I owe a posting about the "Book as Art" exhibit at Boston College. This was an experience that I -- or "we," my mother came too -- truly enjoyed. On the lower floor (and I see that others reacted to this, as well), there was a piece by M.L. Van Nice titled, Dinner with Mr. Dewey. The display was accompanied by an artist's statement referencing the Sir Francis Bacon quote, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."
This seemed to be an accurate, overarching assessment of the exhibit as a whole. Many of the pieces seemed whimsical, at most, simply presenting the viewer with an unexpected novelty. Those books, which were "to be tasted," only, seemed to include Carrots Anyone?, Bon Bon Mots, The Uneventful Life of Dona Carmen y Costanza, Green Salad, Teatimes, and Eight Slices of Pie. Others seemed to require more consideration, with a deeper meaning to be "swallowed," including The Legacy of Scheherazade, Soap Story, and (I don't remember the title of this one) the book featuring excerpts from Soviet newspapers. Some few definitely deserved to be "chewed and digested;" we thought that Endangered Species, a pop-up book with images of African-American children and children from China, Brazil, Uganda, and the Balkans, certainly warranted much more attention and reflection.
In fact, some of the best art in the room came in the form of reflections from BC faculty members and administrators. Their statements, which were printed on the walls, endeavored to tie together the books by theme, addressing matters of nature, family dynamics, food and nutrition, travel, etc. In these cases, their individual expertise shone through, and achieved the most powerful and lasting impressions of the day. My favorite statement commented on the long-standing environmental struggle that has arisen from man's insistence that he is "above" and separate from the rest of the ecological web. It was great!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Since I was a little girl, I have been playing videogames. I started with classics like The Secret of Monkey Island and King's Quest. As the industry matured, I got more and more into this fascinating new way of telling stories. Games were longer than movies and had the potential to be very engrossing and poignant. Some, over the years, have moved me to tears in places. Since my father was a game designer himself, I grew up with my ear to the ground and was able to follow the ins and outs of this new artform.
One game that has long been a favorite of mine is Thief: The Dark Project which was released in 1998 during the post-Unreal hase of first person shooters. In an age of running and gunning, Thief told a dramatic story with low-edge graphics and a memorable protagonist. Since the developers didn't have the technology of other companies, they made the cutscenes of the game flow as moving paintings and silhouettes which added to the artistry of the product. This was what convinced me that games were a legitimate artform. And I still believe this. If someone can nail a toilet to a wall and call it art I will say Okami can be art too.
My own artwork is very much influenced by games, which is why I am in the game design program. My pictures are full of movement and stories, but not always readily apparent ones. By contrast, my video is intended to be taken at face-value. When it comes to my art, I frequently try to remain playful and not take myself too seriously.
Very little of my artwork prior to this class was "complete", usually they were doodles done of fantasial figures like warriors and dragons but nothing of jaw-dropping quality. The doodles were usually conceptual sketches of creatures and characters from the Dungeons and Dragons games I was running at the time. After I graduated from college, I stopped drawing for a long time. I was never officially trained in any art form, everything I knew was self-taught so I felt no compulsion to keep drawing. This class has taught me to look at things as an artist would once more and I am now considering taking classes in animation.
Artist Statement_Ke
All my works on this class are about some motorcycle riders. Why motorcycle riders? Because they are cool. I like putting different cool elements together and make some artworks could impress people.
There is a kind of movie that influenced me much. They don’t pay much attention on plot or story, all they want to do is to show how cool the protagonist is. Hollywood is making these kind of movie a lot, like Transporter series, Equilibrium, Mission Impossible series, fast and furious series… and people like them. One of my favorite director is John Woo Yu-Sen, a Asian director who is famous by his violence aesthetics (a beautiful way to present violence). He has made a lot of cool movies before he came to Hollywood, most of them are about killers, criminal gang, thieves… and he can always make them super cool. The idea of speed change of my video project is from John Woo Yu-Sen, he have used this camera language a lot.
A lot of games give me the same feeling with those “cool movies”. The difference is you can control your character and create your own legend, more intense expirence. “Hitman: codename 47” is the direct inspiration of my composed image work and Image sequence work. I strongly feel that I should make some cool stuff like the movies and games that influenced me.
artist statement Mariam
I am attracted to image either in photograph or video. I like to use this kind of media to express my self and also to tell histories. For me, photography is magical because you kept immortal what your object is and also because instead of using charcoal or any kind of media to paint you used the light.
I have a background as a journalist and as I said I am attracted to any kind of image, either in video or photography. And I like to use this kind of media to express myself and to tell histories. My influences in photography are Sebastiao Salgado, a Brazilian photojournalist and Ansel Adams.
When I took a picture or made any angle from the camera I try to give another point of view different from the one we are used to have. I like to find forms that you never see at first or to compose images with common elements in order to create a unique piece.
For this class I created one picture that is the reflection of a tree in the puddle. The time was during the fall so you can see the leaves above the puddle. The picture recreates the tree with its leaves that were place not in the tree but in the puddle.
Based on that picture the second assignment was to do a transformation of that picture. At first I tried to find places that have any kind of reflections, puddles, pools, windows and so but I did not find any kind of transformation. So I took pictures of trees with no leaves at all and I made a composition based on 6 pictures that are connected to each other and basically I used the same object. And there you have my book art.
