blend

You've all felt it before.

2007-07-25T11:25:00.001-07:00

Be honest. You want that sucker to burn some mornings, lunch breaks, afternoons, and face it, evenings as well.

Yes, I did draw this in MS Paint during my third hour (of four) on the phone with HP tech support.

And for those of you that care, the latest Windows XP driver for the designjet 5500ps blows so hard. The dialogue is awful.

Top 10 Things to do in the Moscow Boonies on the Weekend

2007-07-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

10 - Get new Spoon tracks from your buddy via The Internets.
9 - Play with the doggie.
8 - Eat spicey wings and baked potatoes.
7 - Listen to Baby81
6 - Read back editions of Time's 100 Most Influential People.
5 - Send messages on Myspace and Facebook to your friends about every minute detail about the ways you're passing each and every half hour.
4 - Sit in the sunshine and work on your tan.
3 - Write club hits.
2 - Watch TCM to nearly religious proportions.
1 - Stream every episode of The Office (American) until you've seen them all.

So if you're still bored, well... then, I can't help you.

Responsibility of the Artist

2007-06-22T19:05:00.000-07:00

"Artists have responsibility for the images they paint of the culture and for understanding what their intent may stimulate in interpretation and imitation. However, art is always subject to imitation by misinterpreters of its intent, and it is then that the artist's prior sense of responsibility is a somewhat forlorn and ineffectual thing, for which the artist is no longer accountable. Poisonous art is not so much a function of counterproductive messages as it is a creation of the inauthentic messenger."

Sean Penn stated this in an extremely articulate, if short, article on Clint Eastwood for Time's 2005 Most Influential (Entertainers & Artists category). He discusses Eastwood's portrayal of the law, and those who enforce it, throughout his career and the irony of the amount of controversy over the topics of euthanasia and religion in his 2005 film Million Dollar Baby.

Some Trekkie Nostalgia...

2007-06-21T18:36:00.000-07:00

For the Windows users out there.

(I'm so not a Trekkie though. Honest.)

capitol hill and the abc graphics dept.

2007-05-31T22:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been in the DC area since early Tuesday morning, and I gotta say, I'm having a great time. I've even gotten some work done these last few days and applied for a job. Hopefully something will come of all of it, but at the very least I have some great photos, better memories, and plenty of delicious food to have made my stay well worth it.

Today at lunch my Aunt Bev informed me that her dear friend's son-in-law was a graphic designer at ABC's office here in DC and that he'd been there for 25 years. Well, it turns out that a few phone calls were made and by 7pm tonight, I was signing in at the security desk at ABC's office on DeSales street in downtown Washington.

Steve met us downstairs and showed us (my aunt decided this was something she wanted to see as well) to the graphic department and Steve and I had a nice chat about the software they used (AfterEffects is his favorite program of all time) and the way in which they go about meeting the extremely tight deadlines. It was a really cool visit and a great experience and opportunity.

I'm continually amazed at the avenues available in the graphic/design world. Sometimes it makes me feel I truly did choose the right career path. Maybe. Then I see the kind of work the competition is turning out and I get a little stage fright.

Anyway, Steve is a really cool guy, I don't know what they're paying him, but they should give him a raise. So next time you're flipping through the channels, cruise on by ABC and check out Nightline at 11:30pm, all of the video/animation/visual aid type stuff that comes up onscreen, apart from live action film is done by Steve and his department, as well as the segment lead ins, like You Are What You Eat.

Photos soon... promise.

Oh and take a look at the new layout... rbrn.net

Toodles.

live music in Moscow, ID

2007-04-29T20:12:00.000-07:00

If you're in the Moscow/Pullman area for Cinco de Mayo and find yourself at a loss for what to do, go check out my friends the Magic Mirrors at the Nuart in downtown Moscow. It's cheap, it's good and it's local.

book: Hidden Track

2007-04-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

"Hidden Track shows how contemporary visual culture is breaking out of the second dimension and printed form and entering into three-dimensional space, where it can be experienced. The book demonstrates how rooms are being occupied creatively and how items are being transformed. It presents the diverse exhibition possibilities that currently exist – a spectrum ranging from live painting to installations and 3D objects.

At the same time the book illustrates how urban and street art have recently moved even further out of the subculture and are now being featured more often in galleries and museums worldwide. It analyses how these public art forms are being perceived in an international art context and investigates the fundamentally different forms of presentation that this new context demands.

