Final Project in Second Life

Above are some screen shots of my avatar. The first is my imaginary avatar; she is a rockstar. The middle is my real face that I created in photoshop. On the right is an avatar that I created using the tools in Second Life. I really enjoyed playing with the clothes and appearances in SL. I am pretty happy with my face, although the sides of the face turned out a little funny. I wish my hair was long, so it would cover it, but oh well. Overall, the final meeting was entertaining. I enjoyed looking at what everyone else had done.

Exhibition Review

I attended The Capacitators at the Holland Project on December 16th. The show feature many projects submitted by UNR students. One piece I found particularly interesting was by Luke Sorensen, called Legends of Broadcast. Viewers could interact with the piece by shining a flashlight on framed head shots of political talk show hosts. Using a live webcam and an algorithm created using software, a light pointed at a specific frame will cue that host to talk. The purpose of the project turns the tables on the relationship between the audience and the talk show host. Another visually stunning project was Pixels by Gabe Herz. In a dark room, 8 illuminated pixelated portraits hung from the ceiling. The photos were really gorgeous and drew a lot of attention. However, I felt that the concept that was explained in the artist's statement was underwhelming and could have delved deeper. Displace, a piece by Denver Rosario, was completely lost on me. I was confused whether it was supposed to be interactive or not. People standing around me at the show seemed equally as puzzled. I read the statement to try to make so sense of it, but I was left thinking, "So what? Why is this interesting?" Either I didn't "get it" or there was nothing to "get". These were just a few examples of the projects that were displayed. I had never been to a show like this before, but I really enjoyed it! I think the viewer interaction was a nice depature from more traditional art shows.

Final Writing Assignment

For my final writing assignment, I chose the artists Tim Devin and Alexis Lloyd. I discovered both of them on Rhizome and was instantly attracted by their use of cartography in their projects. My degree is in Geography, with a focus on cartography, so I thought they would be suitable choices. After exploring them more thoroughly, I chose one project from each artist to discuss and compare.

Tim Devin is an psychogeographer and conceptual artist from Somerville, Massachusett, a small community on the outskirts of Boston. He works at the local library and expresses his concern for community through his art projects. Devin has experimented with public space, crowdsourcing, books, zines, maps, walking tours, and giving things away for free (Devin, “About Me”). His work deals with humanizing public space and combating the negative effects of urban anonymity (Devin, “Call for…”).

Although many of his projects are thought provoking and interesting, one that was particularly fascinating was “the last time i saw…” project that Devin started in 2007 (Visit Webpage). He wanted “to compare how different people relate to the same public space.” He sent out a call for participants in the area of Providence, RI to submit a bittersweet or negative memory of the last time they saw someone who meant something to them, but who they no longer speak to; and the exact location in Providence that these meetings or sightings took place. He received about twenty responses and compiled them into a final product that included a guidebook, a tour, and an interactive map.

The concept behind this project was to create both a forum and a memorial for these experiences, a cathartic space for sharing the feelings of loss that our geography won’t let us forget. He was inspired by his own “the last time i saw” experiences of people whom he had lost touch with. “In talking to other friends about it, I realized that everyone has had a similar experience. Only, no one talks about them. So it was therapeutic for [us] to be able to talk about our experiences” (Irvin). Devin found participants by posting on Facebook, Myspace, Craigslist, and Rhizome. Many of the participants chose to remain anonymous or signed only with a first name or initials. Some of contributions are painful memories, of ex-lovers, estranged family members, and tragedy. Others deal with friends inevitably growing apart, moving on, or moving away. Devin also hoped that this project might “inspire people to get back in touch with people they no longer spoke to.” One woman had written Devin explaining how she began writing a story about the last time she had seen her cousin, but decided to call him instead (Irvin).

 Besides the memories themselves, there is another facet to the project. Devin created an interactive map that pinpoints the exact location that a person was last seen. He hoped “that mapping these stories would make people not involved in the project realize that public space has special meaning for everyone around them” (Devin, “the last…”). A city is never just infrastructure and architecture; it is a repository of memories, and Devin’s project shows just one facet of this complicated relationship between people and their surroundings. The stories are anchored to real places on the map, itself a two-dimensional representation of the three-dimensional space and the complex reality it attempts to display. A traditional map is a static, geometrically accurate depiction of space, though it need not adhere to those limitations (Irvin). His role as a psychogeographer is revealed in the way he explores the way that the physical features of a city act as emotional cues to the people that interact with them. Below is a screenshot of the interactive website.

 Overall, this was a well thought-out and executed project that encouraged participation, both in the form of submitting memories and interacting with the map online. The number of submissions was a little disappointing, but sufficient. Devin plans to continue adding to the project and submissions are currently being accepted. Devin explains he chose to use Providence instead of his current city, Boston, because he believed he would be able to map a larger percentage of the Providence because it is smaller. Although this is logical, a bigger city, like Boston, could have brought in many more submissions and greater diversity. It would be interesting to see this done in many different cities. “The last time i saw…” is a unique crowdsourcing project that has an important message. It goes beyond the superficial and attempts to comment on the relationships we have with others and with our environment.