Artist statement Mariam
I am attracted to image either in photograph or video. I like to use this kind of media to express my self and also to tell histories. For me, photography is magical because you kept immortal what your object is and also because instead of using charcoal or any kind of media to paint you used the light.
I have a background as a journalist and as I said I am attracted to any kind of image, either in video or photography. And I like to use this kind of media to express myself and to tell histories. My influences in photography are Sebastiao Salgado, a Brazilian photojournalist and Ansel Adams.
When I took a picture or made any angle from the camera I try to give another point of view different from the one we are used to have. I like to find forms that you never see at first or to compose images with common elements in order to create a unique piece.
For this class I created one picture that is the reflection of a tree in the puddle. The time was during the fall so you can see the leaves above the puddle. The picture recreates the tree with its leaves that were place not in the tree but in the puddle.
Based on that picture the second assignment was to do a transformation of that picture. At first I tried to find places that have any kind of reflections, puddles, pools, windows and so but I did not find any kind of transformation. So I took pictures of trees with no leaves at all and I made a composition based on 6 pictures that are connected to each other and basically I used the same object. And there you have my book art.
Time-Based Society; Time-Based People
Within the context of human social movements, the passage of time more closely resembles a pendulum than it does a straight line. Progressive outbreaks of social thought are met by resistance -- a backlash, some might say -- only to emerge again with heightened fervor in subsequent generations. People reject a way of life as antiquated, but then beatify and resurrect it through nostalgia and revivalism, respectively.
This trend seems most significant in America; our citizens are united by common thoughts and ideals, rather than an immemorial sense of national identity. Accordingly, as an infant nation in a world of ancients, we are still laboring to define ourselves: who we are, where we are going.
All things are better with humor. In Making a Cake...and Friends, I hoped to turn a playful eye toward both the aura of domestic bliss and the darker, repressive and conformist undertones of the 1940s and 50s. I am always drawn to this era of American history -- for its wholesome aesthetic, values, and perceived simplicity -- but still very grateful for the progress we have made as a nation since that time.
This work and future works, I suspect, will center around a hope that we can combine many of the positive attributes of earlier generations (their work ethic, honesty, loyalty and pride) with the positive attributes of our current generation (open-mindedness, tolerance, and activism). This could only ever be achieved, I'd suggest, by careful collective and personal introspection.
In short, let's not defenestrate the baby with the bathwater. We can be as good as our predecessors, and much better than our predecessors at the same time.
Finally, looping in the portrait series of my brother, which will remain untitled, I'd just briefly observe that the "backlash" trend also plays itself out through the course of our own personal development. Oscillating from one extreme to another -- through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood -- we're all following the same, swaying trajectory as our young nation. Yet, it seems, we retain one steady (if complex) identity throughout.
This trend seems most significant in America; our citizens are united by common thoughts and ideals, rather than an immemorial sense of national identity. Accordingly, as an infant nation in a world of ancients, we are still laboring to define ourselves: who we are, where we are going.
All things are better with humor. In Making a Cake...and Friends, I hoped to turn a playful eye toward both the aura of domestic bliss and the darker, repressive and conformist undertones of the 1940s and 50s. I am always drawn to this era of American history -- for its wholesome aesthetic, values, and perceived simplicity -- but still very grateful for the progress we have made as a nation since that time.This work and future works, I suspect, will center around a hope that we can combine many of the positive attributes of earlier generations (their work ethic, honesty, loyalty and pride) with the positive attributes of our current generation (open-mindedness, tolerance, and activism). This could only ever be achieved, I'd suggest, by careful collective and personal introspection.
In short, let's not defenestrate the baby with the bathwater. We can be as good as our predecessors, and much better than our predecessors at the same time.
Finally, looping in the portrait series of my brother, which will remain untitled, I'd just briefly observe that the "backlash" trend also plays itself out through the course of our own personal development. Oscillating from one extreme to another -- through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood -- we're all following the same, swaying trajectory as our young nation. Yet, it seems, we retain one steady (if complex) identity throughout.
Rahul Artist's Statement
Ever since I was 12 years old, I have known that I wanted to be one of 2 things: A video game designer or a chef. I know that they are career paths that are completely divergent from each
other, but I have found that both give me an immense sense of satisfaction, almost like a catharsis. My choices emerge from that fact that I was an only child and when school was off, I couldn't meet my friends all the time and thus got immensely bored at home. So I used to watch my mother and grandmother cook and eventually I began to take an interest in cooking. Till today a dish that is well prepared and looks good to me is a work of art to my visual senses and my taste buds. However staying on my feet for 12 hours a day in a hot kitchen is not something I could have done day in and day out. So that career choice ended. When I was 10 years old my father gave me a Nintendo gameboy. Seeing little Mario jump around the screen on the press of a button fascinated me no end. I could play that little console for hours on end. But what got my curiousity was HOW did an on screen character react to a button press. I asked my dad and he told me that the answer to that question lay in computer science. So I did my bachelors and masters in informations technology and computer applications. Currently I'm specializing in Video game design in this program. One could say that I have been working towards this goal my whole academic life.
