Artist’s Bio: As two-term editor in chief of The University of Nevada, Reno’s student newspaper The Nevada Sagebrush, Jessica Fryman is interested in preserving history in its truest form. She is a fourth-year student at UNR, with a major in print journalism and a minor in digital media. Outside her journalistic ambitions, she plays piano and enjoys teaching others. Jessica plans to travel to Central or South America to teach English after graduation in hopes of becoming more globally cultured and aware. She will then seek a storytelling job at a news organization.
Project Synopsis: The proposed memorial would be a stream of photographs and video accompanied by audio. The images would show stories of Iraqi civilians’ lives, the War and contrast the several memorials for U.S. deaths to the few for Iraqi deaths. The images would consist of family photographs and newspaper clippings. The video would be a mixture interview clips of families affected by the War and footage from combat. The audio would match the images, and consist of narration of the War facts, death statistics, voices of families sharing personal stories, meaningful songs and other relevant sound effects, such as gunshots or crying.
The ideal showing for this project would be in quiet, intimate settings. Rather than project the memorial on the side of a busy subway station or on a billboard, the most appropriate place would be public spaces that are still quaint and reverent, such as coffee shops, cafes, libraries and local bookstores. These places are filled with an audience that is sophisticated enough to appreciate the work, but are also sometimes too busy to seek the art out on their own. These quaint places would provide the effect of surprise, since it’s not a gallery or museum, while still being intimate enough to allow the viewer to take in the meaning, and react through writing about it or crying. Here is a rough, simplified example. Here is a link to a Web site featuring similarly styled work to what I would aim for in a final of this proposal.
Artist’s Statement: I feel that this project is a mixture of artistic and journalistic work, which fits my mindset and skills perfectly. I chose to memorialize Iraqi citizens in this way because it is both honorary stories of lives lost too soon, while not ignoring the larger issues, such as War. It is important to include the issues because it helps further a movement or make waves to create change more than a simple memorial would do. In this case, it brings to light an absence from the news.
Artist’s Contact Information:
Jessica Fryman
702-378-5010
fryman.j@gmail.com
http://www.jessdaniellecreativelyinspired.blogspot.com/
5.06.2010
Final Writing Assignment: Interactive Art through technology breeds stronger meaning, symbolism (ART 245: Intro to Digital Media)
As technology started to immerse itself into mainstream culture and everyday life, art did not escape its influence. The transformation meant electronic media with more information, video and interactive pieces. Since the 1970s, this form of digital art has become increasingly popular as artists create virtual realities in cyberspace. Although the works are not created with the personalization of a brush stroke, the added touch of digital gives pieces more viewers and an ability to capture the modern world. Artists, such as Graham Nicholls, Chico MacMurtrie and Ken Rinaldo accomplish this and other forms of specialty art in various ways. Their work, especially, are contemporary, informative, moving and interactive, which adds an added layer of meaning to their pieces that might not have otherwise been there without technology.
Graham Nicholls, an artist from London, is known for the relatively new content his work covers, such as hypnosis and psi abilities. The artist, who was born in 1975, says he has had several out-of-body experiences which color his work with an interesting twist of sci-fi and psychopathology (London College of Spirituality). His defining work, “The Living Image,” was a groundbreaking showing of technoetic art when it showed at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre in London in 2004. The piece features an urban setting that shows silhouettes of viewers in its confines. Each individual creates his or her own experience in the virtual reality. One story describes “The Living Image” like this:
“The places visited on the screen are all inspired by the makers’ personal connections with the area. You could find yourself in Smithfields Market or under the Westway, but be warned, none of these passageways are filled with sweetness and light.
“It is a bit noir,” admits Graham.
Video sequences and sound recorded at the real-life locations help to achieve a blurring of what is real and what is computer-generated.
There is the feeling of being confronted with a larger-than-life computer game, however the aim of this VR world is a little loftier” (Lewis).
The space lends itself to interesting symbolism to setting and the rush of life too. While people pass through the urban London world daily with little notice of what is around them, users of “The Living Image” find themselves wanting to explore the setting, stop to listen to sounds or touch their surroundings that they experience every day outside of the virtual world. The sense of immersion is experienced tenfold if the user uses this desire for detail to engage with “The Living Image” beyond the surface, which trigger more interactive aspects such as video and text. The piece was designed to take people into a “psychological state akin to meditation or trance” (Graham), which it duly accomplishes through immersion in a virtual space.