Alexis Lloyd is a Creative Technologist in the Research and Development Lab at The New York Times. There, she investigates technology trends and prototypes future interfaces for content delivery. Since receiving her MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons The New School for Design, she has created award-winning projects for top brands and has had her work shown in galleries all over the world. She is also currently teaching at Parsons (Lloyd).

While completing her thesis at Parsons, she developed a project called My Washington Square. She describes it as “an experience-mapping project exploring contemporary and historical stories situated in New York’s Washington Square Park.” Personal stories are submitted by online visitors, while historical information is provided by the artist, herself. The purpose was to explore the ways in which physical spaces contain many layers of experience and memory (“My Washington Square”).

The My Washington Square Project is ongoing. You can visit the website here. Visitors of the website are encouraged to explore the stories by clicking panning to different areas of the park and clicking on the dots. When you submit your story, you drag a marker to the part of the park you want, describe what happened, when it happened, and you can even add a photo.

The project has received different levels of participation, from full detailed paragraphs to just a couple words. The only stories that had pictures were those posted by the artist herself. Although there are close to fifty submissions, I would have expected higher participation from a project that has been running for over five years. Perhaps she did not promote it enough; I wasn’t able to find much press on it. It’s a shame really, because the project is well executed and visually stunning. Looking at her portfolio, it seems she may be neglecting this early project and paying more attention to newer ones.

Many comparisons can be drawn between these particular projects by Tim Devin and Alexis Lloyd:

·      Both projects involved crowdsourcing and used volunteer submissions to create their final product. The only difference was that Devin asked participants to e-mail their story directly to him, putting him in sort of a curatorial position, whereas Lloyd allowed participants to post directly to the site, without filtering any submissions.

·      The concepts behind both Devin’s and Lloyd’s project were very similar in that they wanted to explore and express the relationships between people and their environment. Experiences and memories dictate how we see the world around us. Different geographical locations can trigger feelings or memories and every person has a different perception of their environment. By carrying out these projects, both artist learned something new about their own community.

·      The final product of both My Washington Square and “the last time i saw…” is an interactive map, accessible on the web. Both maps allow you to read submissions by participants, however, only Lloyd’s allows you to actually submit one. Devin’s map certainly has more interesting submissions, but most of them are sobering and tragic. Most of the MWS submissions are positive, but superficial.

·      Both projects are aimed to preserve memories in a way that can be experienced in a geographical context by others. These projects are like time capsules where memories from the past can be saved for the future.

Tim Devin and Alexis Lloyd are two dynamic artist who have/are currently creating projects that are very similar in concept and nature. Their desire to understand people drive them to create projects that visualize society’s thoughts and emotions. I e-mailed both artist, asking them, ”what makes this art?” Unfortunately, I did not receive a response from either. In my own opinion, this is art because it is the use of skill and imagination in the creation of an aesthetic presentation that can be shared with others.

Works Cited

Devin, Tim. "Call for Participants: "The Last Time I Saw..."" Rhizome | Home.

            Rhizome, 22 Jan. 2007. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.

            <http://rhizome.org/announce/opportunities/46270/view/>.

Devin, Tim. ""The Last Time I Saw..."" "the Last Time I Saw..." Web. 15 Dec. 2011.

            <http://timdevin.com/providence2.html>.

Irvin, Margo. "THE CARTOGRAPHY OF MEMORY: MAPPING PERSONAL HISTORY ON

            THE STREETS OF PROVIDENCE | The College Hill Independent." The College

            Hill Independent. 28 Feb. 2008. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.

            <http://students.brown.edu/College_Hill_Independent/?p=43>.

Lloyd, Alexis. "My Washington Square." Parsons The New School for Design. Web. 16

            Dec. 2011. <http://a.parsons.edu/~lloya465/wsp/>.

"My Washington Square." Rhizome. Web. 16 Dec. 2011.

            <http://rhizome.org/artbase/artwork/42340/>.

Assignment #8 Crowdsourcing

 PART I
Participation in Crowdsourcing:
 Man With a Movie Camera
Man With a Movie Camera Shot 139
Man with a Movie Camera Shot 200

Johnny Cash Project

 Young Me/ Now Me

PART II
Create my own crowdsourcing project:
Stuck in My Head
A crowdsourcing project that brings memories to life through music.