I have influenced by a lot of video game designers and story writers, some of the noteworthy ones being Amy Hennig (Legacy of Kain), Shigeru Miyamoto (Super Mario Brothers), Koji Igarashi (Castlevania), Hideki Kamiya (Okami), David Jaffe (God of War), Fumito Ueda (Shadow of the Collosus) and many others. To me a well executed game becomes a piece of art if it manages to draw you into itself completely. And all of these people have suceeded in chipping away at hours of my life at a single time without me noticing that happening. I am currently working on a game of my own, though I haven't finished it, the above people have definitely played a part in influencing me.
Artist_Statement
I visited the Axiom gallery which was in Jamaica Plain. Since I live in the area the gallery in itself a winner. Walking into the gallery I saw a few admirers of works put on show but even more security guards and custodians in the area too. I also saw a host of security camera's around the artwork which diminished all hope of getting a picture. This was further confirmed as a custodian reprimanded me as soon as I brought out my phone.
So I left the area void of any physical evidence but more the impressions that I got from viewing one art work in particular. This piece was a painting recreated with modern features of an older work. Both have the same vibe and portrayal of an incident at sea. In this case the original painting had the theme of impending doom for fellow sailors at sea, and the storm thats headed their way. The recreated scene was the same only it was modern day in a shipping vessel that is about to undergo a certain doom.
The reactions vary from each other but the vibe, the feeling both of these works exude are similar. To me right there was the only painting that mattered. My work so far has been based more of an experiment on audience reactions by taking few techniques from already existing works. My work is more of a recreation of using ideas of standard methods and non standard and making an amalgam of these techniques and gauging the reaction of the audience. So far I have done mostly old comedy routines but I am now looking into making other emotional areas such as: fear, sadness. The work will not necessarily be recreated into another video but on whatever medium can actually describe the work the best.
Artist Statement
In our daily lives, philosophy appears anywhere. Sometimes, objects only give us a very simple semblance.But behind them, there are many principles which are not easy to discover.
My still image is about a dog. It means, all the things have two "faces"--nice and evil. We can not simply say that "nice" is good, "evil" is bad. Because they exist together. A complete person is consist of these characters. The other thing is that it hard to know what is behind. So everything in the world has two sides, we can not judge or define it only by good or bad.
Here are some pictures which make me think a lot:
From philosophy, I also know that everything can be easy or difficult. So I make the video "Go and get the food". It semms like a very simple issue--only for food. But during all our lives, we can not leave food. The really common and simple thing is extremly important. Also, a tiny finding can make us happy. It depends on how easy you define happy. A person always feel "full" will always feel happy.
This class makes me think about the combination of philosophy and art. It is really interesting and profound, easy and difficult.
My still image is about a dog. It means, all the things have two "faces"--nice and evil. We can not simply say that "nice" is good, "evil" is bad. Because they exist together. A complete person is consist of these characters. The other thing is that it hard to know what is behind. So everything in the world has two sides, we can not judge or define it only by good or bad.
Here are some pictures which make me think a lot:
From philosophy, I also know that everything can be easy or difficult. So I make the video "Go and get the food". It semms like a very simple issue--only for food. But during all our lives, we can not leave food. The really common and simple thing is extremly important. Also, a tiny finding can make us happy. It depends on how easy you define happy. A person always feel "full" will always feel happy.
This class makes me think about the combination of philosophy and art. It is really interesting and profound, easy and difficult.
Artist Statement, rexon
Most of the time, I am known as man of few words. I keep my thoughts and emotions to myself. Whenever I feel like vomiting my thoughts or emotions I use photo manipulation as a medium. For the last five years I’ve created several self-portraits using this medium. These self portraits convey different messages, sometimes it is just about my thoughts and sometimes my thoughts or feelings about others. Whenever I express my feelings about others I use Steganography technique. I am not sure if the recipient always gets the message but at least I feel relieved. I feel relieved as it helps to cool down the magma inside me before it turns into lava.
The “self portrait: a process” is a piece that I did for the video project. The end result of this video project is a self portrait title “Anubhav” which means “to realize”. This piece is also a part of an album named “iceberg”. My ultimate goal, once I have enough pieces, is to create a self portrait collage using all pieces.
Jermy Reger, Artist Statement
My two main pieces I created for this class were the still image sequence and the video.
My video project, titled "the Great Smoothie Video" was a documentation of a daily ritual of mine. I talk to other people about smoothies they make, and they passionately explain their artistic approach to the smoothie, and the wondrous tastes they produce. But they don't make smoothies as much as I do. I decided to film a different approach; capturing the process from the perspective of the ingredients. And keeping the ingredients minimal so that they stand out and the viewer can appreciate their individual beauty. I draw inspiration from directors such as Danny Boyle, who can put unique perspectives on subjects to make you feel like you are there with them, and feeling the same things that they are, no matter how strange the situation is.
I revisited the original still I took of a mysterious bicycle that had been swallowed by the sea and they spit back out... as a phoenix would rise from the ashes. For the montage, I took a more in depth look at it's parts, and reminiscent of the way that Russel Mills created artwork for earlier Nine Inch Nails albums. Mills had a way of mixing organic and non organic mediums to paint stories that are not necessarily natural in their content, but feel natural in their composition. I relied on slow pans and the zooming out of the images to give a sense of transformation, going from organic to non organic. The whole piece follows the same methods, but zooms out more and more until the last few shots you are shown that this is a bicycle that has gone through a transformation itself from a mechanical man made object, into an organic being. Much like how Jeroen Offerman changes a natural landscape in "The Great Escape" into a scene that conjures up thoughts of visiting alien beings, mechanical monsters, and a hugeness that changes the viewer from something so normal, to something very very small.
worldpeace!