Through abundant images and incisive text Hidden Track also introduces the artists and exhibition spaces that are taking current visual culture out of the underground to the level of high culture."

Interactive Video piece

2007-04-22T17:24:00.000-07:00

This would be really interesting on a larger scale.

Kind of integrates the pixelator with a greater dependence on interactivity.

Impressive.

2007-04-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

Nissan's commercials are getting pretty flawless.

A lot of green screen?

Art Interactive

2007-04-20T10:33:00.000-07:00

http://artinteractive.org/

"Art Interactive's mission is to provide a public forum that fosters self-expression and human interaction through the development and exhibition of art that is contemporary, experimental, and participatory."

Art Face Off

2007-04-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

My buddy Nich showed me this just a few days ago...

Art Face Off

No more SASE. Just put your portfolio online and with a couple clicks, send it to curators all over the darn place. The basic membership is free; there are other features for paying members.

Face Offs are community polls in which the winners (users vote for their favorite pieces) of categories are pitted against one another. Categories include Photography, 3-D (as in traditional sculpture), digital, printmaking, painting, drawing, and mixed media/interdisciplinary. Face Offs are a nice way of gaining a little exposure.

And besides all of that... it's pretty slick looking on the front end.

The Bag Head Episodes (4)

2007-04-17T19:07:00.000-07:00

Group 4's Adventurous Paper Baggers

The Bag Head Episodes (3)

2007-04-17T19:06:00.000-07:00

Group 3's Throwdown

The Bag Head Episodes (2)

2007-04-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

Group 2's Contribution to the Epic

The Bag Head Episodes

2007-04-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

Group 1's Masterpiece...

Video Dissemination Ideas

2007-04-07T00:04:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of ways to get our videos out there. Some obviously better than others, but it can't hurt to cover as many bases as possible, can it?

-Myspace
-Facebook
-website
-College Humor, YTMND, other similar websites
-Evergreen/Argonaut
-individual youtube accounts + favorites
-word of mouth/emails to people we know

Webcam interaction in real time.

2007-03-27T23:57:00.000-07:00

"Environments, sonorous and appearance are modified in real time, as reply to the movement caught for one webcam. The spectator transformed into actor sees itself collated with the virtualization of its body exploring and interacting in the digital territory."

Some true, blue Pong

2007-03-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

Cardboard boxes, skateboards, some rope, a couple people, video camera... good to go:

The Future (of bathrooms everywhere)

2007-03-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

Spring break has not been conducive to lengthening my attention span.

Interactive Light & Sound Installation

2007-03-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

This is sort of the big money version of what we've been talking about for the Richland show. Pretty interesting, I'd like to see it in person. It looks like the light element is static, but the sound element reacts to people's movement through the space.

Sound familiar?

losing my edge

2007-03-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

lcd soundsystem.

not interactive, but listen to it anyway.

But we all know that I am losing my edge. To better looking people with better ideas and more talent... who are actually, who are actually really nice.

I hear that everybody you know is more relevant than everybody I know.

night library

2007-03-06T22:11:00.000-08:00

The blog is slowly coming back to life...

The Magic of Stop Motion

2007-02-26T22:15:00.000-08:00

Pretty impressive... I'm inspired to brush up on my skills with a vis-a-vis pen and dry erase board.

space inflators

2007-02-25T15:13:00.000-08:00

From ReadyMade Magazine, FEB/MAR 07 issue #27

More info?
Check out the blog:

http://ibubbles.blogspot.com/

Life Remote Control

2007-02-24T09:21:00.000-08:00

I'm not really sure what to make of this. They call it "positive brain-washing" but what does that really mean? The idea is interesting, using our adjustment to the fast-paced world as a tool. But it's still a filter, it's still "them" telling "us". It's all in the edit, just as we were talking about in class the last couple of days. Video editing is where the magic happens. If you have enough film, you can tell any story you want, just by the way you cut and paste things together.