Assignment #7

Part1:
For the webpage recreation,I wanted to do something funny and satirical. I liked the layout of Groupon's web page and the context is already pretty quirky. I put the groping twist on it and added text, objects, and web images and photos. Overall, i think it is a successful remake that stays visually true to the original.

remake

original


















Part 2:
For the second part of the project, I had a hard time deciding on a topic and concept. I don't have strong feelings about any particular social or political topic, so I decided to just choose Occupy Wall Street since it is so current. I designed and intended these "Occupy Tent City" shirts to be worn by homeless people around Reno to make a statement about the burdens caused by corporate greed. The protesters involved in Occupy Wall Street chose to be there to make a statement, but the people living in tent city really had no choice; they are the ones that are making the real statement. They are victims of greed and we should be paying attention to the nationwide problem of homelessness.

Artist Lecture 2

April Gertler

April Gertler studied at BARD in San Francisco. There, she experimented with the medium of collage and studied abroad in Berlin. In 2005, she moved to Berlin and currently resides there. At first, she struggled with her artwork, but on her 38th birthday, she made a plan that would kick-start the process. Gertler created “The 38 Project”, where she would create a new work every week for a year. She posted each work to her blog every week and sold them for $38 a piece. Most of the pieces were collages of found photographs of people with some written text. After the year was up, she took on a new project where she found families in Berlin, collected their photos and recorded their personal stories. She took the photos and stories and created a series of pieces based on these families. Gertler has participated in many residency programs; one in particular was in Cork, Ireland. There, she worked on a show called “Prisoner of Damp Patches.” It showcased many collage pieces that were connected by
a common “thread”. She also began creating giant chalk murals right on
the gallery walls. In recent years, Gertler has been focusing much of her energy on a project she started called “Picture Berlin.” It started out as a critique group of Berlin artists, but has since transformed into a
hybrid residency/art academy for artists who practice photography. For a month during the summer, students work intensely on their photography, participate in multiple critiques, visit galleries, and meet other successful artists, gallerists, and curators.

Artist Lecture 1

Morgan McAusian and Jack Dawes

Morgan McAusian, a rather jittery and eccentric artist, began experimenting in art when he was a young boy. He was fascinated with ‘lawn art’ and began making wooden whirligigs. He was also obsessed, and still is, with collecting and dismantling found objects. In college, he studied painting and collage. He was commissioned for a world map mural in a junior high school cafeteria that he created
entirely out of scraps of paper. Throughout his lifetime, McAusian has continued collecting things like
audiotapes, suitcases, thermoses, Tupperware, plastic caps, and tags. He pays special attention to color, texture, and form and is constantly organizing these objects. He creates a particular bond to each item in reference to a memory, a time, and place. His biggest struggle is deciding when to stop, or when to keep working on a piece. One of his projects that is showcased in “Homefill” in the Sheppard
Gallery is an actual replica of windmill created entirely out of paper. He was inspired by the model homes during the 1950’s where cardboard cutouts of turkeys adorned the table to create the illusion
of ‘home’. His windmill creates a dialogue about the difference between what is reality and conspiracy.
McAusian also works in the medium of film/video. He experiments with color next to color and tries to create other worlds. He has a very painterly approach and he edits are based on his emotions. In
“Leslie”, he films a constructed object, a flipbook of a bird. It was filmed all in real time and there was little editing. In “Music Box”, the camera captures the insides of a music box. The amplified sounds,
hard light, and changing perspectives create something eerie and almost uncomfortable to watch.
McAusian is always taking an experimental approach to his art, often forging head-on into projects he has no previous experience with. He claims to relish in his mistakes and enjoys unexpected results.

The second artist to present at the lecture was Jack Dawes, who was equally as quirky as McAusian, but who seemed surer of himself and his work. Dawes’ work is often controversial, if not downright
offensive and I’d like to think he creates most of it for his own amusement. His pieces are simplistic in nature, making their commentary so subtle, it could easily go unnoticed by the casual
onlooker. Examples of these pieces are the White American Flag and the Twin Tower replica he constructed solely from McDonald’s French fries and Heinz ketchup. These two pieces play on American values and patriotism.
Another reoccurring subject in Dawes’ work is illegal drugs. The “Misdemeanor Box”, a 1’ concrete cube that encased an unspecified amount of marijuana, was almost banned from a gallery. Another example was a gumball machine that contained hundreds of dollars worth of prescription pills. These pieces were more light-hearted and I can only assume he, and many others shared a good laugh. Some of his other pieces pointed at racial stereotypes. These pieces were blatantly offensive in nature, but somehow Dawes executes them in such a manner that their ambiguity and playfulness make you want to laugh rather
than gawk-- or maybe that’s just me. Not all of his work is about laughs, though. Two pieces, a statue of
David holding an actual machine gun and a handgun painted to look like a child’s to gun are more sobering and actually terrifying. They speak words about the trivialization of violence and war. In his lecture, Dawes expressed that his artwork was all about intention. Most of his work was created deliberately to evoke a reaction from his audience and begin a dialogue.