Artist Statement-Lili Kligman-Roitman
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
Since I realized I wasn't meant to be a person who can draw or paint, my passion has always been video. Six years ago, I decided to pursue my Bachelor's Degree in Television and Video Production at Emerson College, because I realized that was the only medium that was liberating my creativity. From there, I started doing more of experimental videos, one example could be 'Love at First Brush,' a montage about a complicated and wild-love story between the toothbrush and the mouth.
However, for some reason, maybe because I love the genres of sci-fi and horror, or just because I enjoy over-analyzing everything in life, I've found myself using the themes of life, death and reincarnation in most of my videos. In 'Waiting', a digital video montage I did using some interesting color effects during post-production and green screen during production, I explored the storyline of a woman who descends from heaven into the ocean, only to become flesh again, and goes searching for the soul of her past lover. The only conflict she has, is that the soul of her past lover has embodied another human being, who is in love with another girl. The woman who descends from heaven takes journeys into parallel worlds.
"Waiting"
When I started taking the Time-Based Media class (as part of my Master's Degree program at Northeastern University), I realized that I can examine the aforementioned subjects using photography. Now, I personally only believe in Heaven, what is called Hell, doesn't exist. Nevertheless, in my Interactive Book, called 'Divine Soul', I decided to re-create Dante's "Divine Comedy" and the three worlds of the afterlife he describes ( Paradise, Purgatory and Hell) using my many photographs of ice. The intended idea was to use the subject, ice, as the representation of the soul. For some reason I became fascinated with the idea that a simple cube of ice can have so many meanings, besides what it really is. Here are some screenshots of 'Divine Soul'
Purgatory:
Hell:
In the Jewish religion, it is believed that when a person dreams about a loved one who passed away, it is because that loved one is visiting the dreamer. That is the beauty of dreams, anything can happen and that anything can sometimes feel more real than life itself. The influence in my artistic view comes also from dreams, and who else can know more about dreams than the master Salvador Dali? For many years I have been in love with Dali's artwork. He is best known as one of the main artist from the Surrealist movement starting in the mid-1920's after experimenting with the cultural movement known as Dada or Dadaism.
"The Persistence of Memory" (Painting, 1931)
On the other hand, I also feel strongly passionate about the artwork created by M.C. Escher. Mr. Escher was a Dutch-Firsian graphic artist in the 1930s-1960s who was known for his mathematically inspired lithographs, woodcuts and mezzotints. What irrigates my interest in his artwork, is the impossible constructions and designs that challenges infinity. It's like dreaming, where nothing is what it seems to be.
"Relativity" (Lithograph, 1953)
In the future I would like to keep doing experimental videos implementing other forms of media, such as graphic design, photography and possibly being able to translate all the ideas that inspired me into art installations. I want to be able to take my audience INSIDE my dreams and thoughts, and not "push" them away with a screen. And in this journey so far I have learned many lessons, the most important one is to never apologize for your art, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Since I realized I wasn't meant to be a person who can draw or paint, my passion has always been video. Six years ago, I decided to pursue my Bachelor's Degree in Television and Video Production at Emerson College, because I realized that was the only medium that was liberating my creativity. From there, I started doing more of experimental videos, one example could be 'Love at First Brush,' a montage about a complicated and wild-love story between the toothbrush and the mouth.
However, for some reason, maybe because I love the genres of sci-fi and horror, or just because I enjoy over-analyzing everything in life, I've found myself using the themes of life, death and reincarnation in most of my videos. In 'Waiting', a digital video montage I did using some interesting color effects during post-production and green screen during production, I explored the storyline of a woman who descends from heaven into the ocean, only to become flesh again, and goes searching for the soul of her past lover. The only conflict she has, is that the soul of her past lover has embodied another human being, who is in love with another girl. The woman who descends from heaven takes journeys into parallel worlds.
"Waiting"
When I started taking the Time-Based Media class (as part of my Master's Degree program at Northeastern University), I realized that I can examine the aforementioned subjects using photography. Now, I personally only believe in Heaven, what is called Hell, doesn't exist. Nevertheless, in my Interactive Book, called 'Divine Soul', I decided to re-create Dante's "Divine Comedy" and the three worlds of the afterlife he describes ( Paradise, Purgatory and Hell) using my many photographs of ice. The intended idea was to use the subject, ice, as the representation of the soul. For some reason I became fascinated with the idea that a simple cube of ice can have so many meanings, besides what it really is. Here are some screenshots of 'Divine Soul'
Purgatory:
Hell:
In the Jewish religion, it is believed that when a person dreams about a loved one who passed away, it is because that loved one is visiting the dreamer. That is the beauty of dreams, anything can happen and that anything can sometimes feel more real than life itself. The influence in my artistic view comes also from dreams, and who else can know more about dreams than the master Salvador Dali? For many years I have been in love with Dali's artwork. He is best known as one of the main artist from the Surrealist movement starting in the mid-1920's after experimenting with the cultural movement known as Dada or Dadaism.
"The Persistence of Memory" (Painting, 1931)
On the other hand, I also feel strongly passionate about the artwork created by M.C. Escher. Mr. Escher was a Dutch-Firsian graphic artist in the 1930s-1960s who was known for his mathematically inspired lithographs, woodcuts and mezzotints. What irrigates my interest in his artwork, is the impossible constructions and designs that challenges infinity. It's like dreaming, where nothing is what it seems to be.