In a completely different virtual space, Chico MacMurtrie accomplishes the same interactive art. An artist from New Mexico, specializes in robotic works where the piece reacts to a user’s movements, much like Graham’s piece “The Living Image.” In MacMurtrie’s “The Forest of Telescoping Totem Poles,” he creates a virtual forest with physical inflatable totem poles. The size of the poles is triggered by users motions upon entering the exhibit. MacMurtrie calls the interaction shapes immerging from the inner body:
“Upon entering the installation, the visitors' movements though the Forest trigger the artery to push air into the Totems, causing them to tumesce with a pulsing rhythm. As the Totems rise, they reveal a plethora of rich imagery consisting of a collage of the human condition, merged with the organic shapes that come from plant life and the inner body.
Once the visitor is in the Forest among the Totem Poles and becomes involved in their dance of upward growth, the entire floor is activated by the strong pulsing of the artery. The Totems continue to climb and push towards the ceiling, struggling to reveal their hidden forms. perhaps their destinies, ultimately reaching beyond the ceiling” (MacMurtrie).
The shapes that come from the experience closely resemble human and plant life, adding a curious symbolism in the work’s content through connecting humans with the natural world.
Similarly, Ken Rinaldo creates bio-art to further show the connection between nature, technology and humankind. Rinaldo, an American artist and educator, focuses on ecological issues and interspecies communication in attempt to unveil group consciousness and interspecies interactions. “Autopoiesis 2000,” an artificial life installation is one of Rinaldo’s many pieces that implement his ideas and trademark specialties.
“Autopoiseis 2000” is a robotic series of 15 sculptures and musical that behave based on the participant’s communications. The sculptures’ motions are triggered by infared sensors that bring arms of the work within inches of the user. The effects are randomized and often follow a “follow the leader” type motion (Rinaldo).
Each of these artists break away from the traditional mouse-click interactivity that comes with many forms of digital and electronic art. Instead, they focus on immersion and use body and motion to determine space and reaction. This new form of interactivity creates a deeper connection between the art and message with its viewer.
In one analysis of the medium, Char Davies puts the connection between body and space in an essay titled “Osmose: Notes on being in immersive virtual space”:
“Our culture's privileging of mind over matter has led to devaluation of the body, as well as of women and various "others". Historically this world-view has contributed to the plundering of non-human beings and their habitats as objects for human use: the negative implications of this stance are becoming ever more apparent as evidence of worldwide environmental degradation increases. As "unspoiled" unmediated Nature recedes from our lives through urbanisation of exploding human populations and habitat destruction, there is evidence that while the biological consequences for many species (including ourselves) are devastating, the effects may be psychologically damaging as well. This premise, known as the Biophilia Hypothesis, suggests that the increasing loss of access to Nature—as a source of our human spirituality—may prove to be at the root of our collective psyche's deepest wounds (Wilson 1993).
As a culture, we are on the cusp of a new technological paradigm: the emergence of cyberspace. As a means of global communication it will alter our world significantly. We must however be wary: as a realm ruled by mind, cyberspace is the epitome of Cartesian desire, in that it enables us to create worlds where we have total control, where the presence of aging mortal flesh and animal-others is absent, where there is, to paraphrase Laurie Anderson, no "dirt". Popular and media-hyped expectations of "virtual reality" seem to reflect a longing to transcend the limitations of our physical surroundings and, indeed, its long-term effect may be to seduce us to turn away en masse from our bodies and Nature, enchanted and distracted while we continue wasting the resources that sustain us and erasing the futures of countless other-beings on the Earth” (Davies, Osmose).
This creates an interesting change in thought for many participants: By changing space, by leaving the space of one's visual sensibilities, one enters into communication with a space that is psychically innovating. … For we do not change place, we change our nature” (Bachelard, The Poetics of Space).
Citations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_art
http://www.grahamnicholls.com/
http://www.thelivingimage.org/big.html
http://amorphicrobotworks.org/works/index.htm
http://kenrinaldo.com/
http://www.immersence.com/publications/char/1998-CD-Digital_Creativity.html
Graham Nicholls, an artist from London, is known for the relatively new content his work covers, such as hypnosis and psi abilities. The artist, who was born in 1975, says he has had several out-of-body experiences which color his work with an interesting twist of sci-fi and psychopathology (London College of Spirituality). His defining work, “The Living Image,” was a groundbreaking showing of technoetic art when it showed at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre in London in 2004. The piece features an urban setting that shows silhouettes of viewers in its confines. Each individual creates his or her own experience in the virtual reality. One story describes “The Living Image” like this:
“The places visited on the screen are all inspired by the makers’ personal connections with the area. You could find yourself in Smithfields Market or under the Westway, but be warned, none of these passageways are filled with sweetness and light.
“It is a bit noir,” admits Graham.
Video sequences and sound recorded at the real-life locations help to achieve a blurring of what is real and what is computer-generated.
There is the feeling of being confronted with a larger-than-life computer game, however the aim of this VR world is a little loftier” (Lewis).
