subjects of the war seem out of place here, they blend with the shadows and light as if they had always been part of the households.  

During any war, there are soldiers fighting for his or her countries and with innocent victims caught in the skirmish.  Then there are other people who watch the skirmish from the safe surroundings of his or her household, where the violence couldn't touch them.  To me, the artist is saying that we do not realize the sacrifices soldiers made in order for us to be able to keep our comfortable homes.  We don't realize the sacrifices they made in order to maintain our safety.  Many of us take the war for granted, thinking that as long as we're not in the skirmish, we shouldn't care about the unfortunate victims.  Watching the results of the violence via the televised media, we don't reach out to these unfortunate victims, let alone support the soldiers.

The photomontages make the subjects of the war seem like opaque ghosts that are haunting the households.  It is as if they are reminding us that there are many people out there who are more unfortunate than you are, and we need to really consider that.   

Tea Blog- by Ellie Harrison

British artist, Ellie Harrison, is known for her unresisting interest of recording data by the day and keeping track of such data for years to come. The data she collects and organizes follow very personal themes and functions like a diary. For example, her piece "Eat 22," includes a photographic record of every food she had eaten during that year. Another example includes "Gold Card Adventures," in which she calculated for that year the total length she had travelled on London Transport.
One of her large projects in particular, however, includes "Tea Blog," which was completed by January of 2006. Unlike the two examples I have mentioned above, "Tea Blog" is not necessarily an arrangement of statistics; rather it is personal to the point where we can actually analyze the artist's way of thinking; to dive into her mental state even deeper than usual. Here, she recorded her most loudest thoughts upon her first few sips of tea per day, creating a database about a few years' worth of various thoughts regarding tea-drinking.
From the spectator's point of view, it must be very interesting to compare and contrast the artist's day-to-day habits. The viewer may find him or herself relating to Harrison in numerously possible ways by learning about her habits outside of art. Her galleries serve almost as interviews between her and the viewer, where she answers questions about herself that many viewers may have never thought about asking. Because her data reads like a personal journal, it must evoke a lot of nostalgia as time progresses, causing her to think back on things and to really organize her past, leaving no thoughts in her mind unturned. At the same time, because the data seems very personal, I applaud her for having the bravery to share it all with complete strangers. Perhaps art such as this will also influence more and more people to open up to one another, for I have met many people who try to close themselves off from others.

SendGoodKarma by Jean-Francois Lacombe

Jean-Francois Lacombe is an artist who originated from Montreal, Canada. As well as a sculptor, he is experienced in the field of landscape architecture. Thinking like a landscaper, a design must not only be visually appealing; it should be engraved into the installation itself and serve as a function to the public. With this principle in mind, Lacombe creates art that exchanges communication with the viewer, transforming it into a performance where the public is the actor.

One art work in particular "Fortunecookie" by Lacombe, needs the aide of the public in order to function as art at all. The title speaks for itself in a sense that the art will function like a fortune cookie. However, Lacombe's fortune cookie will be jumbo-sized and made out of wooden planks nailed together. Pushing a button on the fortune cookie will discharge a strip of paper, which will reveal a fortune for whoever had pressed the button.

Not only does "Fortunecookie" require volunteers to pass on its fortunes to; the public is also asked to invent his or her own fortunes and donate them to Lacombe's "Fortunecookie." The requirements are basic: to be original and to be nameless to ensure privacy. Volunteers who choose a fortune may be surprised at what he or she may find himself reading, serving as an entertaining experience as well as an art.

I have never truly believed in fortunes; however, I still read them for fun and amusement. I believe this is the reason why Lacombe constructed such performance art: to attain various reactions and facial expressions from his audience members. I was surprised and at the same time pleased at the fact that just anyone could create his or her own fortunes and donate it to the GoodKarma project, the project concerning “Fortunecookie,” via email. It is simply a few clicks, and you are done. Anybody can do it, but at the same time one is required to be original, which I don’t think is too much to ask. However, what I would like to know is whether or not, the artist actually built the “Fortunecookie” himself, or did he require hired workers?

The Interview between Cooley and Cohen

The interview began with the discussion of Cohen's "cut-out" and erasure pieces. His theme pertained to the awareness of a missing piece within a photo. The white silhouettes were what made whatever was absent obvious to the viewer. Although it was obvious that something was missing, he distorted all sense of time and location. He wanted to compress events and personal experiences, creating a sense of past and nostalgia. For example, his pieces which include a person and a silhouette engaged in any activity together suggested that someone who was once there was now gone, whether he or she had passed away or moved to a far-off place; there is always room for interpretation from other people. Editing his work in this way, Cohen hoped to prod more the viewer's analyzations on what exactly the silhouette was, its relationships to the background, and what activities it could be engaging in. Deleting one piece of each puzzle, he granted the viewer plenty of room for assuming what was there rather than actually knowing what was there. He wanted interactivity between the viewer and the photos and not just a one-second reaction. People find themselves wondering what exactly the silhouette was doing in relation to its pose and background, thus participating with the image as well as observing it from afar.

I personally find these kinds of photomontages very fascinating. I never thought that manipulating a single subject of any photo, whether erasing the subject or replacing it with something else, could change the entire meaning. Cohen’s white silhouettes definitely suggest a trip into the past, especially when he makes the silhouettes glow like ghosts who were once living people. I liked that although the absence of the subjects are obvious to the viewer, such absences still continue to blend with their respectable backgrounds.