"Relativity" (Lithograph, 1953)
In the future I would like to keep doing experimental videos implementing other forms of media, such as graphic design, photography and possibly being able to translate all the ideas that inspired me into art installations. I want to be able to take my audience INSIDE my dreams and thoughts, and not "push" them away with a screen. And in this journey so far I have learned many lessons, the most important one is to never apologize for your art, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
ARTIST STATEMENT SALLY RODRIGUEZ
As a person and an artist I am full of contradictions, the things that I enjoy and the things I am passionate about are worlds apart but meet every time in my work. I am completely in love with pop culture but at the same time I am passionate about information, history and tradition, which can sometime create interesting pieces. Because of my journalism background I tend to always create things with a purpose and a clear message. I believe that important subjects can effectively be assimilated by the masses if it is in video form. Some of my pieces are documentaries of very serious subjects like “Flight 587” about an airplane crash and “After College Drama” about the job crisis affecting new grads, both clear expressions of who I am.
I am most definitely a product of the MTV and the Disney generation and proud of it. A genre that influences me the most is Japanese Anime, which always surprises people but then again I am a contradiction. My favorite stories are by Hayao Miyazaki because of the fascinating characters and their massage, there is always an incredible life lesson embedded in his stories: “My Neighbor Totoro” and Anime WWII Hiroshima-Nagasaki Documentary "Grave of the Fireflies" My fascination with all things fantasy stared when I was 6-years-old with the movie Labyrinth, I was scared of the monster but could not take my eyes away from them.
My nanny was the television. I learned all great lessons from my fictional friends, I watched TV from the time I got home from school to the time I went to bed, with no restrictions. The Hollywood Technicolor era is another influence of mine I find that time incredibly romantic and happy, the music, the colors, the language is something a enjoy and only wish it came back. Color, color, color is something I love and as a child I wished to have the power to make everything around me more colorful; I feel that now I have the power to do so with all the great technology that lets us manipulate images but at the same time I am very careful of using this power because of my passion.
Candido Bido
I am passionate about social problems and politics and to me the most artistic expression of these are Spanish movies from the 30’s through 70’s. These movies speak the journalist in me, they are from a time of oppression and censorship and I am incredibly grateful for them; they were effective in every way, entertaining and educating while changing the world and freeing minds. Having no one to monitor me as a child I came upon the movie “Empire of the Sun” and documentaries from the Holocaust, these two increased the need for me to read and learn about anything historic and even at 8-years-old I wanted to be informed and see the gruesome pictures of the events of the past and the present.
My Goal is to create entertaining moving images that will educate in a fast and concise way, that will include my passion in content and what I enjoy in visuals.
I am most definitely a product of the MTV and the Disney generation and proud of it. A genre that influences me the most is Japanese Anime, which always surprises people but then again I am a contradiction. My favorite stories are by Hayao Miyazaki because of the fascinating characters and their massage, there is always an incredible life lesson embedded in his stories: “My Neighbor Totoro” and Anime WWII Hiroshima-Nagasaki Documentary "Grave of the Fireflies" My fascination with all things fantasy stared when I was 6-years-old with the movie Labyrinth, I was scared of the monster but could not take my eyes away from them.
My nanny was the television. I learned all great lessons from my fictional friends, I watched TV from the time I got home from school to the time I went to bed, with no restrictions. The Hollywood Technicolor era is another influence of mine I find that time incredibly romantic and happy, the music, the colors, the language is something a enjoy and only wish it came back. Color, color, color is something I love and as a child I wished to have the power to make everything around me more colorful; I feel that now I have the power to do so with all the great technology that lets us manipulate images but at the same time I am very careful of using this power because of my passion.
Candido Bido
I am passionate about social problems and politics and to me the most artistic expression of these are Spanish movies from the 30’s through 70’s. These movies speak the journalist in me, they are from a time of oppression and censorship and I am incredibly grateful for them; they were effective in every way, entertaining and educating while changing the world and freeing minds. Having no one to monitor me as a child I came upon the movie “Empire of the Sun” and documentaries from the Holocaust, these two increased the need for me to read and learn about anything historic and even at 8-years-old I wanted to be informed and see the gruesome pictures of the events of the past and the present.
My Goal is to create entertaining moving images that will educate in a fast and concise way, that will include my passion in content and what I enjoy in visuals.
Digital Media artist, Nate Lord, strives for a philosophical aesthetic grounded in post-modernity while holding onto Modern and High-Modern elements of creations in his work. Having received a BA in English and Cinema Studies, Nate is a student of both literary and film theory, leading him to extreme Deconstructionism, believing the artist is something akin to the Oracle at Delphi—spurting out lines to be left in the power of the audience to interpret and give weight, validity and meaning to. To Nate Lord, the artist’s intent is irrelevant if not non-existent. Instead of creating from a point of rhetoric with a specific message, Nate works from the emergence of a singular image, building off it with what comes naturally, such as with the Surrealists (specifically Magritte and Buñuel) and the Abstract-Expressionists (specifically DeKooning, Rothko, Motherwell and Kline), working, perhaps, from a sub-conscious vantage point.