The space lends itself to interesting symbolism to setting and the rush of life too. While people pass through the urban London world daily with little notice of what is around them, users of “The Living Image” find themselves wanting to explore the setting, stop to listen to sounds or touch their surroundings that they experience every day outside of the virtual world. The sense of immersion is experienced tenfold if the user uses this desire for detail to engage with “The Living Image” beyond the surface, which trigger more interactive aspects such as video and text. The piece was designed to take people into a “psychological state akin to meditation or trance” (Graham), which it duly accomplishes through immersion in a virtual space.
In a completely different virtual space, Chico MacMurtrie accomplishes the same interactive art. An artist from New Mexico, specializes in robotic works where the piece reacts to a user’s movements, much like Graham’s piece “The Living Image.” In MacMurtrie’s “The Forest of Telescoping Totem Poles,” he creates a virtual forest with physical inflatable totem poles. The size of the poles is triggered by users motions upon entering the exhibit. MacMurtrie calls the interaction shapes immerging from the inner body:
“Upon entering the installation, the visitors' movements though the Forest trigger the artery to push air into the Totems, causing them to tumesce with a pulsing rhythm. As the Totems rise, they reveal a plethora of rich imagery consisting of a collage of the human condition, merged with the organic shapes that come from plant life and the inner body.
Once the visitor is in the Forest among the Totem Poles and becomes involved in their dance of upward growth, the entire floor is activated by the strong pulsing of the artery. The Totems continue to climb and push towards the ceiling, struggling to reveal their hidden forms. perhaps their destinies, ultimately reaching beyond the ceiling” (MacMurtrie).
The shapes that come from the experience closely resemble human and plant life, adding a curious symbolism in the work’s content through connecting humans with the natural world.
Similarly, Ken Rinaldo creates bio-art to further show the connection between nature, technology and humankind. Rinaldo, an American artist and educator, focuses on ecological issues and interspecies communication in attempt to unveil group consciousness and interspecies interactions. “Autopoiesis 2000,” an artificial life installation is one of Rinaldo’s many pieces that implement his ideas and trademark specialties.
“Autopoiseis 2000” is a robotic series of 15 sculptures and musical that behave based on the participant’s communications. The sculptures’ motions are triggered by infared sensors that bring arms of the work within inches of the user. The effects are randomized and often follow a “follow the leader” type motion (Rinaldo).
Each of these artists break away from the traditional mouse-click interactivity that comes with many forms of digital and electronic art. Instead, they focus on immersion and use body and motion to determine space and reaction. This new form of interactivity creates a deeper connection between the art and message with its viewer.
In one analysis of the medium, Char Davies puts the connection between body and space in an essay titled “Osmose: Notes on being in immersive virtual space”:
“Our culture's privileging of mind over matter has led to devaluation of the body, as well as of women and various "others". Historically this world-view has contributed to the plundering of non-human beings and their habitats as objects for human use: the negative implications of this stance are becoming ever more apparent as evidence of worldwide environmental degradation increases. As "unspoiled" unmediated Nature recedes from our lives through urbanisation of exploding human populations and habitat destruction, there is evidence that while the biological consequences for many species (including ourselves) are devastating, the effects may be psychologically damaging as well. This premise, known as the Biophilia Hypothesis, suggests that the increasing loss of access to Nature—as a source of our human spirituality—may prove to be at the root of our collective psyche's deepest wounds (Wilson 1993).
As a culture, we are on the cusp of a new technological paradigm: the emergence of cyberspace. As a means of global communication it will alter our world significantly. We must however be wary: as a realm ruled by mind, cyberspace is the epitome of Cartesian desire, in that it enables us to create worlds where we have total control, where the presence of aging mortal flesh and animal-others is absent, where there is, to paraphrase Laurie Anderson, no "dirt". Popular and media-hyped expectations of "virtual reality" seem to reflect a longing to transcend the limitations of our physical surroundings and, indeed, its long-term effect may be to seduce us to turn away en masse from our bodies and Nature, enchanted and distracted while we continue wasting the resources that sustain us and erasing the futures of countless other-beings on the Earth” (Davies, Osmose).
This creates an interesting change in thought for many participants: By changing space, by leaving the space of one's visual sensibilities, one enters into communication with a space that is psychically innovating. … For we do not change place, we change our nature” (Bachelard, The Poetics of Space).
Citations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_art
http://www.grahamnicholls.com/
http://www.thelivingimage.org/big.html
http://amorphicrobotworks.org/works/index.htm
http://kenrinaldo.com/
http://www.immersence.com/publications/char/1998-CD-Digital_Creativity.html
5.05.2010
Lecture Review: China Town (ART 245: Intro to Digital Media)
After gaining an interest in Lucy Raven’s work through her exhibition, I decided to attend her lecture on the same subject — China Town. Although I enjoyed and appreciated the film, Raven’s lecture was not adequate to match.