I thought I'd get more information at the website, but it's just as vague. It feeds off the young generation's uneducated distrust of the media and corporations.

www.liferemotecontrol.com

What do you guys think?

perspectives, perception

2007-02-20T18:47:00.000-08:00

You know those pregnant belly thingies they put on teenage girls or sometimes guys to make them understand what it's like, or at least give them an idea. And then later they get the creepy doll thing that cries and needs all the attention a real baby would need and it goes on and on and you fall asleep in middle and high school health classes because the whole thing is just so boring. Well, for some strange reason I started thinking about that today as I was walking home in the hurricane this afternoon. The whole point of the body suit and the baby is to make kids think in the proper perspective about the consequences of their actions.

Perspective is such an important part of who we are, but it's also very important to understand where other people are coming from. Things like racism, discrimination, and just sheer disregard for others all root from an inability or nonexistant desire to see from another perspective.

So how could you actually see from another perspective? Once I got to this train of thought, I remembered the story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, from his short story collection Welcome to the Monkeyhouse. In the story, people are all made physically and mentally equivalent by the government. Everyone is handicapped down to the same level by all sorts of weird means. It's not exactly the same idea, but that's where my head went. Anyway, how interesting would it be to see through someone else's eyes? How much does that entail? How would you go about changing yourself, if only temporarily, to understand the world as another does?

It reaches a totally new level of interactivity, at least the way I see it. To become another person, to understand all that entails is not only a (dare I say it) impossible task, but it requires each and every sense to be transformed. To regulate eye sight, to abridge the sensitivity of the nose, to heighten or perhaps dull hearing, and even taste. A person's sense of observation would be varied. In all reality the brain would have to be totally altered.

It's basically unfathomable.

But... what about a smaller scale version? Where do you even start?

When the change does occur, when a new perspective is understood... how does that change the one that experiences it?

video project

2007-02-19T21:33:00.000-08:00

There are so many possibilities for this project, and not necessarily any right answer. Our best bet seems to be to leave as much as possible open to the discretion of the individual groups and anyone that contributes through YouTube or other online means. Any general storyline stuff that we agree on in class can be and probably will be disregarded by contributors. We should try to agree on a theme... some well-known fairytale or nursey rhyme, even some kind of journey is broad enough that lots of divergence isn't going to be confusing, odd stories will work together just fine. With a well-known storyline from a fairytale or nursery rhyme, there are plenty of ways to weirdly interpret old ideas and it gives a good creative starting point.

Anything definite will only be definite for us, not for anyone taking part online. Ultimately, we can make our story as rigid as we want and just leave a loose outline or list of guidelines, without rules regarding storyline. Anything goes.

The only structure really necessary will be in the characters -- one or two main characteristics will be key, the rest is up to individual groups and the other contributors.

What's with time?

2007-02-12T21:09:00.000-08:00

Have you ever stopped to think about why we measure time the way we do? Without machines we couldn't even keep the schedules most of us have, at least not down to the small increments we usually deem important for getting to class or work on time. Obviously days and weeks and months make sense, but seconds and minutes? Without clocks, it'd be a full time job just keeping track of what minute you're on.

What would happen if you completely confused that sense of time? How would our economy change? How would business practices change? How would sports events be effected (no, I honestly don't really care)?

Time is something we take completely for granted in this day and age, or at least, the way we interpret it, anyway.

The Couple in the Cage

2007-02-12T00:14:00.000-08:00

I saw this segment a while ago and have talked about these two artists in a couple of other classes, including a lit class. We dealt very heavily into the post-modern in it and so this piece worked into the curriculum well. It's really strong in its ability to act as a great lens with which to view our culture. The viewers are so obsessed with the idea of the 'other' and it's almost uncomfortable to watch them watching the couple, the "primitives". It's disturbing that no one is flatly outraged by the fact that a couple of human beings are being stuck in a cage and paraded around the world, or at least the Western world, for entertainment and loosely "educational" purposes. A good picture is painted of how ridiculous humans really are, and what's most ironic is that the viewer is the one that looks most ridiculous even though the people in the cage are dressed so insanely.

I guess the novelty of the curio cabinet hasn't been outgrown, we've just had to fill it with newly outrageous things.

Mooninite update

2007-02-06T10:37:00.001-08:00

UPDATE:

AOL Blurb
Fox's reaction.
Seattle doesn't find them suspicious.

Mooninites in action...

Boston freaks out

2007-02-04T13:10:00.000-08:00

More of the story here annnnnd for more fun, here.