Artist Statement...sort of
I have never ever thought of myself as an artist, so this is more of a finding myself as an artist statement, than an actual artist statement. Here goes:
It started with a shirt. The message was easy enough, “party til you puke.” I intended to do just that, wearing that very shirt I had created with spray paint and a handmade stencil. It was the first time I had made something that conveyed a message to the world. I was instantly hooked. I longed for more but had never thought of myself as an artist. I have always been creative, but I could never draw, let alone paint pictures. In school that meant you couldn’t be an artist, so I always wished I had the natural talent and chalked it up to bad genes. Recently I enrolled in the Digital Media Master’s program at Northeastern, and before I knew it, I was headed down a path I had only dreamed of taking. This path is one that has brought me here today although I did not know that was where I was headed. My first project in this class, “Choke Hold” showed me that I COULD be an artist. The picture was gritty and visceral but again I was able to tell the world what I wanted, this time a little more subtly. The picture portrays the message of a struggle and the will to never give up. It shows that you can resist something for so long that it actually becomes a part of you, but also, to never let go of a hope that there is something more out there.
Going to the “Book as Art” exhibit opened my eyes farther. This showed me that almost anything can be art. Art never has to fit a mold, nor does it have to break one. Art is exactly what you intend it to be. My journey brought me to the ICA; where I stumbled upon my most inspiring find yet, an artist by the name of Shepard Fairey. I knew of him prior to this find, but I did not think of him as much of and artist. To me, he was like myself, making his own stencils and spray painting silly pictures and phrases (where I started with a drinking shirt, he started with a picture of Andre the Giant and the phrase, “Andre the Giant has a posse”). After I saw Shepard Fairey’s exhibit I knew I had a place in the art world too. His works, such as “Duality of Humanity 3” and “War By Numbers” convey very intense messages to his viewers, and it was all done through spray-paint and handmade stencils. His work is beautiful and meaningful and touched me in more ways than one. He has shown me that I can tell a story, tell MY story, through any means of media. I feel like it was fate that brought me to the ICA that day. I now have to confidence to create and call my self an artist. Now all I have to do is find my voice and become strong enough to make the world listen. Writer Anaïs Nin wrote, “And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." This is where I find myself now, trying to unfurl each petal to get to the center of myself as an artist.
It started with a shirt. The message was easy enough, “party til you puke.” I intended to do just that, wearing that very shirt I had created with spray paint and a handmade stencil. It was the first time I had made something that conveyed a message to the world. I was instantly hooked. I longed for more but had never thought of myself as an artist. I have always been creative, but I could never draw, let alone paint pictures. In school that meant you couldn’t be an artist, so I always wished I had the natural talent and chalked it up to bad genes. Recently I enrolled in the Digital Media Master’s program at Northeastern, and before I knew it, I was headed down a path I had only dreamed of taking. This path is one that has brought me here today although I did not know that was where I was headed. My first project in this class, “Choke Hold” showed me that I COULD be an artist. The picture was gritty and visceral but again I was able to tell the world what I wanted, this time a little more subtly. The picture portrays the message of a struggle and the will to never give up. It shows that you can resist something for so long that it actually becomes a part of you, but also, to never let go of a hope that there is something more out there.
Going to the “Book as Art” exhibit opened my eyes farther. This showed me that almost anything can be art. Art never has to fit a mold, nor does it have to break one. Art is exactly what you intend it to be. My journey brought me to the ICA; where I stumbled upon my most inspiring find yet, an artist by the name of Shepard Fairey. I knew of him prior to this find, but I did not think of him as much of and artist. To me, he was like myself, making his own stencils and spray painting silly pictures and phrases (where I started with a drinking shirt, he started with a picture of Andre the Giant and the phrase, “Andre the Giant has a posse”). After I saw Shepard Fairey’s exhibit I knew I had a place in the art world too. His works, such as “Duality of Humanity 3” and “War By Numbers” convey very intense messages to his viewers, and it was all done through spray-paint and handmade stencils. His work is beautiful and meaningful and touched me in more ways than one. He has shown me that I can tell a story, tell MY story, through any means of media. I feel like it was fate that brought me to the ICA that day. I now have to confidence to create and call my self an artist. Now all I have to do is find my voice and become strong enough to make the world listen. Writer Anaïs Nin wrote, “And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." This is where I find myself now, trying to unfurl each petal to get to the center of myself as an artist.
Pre final class thoughts
To the 03:15'ers -- apparently we had evaluations to do last week! I will pick them up from the new CPS office before our class and we can do at the start.
To all students in both classes, as I tabulate your final grades in the next week, here is how that grade will break down:
Composed image: 10
Image Sequence/book: 20
Gallery visit write up: 5
Video/animation: 30
Final statement/presentation: 15
Class participation: 10
Blog participation: 10
Total assignments add up to 100
So if you are missing anything, make sure you get it to me! I've noted on some of the grades/feedback for the video projects that I didn't see storyboards/scripts from some of you, so let me know if you still have those.
To all students in both classes, as I tabulate your final grades in the next week, here is how that grade will break down:
Composed image: 10
Image Sequence/book: 20
Gallery visit write up: 5
Video/animation: 30
Final statement/presentation: 15
Class participation: 10
Blog participation: 10
Total assignments add up to 100
So if you are missing anything, make sure you get it to me! I've noted on some of the grades/feedback for the video projects that I didn't see storyboards/scripts from some of you, so let me know if you still have those.