Raven focused too much of her talk on the content of her film project, and hardly mentioned how she put the work together. From an artist standpoint, her lecture sounded more like she was explaining a trip she went on for a research project. While her trips back and forth to various mines and overseas to witness copper production were interesting, her talk was too focused on the same topic making it dry at some parts.
It would have been helpful for Raven to talk more about the art aspect of her project. She could have talked about why the stop-motion technique she used fit her vision for her film, challenges she ran into while in the editing process and about the aesthetic of the technique. She should have shown clips from her film, so the audience could understand the final product. If I had not previously seen the movie, I would have not been able to fully grasp what Raven was referencing.
Raven focused too much of her talk on the content of her film project, and hardly mentioned how she put the work together. From an artist standpoint, her lecture sounded more like she was explaining a trip she went on for a research project. While her trips back and forth to various mines and overseas to witness copper production were interesting, her talk was too focused on the same topic making it dry at some parts.
It would have been helpful for Raven to talk more about the art aspect of her project. She could have talked about why the stop-motion technique she used fit her vision for her film, challenges she ran into while in the editing process and about the aesthetic of the technique. She should have shown clips from her film, so the audience could understand the final product. If I had not previously seen the movie, I would have not been able to fully grasp what Raven was referencing.
Exhibit Review: China Town (ART 245: Intro to Digital Media)
Lucy Raven’s China Town movie is an incredible example of digital media. By piecing thousands of still photographs together, she simulated motion in a video essay about mining and the international process of materializing copper.
As far as content goes, the video is in an interesting form of art because it is so heavily focused on research. The video plays very much like a documentary, which in some ways that is exactly what it is. The focus on the contrast of the industrial and economic landscape between the United States and China paints the perfect setting for copper production, which the video details. Before this exhibit and subsequent lecture, I would not have considered this film an art form.
But when considering the technique used to piece together the work, the art part of the film is more apparent. After taking more than 7,000 photographs and recording audio for more than a year, she created an animated series using stop-motion. The technique of stop-motion is created by animating still photographic images to make an illusion of movement, which works tremendously for this project. The visual aesthetic in Raven’s film China Town is profound.
As far as content goes, the video is in an interesting form of art because it is so heavily focused on research. The video plays very much like a documentary, which in some ways that is exactly what it is. The focus on the contrast of the industrial and economic landscape between the United States and China paints the perfect setting for copper production, which the video details. Before this exhibit and subsequent lecture, I would not have considered this film an art form.
But when considering the technique used to piece together the work, the art part of the film is more apparent. After taking more than 7,000 photographs and recording audio for more than a year, she created an animated series using stop-motion. The technique of stop-motion is created by animating still photographic images to make an illusion of movement, which works tremendously for this project. The visual aesthetic in Raven’s film China Town is profound.
Lecture Review: The 1,000 Journals Project (ART 245: Intro to Digital Media)
When Brian Singer founded The 1,000 Journals Project, he created an experimental collaborative art project at its finest. In his January lecture at the Nevada Museum of Art, Singer showed a new way of thinking about art while presenting his journals project. Instead of creating art that can only be passively received, Singer creates engaging communication through works, including The 1,000 Journals Project. His work is at the forefront of the transformation from traditional passive art to more interactive pieces. The 1,000 Journals Project brought out creativity, personality and culture from people across the globe — something few other projects can accomplish.
Singer’s lecture focused on this transformation, and showed the benefits that can come from it. For example, art becomes a vehicle for discussion and can send a political message, become a forum or document a community’s history in a creative outlet.
Because Singer incorporated various forms of media to show his work, focused on a modern topic and explained how art can affect a community or culture, his lecture was superb. His expertise both as an artist and public speaker showed immensely in his presentation because he was able to easily engage the audience. He had many people saying “Wow” throughout his lecture and showing at the Nevada Museum of Art. I am sure he left a lasting impression that will lead people to continue thinking about the transformation of collaborate art.
Singer’s lecture focused on this transformation, and showed the benefits that can come from it. For example, art becomes a vehicle for discussion and can send a political message, become a forum or document a community’s history in a creative outlet.
Because Singer incorporated various forms of media to show his work, focused on a modern topic and explained how art can affect a community or culture, his lecture was superb. His expertise both as an artist and public speaker showed immensely in his presentation because he was able to easily engage the audience. He had many people saying “Wow” throughout his lecture and showing at the Nevada Museum of Art. I am sure he left a lasting impression that will lead people to continue thinking about the transformation of collaborate art.
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