It's not a hoax. It's not a "marketing mistake"... it was on purpose and it was funny, why didn't the other 10 cities invaded with mooninites freak out? Get a sense of humor, Boston.

walls and shadows and Germans

2007-02-01T20:33:00.001-08:00

I almost think the sounds that you can just barely make out are more interesting than the visual effect. This could definitely be pushed farther, I'm not exactly sure of who did it, but it's German. It's kind of anticlimactic, I suppose if the "viewer" was really creative, the piece would be far more interesting, but it's kind of a cop out for the creator of the wall to leave it up to the person casting the shadow to make it anything really worth seeing.

Something I learned from playing LIFE

2007-01-31T10:34:00.000-08:00

I will always lose. Always. Liz will win and I will lose.

As far as nostalgia goes, I'm not sure I'll ever really get the full effect, because I'd never played the game when I was younger. It does faintly bring up memories of playing boardgames with my family when I was a kid. Monopoly, Yahtzee, Clue, Battleship... they all live in a particular space in my memories. Those games work in our memories this way because of their design, because of the aesthetic of their boxes, game pieces, board spaces, the lettering and wording of the cards, dice... even the smell when you open the box or pass out the money or real estate. The feeling of those little houses in your palm, the cold metal of the famous Monopoly game pieces (I'm always the Scottie dog!), the clatter of dice in the Yahtzee cup... these types of experiences are very physical experiences, not just mental, not purely cerebral happenings.

for those of us fuzzy on the details

2007-01-29T23:33:00.000-08:00

It's funny, but it also brings up the subject of definition. Look at all the words out there that have been invented in the last few years due to technological advances. And these aren't medical journal words, these are everyday words, used by 8 year olds and senior citizens.

choosing my own adventure

2007-01-28T15:01:00.000-08:00

Turns out it's not nearly as exciting as the cover of the book would lead you to believe. The problem with this sort of interactivity is it's just too slow for the majority of consumers. Our culture has moved from reading and radio as chief sources of entertainment to television and video games, where you're being hit with about 30 images per second. Besides all of this, these books just aren't compelling reading, unless you're a preteen with a serious devotion to fantasy. Similar to the point I made in my last post on the dvd game, technology, and concurrently interest, have progressed too far past this realm of entertainment for it to be effective for the general population and not just a small, specialized demographic.

I was tricked into it.

2007-01-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

First of all, I'd just like to point out that that was a tricky, deceitful thing that Joe did. It was kind of an unspoken vow for me to never play Dungeons & Dragons, and now I feel like an oath has been broken because technically Scourge of Worlds is Dungeons & Dragons and technically we have all played it.

I have personal standards to live by and good grief Joe, now the means of my learning is tearing down all I held holy.

Ha.

Okay, so as a piece of interactive media, I have to say that this game didn't really live up to all it could have. I'm guessing a lot of other people are going to feel the same way. The idea and the means are pretty interesting, like we talked about, it's a choose your own adventure movie, basically... aka a game. My little brother was really into this game called Fable for a while, and it was basically a souped up version of this, but a computer game. You chose the path to take, becoming good or evil or walking the line in between... with all kinds of stuff going on in the meantime.

I think the problem with using the dvd in this way is that the market's already cornered. Like the laser disc, the beta viewer, the mini disc player, etc, this is a medium that can't compete with the computer or video game systems that already exist. There are other avenues that would be far more interesting to delve into, such as the possibilities for movies. There is so much that could be done with perspective, audio tracks, etc that could completely restructure the idea of storytelling with movies. All those books we've read that never worked as a movie because of the multiple storylines within the same timeline could be realized visually, with the viewer in control of how much or how little of the story is seen.

Light Criticism - video

2007-01-25T22:45:00.000-08:00

Cool.

LIFE experience: a retrospective (of sorts)