Monday, June 22, 2009
My artist statement
I am an observer. I have been my entire life.
I was born into a huge family with loads of sorrow and not much else. From an early age I learned to watch - quietly - from the corner. As I grew older and developed the skills to articulate what it was I saw, I turned my vision towards writing, pursuing a degree in Creative Writing and Linguistics. I furthered my training by also studying design and typography at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. My eye for observation has carried over to my professional life as well. Be it parsing conversations with drug addicts for the truth lurking behind what they were telling me to monitoring client accounts for spending anomolies, I have always been on the lookout for the less obvious.
My creative vision tends towards the Macro. I thoroughly enjoy examining things at the most extreme level. many of my favorite photographs are those where the true subject of the image is not what it would seem to be: A picture of a bottle cap looks like so much more to me... A close up of an orange looks a bit like a neural-net. The quick snap of a friend looks at first like a portrait but to me is a fantastic picture of flowers. Sometimes I will snap a picture just for the mere interesting nature of the texture.
I found the exhibit of books at BC to be compelling. The way that a familiar object that often times is instantly readable [pun acknowledged but not intended] as a book but at the same time utterly and completely something else really resonated with me. I like the Trompe l'oeil aspect of the artists books the best. Was it a head cabbage? That's not a book, it's a bunch of teabags... Fascinating. It is that fooling of the eye, the guiding of ones gaze is what I find most interesting. I think I succeeded just a little with my picture of the ice:
_____________________
Recently, I have developed a keen interest in Tilt Shift and Miniature faking photography. Here is an photographic example:
And here is a video example:
I was born into a huge family with loads of sorrow and not much else. From an early age I learned to watch - quietly - from the corner. As I grew older and developed the skills to articulate what it was I saw, I turned my vision towards writing, pursuing a degree in Creative Writing and Linguistics. I furthered my training by also studying design and typography at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. My eye for observation has carried over to my professional life as well. Be it parsing conversations with drug addicts for the truth lurking behind what they were telling me to monitoring client accounts for spending anomolies, I have always been on the lookout for the less obvious.
My creative vision tends towards the Macro. I thoroughly enjoy examining things at the most extreme level. many of my favorite photographs are those where the true subject of the image is not what it would seem to be: A picture of a bottle cap looks like so much more to me... A close up of an orange looks a bit like a neural-net. The quick snap of a friend looks at first like a portrait but to me is a fantastic picture of flowers. Sometimes I will snap a picture just for the mere interesting nature of the texture.
I found the exhibit of books at BC to be compelling. The way that a familiar object that often times is instantly readable [pun acknowledged but not intended] as a book but at the same time utterly and completely something else really resonated with me. I like the Trompe l'oeil aspect of the artists books the best. Was it a head cabbage? That's not a book, it's a bunch of teabags... Fascinating. It is that fooling of the eye, the guiding of ones gaze is what I find most interesting. I think I succeeded just a little with my picture of the ice:
_____________________
Recently, I have developed a keen interest in Tilt Shift and Miniature faking photography. Here is an photographic example:
And here is a video example:
Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
I enjoy the way these images engage the mind and make it work in ways beyond what we are programed to see. I really like how - through manipulation of color saturation, focus, and depth of field - what would be an ordinary snapshot becomes something compelling (and at some level challenging). It is a technique I had hoped to employ more successfully with my ice transformation images, and I hope to explore more and more of this technique going forward. I could imagine really fantastic results when utilized in the creation of an artist's book.Artist Statement - Jerry
My work has never had one clear message because my work has always been about curiosity, exploration, and wonderment. I have been too curious about art as a whole to put myself in one place. Put another way – I have always been a Jack of all trades and an Ace of none. I have been a playwright, author, actor, photographer, musician, videographer, graphic designer, sculptor, and luthier – all to no great effect. My work has always been just that – work-man like. My work speaks of the curiosity that hands and heart and brains can make when put to one idea - but not to any one message, medium, or goal. There is no common thread that I can discern.
I have always prided myself on my lack of vision. As an artist I have always been more interested in the journey of discovering what a pixel, a guitar or a chunk of wood can become when I filter it through my brain and my experience. I very rarely set off with an artistic goal in mind. That goes for an individual piece or ‘art’ as a whole.
As a human I am inspired by almost all art that I come across but as a craftsman I am inspired by artists who take the usual and show you how to make it unusual. I am respectful of the artist who discards all the rules to great effect –someone who turns black to white in their chosen milieu - but I am more interested in artists who bend the rules to show us a slightly different viewpoint.
My influences run the gamut from Joe Pass, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Dave Navarro to Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, and Peter Shaffer to Alfred Stieglitz, Annie Leibovitz, and Dorothea Lange, to Paul Reed Smith, Ken Parker and the National Guitars Company.
Moving forward, my art will probably continue to meander like it has for the last 20 years. I continue to find interest in wondering “what does this do?” or “How do you do that?” If my past work has taught me anything it is that I don’t know what will interest me next until I get my hands dirty with whatever it turns out to be.