2007-01-25T22:33:00.000-08:00

(1)The interactivity of LIFE (and board games in general) was much different from that of the lcd games in that it rises to another level. Other people enter the picture and the dynamic changes. On the other hand, there's really no skill involved, where even with the skill-level very low on the handheld games, some coordination was necessary. In the game of LIFE, ironically, it was all about chance, unless there is some sort of spinning technique I'm missing out on. (2)This could become an art piece if the game was brought to a whole new scale, similar to the idea of Issei's BFA show last spring. Including actual human beings into the movement of the board would make it more about experience but would also enter a whole new realm, performance art. Subversion could be another interesting avenue, changing up the game spaces, the cards, the journey across the LIFE board would become all together different. (3) There is definitely some sort of psychological factor when it comes to playing this game, or maybe that was just me. Getting so close to graduation and entering the "real" world gets a person a little on edge. Playing this game (and losing horribly... losing at LIFE) kind of bothered me somewhere in the back of my head. START OVER or GO BACK 15 SPACES while the rest of my fellow players went on their jolly way, discovering Uranium mines and playing the stock market (or ponies) was a bit of a hit to the ego. Also, due to a Share the Wealth card, Liz and I are not friends for one week. This game ruins people! (4) As far as dislikes go, I don't have a great many. I actually had a pretty good time playing it and being banker is pretty much the coolest. The psychological element is pretty interesting, as we were talking about before during discussion, there's a cetain element of art that is all about screwing with people's minds. This game definitely has a bit of that built right in.

little beepies everywhere

2007-01-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

(1)These little games were full minutes of enjoyment, but it was only personally interactive. In some instances, there was only one button, and at most two, so although when the game was started, the object and strategy for success was not yet known, it was quickly identifiable.(2)All of us sat in our chairs, intent on the beeps and lcds in front of us. You could take it a step further by choreographing (in a way) the beeps. With about 16 of us that's not only technically difficult, but also would be pretty freakin cool, too. (3)The sound is the thing that stands out the most, as it probably was for a lot of people, especially since it was acknowledged. It's also interesting how important it became to beat these little games since we were all sitting together, meeting the same challenge (if you can call it that). In my head at least there was a small degree of competition (mostly because Liz had to be all up ons and whatnot, sayin she was the video game master. We'll see about that Liz Whealy!). (4)I don't know if this registered enough with me to produce any dislikes. Maybe if I was forced to play them for an hour, rather than 10 minutes, a substantial set of objections would form. That idea is interesting all on its own. (5)As we touched on during play, this could all be turned into an art experience through the use of sound and as I said before, made even more interesting by planning out and choreographing the beeps, or installing them in new environments.

for the accessorizers

2007-01-22T13:02:00.000-08:00

Well done, but fake, ad.

for the Mac fans

2007-01-21T22:08:00.000-08:00

Apple has the jump on us.

This is a display for a Mac Store in Berlin.

doodle

2007-01-19T10:11:00.001-08:00

technorati tags:art, sketch

for the thursday procrastinator

2007-01-18T09:21:00.000-08:00

the Blank Canvas Project...

for the seekers

2007-01-16T23:42:00.000-08:00

paths.

analog art, easy, messy, thought-provoking.

as many participants as possible with chalk or some other biodegradable, earth-friendly substance that will mark a path from one's steps. ideal on a college campus during a dry part of the year. people walk around, their trail made evident by the residue left behind. the idea here is that although you maybe be walking alone with no one else around at say, 2am, actually feeling alone may be incredibly difficult.

begs the question, if you really think about it, are you ever truly alone? marks are left by every individual in some way, if we open our eyes to them, the world becomes much smaller. what other questions does this raise?

the tesseract and other inspirations

2007-01-12T11:19:00.001-08:00

Alex Garland wrote a book called The Tesseract back in 1999 or 2000 or 2002. I read it over break, in about 4 hours. It is one big story comprised of three smaller stories comprised of several even smaller stories. Each character has its own perspective and importance. All the characters are weighted nearly equally, with more detail to a few key characters. All of this goes back to my Jan. 5th post. George Gissing eloquently expressed the beauty (and frustration, at times) of perspective. Every single individual sees things in a different way.

Garland touches on this in his own way (imagine that) in the Tesseract. The story is much richer with the understanding, emotions and ideas of each character.

Being a huge movie fan, I'm constantly thinking about these sorts of ideas. So what would it be like to make a film with this structure? Each and every character, no matter how seemingly small would have a scene, a story, a weight and importance. You would see one central plot unfolding through the eyes of all of these different people, with their experiences and personalities coloring their view of events.

That's a movie I want to see.

ps - the Tesseract was made into a movie, although I've not seen it. I'm skeptical of its quality.

for the uninspired...

2007-01-10T16:11:00.000-08:00

behold!

For the New Year

2007-01-05T11:39:00.000-08:00

"For it is the mind which creates the world about us, and, even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours..." -George Gissing