Artist Statement
For no reason I love graphic design, generally, drawing. That's one of the reasons why I chose this major(an other one is that ...I hate writing ). Although I love drawing but I never had a chance to do so until I came to the U.S. I started to draw since I started to take classes in Digital Media. Personally prefer watercolor and Chinese style ink paint. I can remember what we have seen in the first class of Time Based Media. Honestly I don't like those paints or I don't like academic style. In my opinion art should present a floating feeling. Art is water-like. Art is not homework not work, art should be what ever you want to put on a canvas, a paper, a wall. I never want to use this degree to get a job. One reason I came for this degree is that, I had a dream to make myself a cartoon movie.
In the past few months I had a lot of works. About one months ago I started to draw with Photoshop. Although I had heard it a lot in the past, but I never tried. After a month I have to say it is an amazing software ever, the happiness it brings to me just like the first time when I touch the keyboard of a old PC. Technology is pushing art into a hole new level.
Well, as you can see my writing is just like this...I will keep on drawing, just for interest.
A few things I am working on these days, paint & cut.
My final project
Here is a link to looking on Jimmy Liao book.
Here is a link to my video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAhdC2NYjGY I have been interested in any kinds of art since I was really young, drawing, painting, music, even stagecraft but I could do it only for my hobbies. And I had to stay away from them because of my hard studied. Then, I came to US and had a chance to take a 3D dimension class. I had done many art works such as molding, panting and sculpture. From that time I have been started working about arts again.
And I had a chance to make my best piece in the time base media class it is an artist book I called it as “Water is life” I had inspirations from the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College and also, water in many different kinds of the bottle shape. I was comparing my life as water because it is transformative. Sometimes it is liquid, sometimes it is solid. It can flow variously depending on how the thing around it affects it like our life that affect to environments or situations.
So, I started finding a cute bottle and filled it with some syrup that has red color. Then I boil the candles and mixed it with red water color. I put some plastic wrap in the bottle to make it as an ice and filled the candles in. Then I wait until it solid. After that I wrote some quote in there (I compare my life as water because it is transformative. Sometimes it is liquid, sometimes it is solid. It can flow variously depending on how the thing around it affects it) also five things to make our life be happy and I took images while the water was transforming. And put it in side the bottle with the quotes.
When I look at my art works I feel that I normally make them from something around my life or something that I like. So, I feel like all of my art works are my self portrait. In the future I am thinking about making other kinds of art which is on the internet such as creating websites or some drama on TV. I will never stop working on art because it is in my blood.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is about layers and stories.I have come along distance to be a part of this lass. I started doing art in my 30's and went ot the SMFA for 15 years part-time to finally graduate.My job is as a psychiatric clinical nurse specialist.I have listened to many stories and rom my ownexperience know thw importance of telling stories.
I have worked in many kinds of printmaking. It was the beauty of adding layers that attracted me to this media..I wanted to continue to be challenged and learn so I began playing with photoshop , which led me to digital photography. After my sister's murder I began studying the Zohar, which is the mystical interpetation of the Torah. The Zohar is read on many different levels, the intellectual, the emotional, and the spiritual.This is what my work is about. My book The Dance of Spring is a story about dancing to bring spring but it takes place in front of a tree that was planted by my sister's friends in her memory and so it is also about hope.My video Lilac Sunday is about the beauty of the Arboretum but also a story of journey trying to find beauty in the world again.
My work has been influenced by many sources. Japanese woodcut prints,Anselm Keifer's work, some of my teachers at the SMFA,Walter Benjamin's writings, and the study of the Zohar.Presently I am entranced with the photographer Michael Kenna. His work is beautiful, mystical and full of meaning.
M future work will continue to use stories as metaphors. I want to continue in digital work and maybe combine my photographs and prints. I want to concentrate on black and white and macro images. I hope to continue to use video and slide shows to tell stories. After seeing the show at the Axion Gallery I know that I can stretch my creativity to do what I can't even imagine now
I have worked in many kinds of printmaking. It was the beauty of adding layers that attracted me to this media..I wanted to continue to be challenged and learn so I began playing with photoshop , which led me to digital photography. After my sister's murder I began studying the Zohar, which is the mystical interpetation of the Torah. The Zohar is read on many different levels, the intellectual, the emotional, and the spiritual.This is what my work is about. My book The Dance of Spring is a story about dancing to bring spring but it takes place in front of a tree that was planted by my sister's friends in her memory and so it is also about hope.My video Lilac Sunday is about the beauty of the Arboretum but also a story of journey trying to find beauty in the world again.
My work has been influenced by many sources. Japanese woodcut prints,Anselm Keifer's work, some of my teachers at the SMFA,Walter Benjamin's writings, and the study of the Zohar.Presently I am entranced with the photographer Michael Kenna. His work is beautiful, mystical and full of meaning.
M future work will continue to use stories as metaphors. I want to continue in digital work and maybe combine my photographs and prints. I want to concentrate on black and white and macro images. I hope to continue to use video and slide shows to tell stories. After seeing the show at the Axion Gallery I know that I can stretch my creativity to do what I can't even imagine now
Saturday, June 20, 2009
My vid project - Ready to Ride
Sorry it's really a late one. The video is about how a biker get on his bike...
Friday, June 19, 2009
Final Assignment
1. Write an artist's statement that is an overview of your work in this class -- place your work in context to work we've looked at (or work you saw at galleries or online). Consider the examples we looked at to articulate where you see your work going in the future (real world examples).
2. Present your thoughts in as a short oral presentation next week, supported by any visuals you can provide (even if just your own work).
2. Present your thoughts in as a short oral presentation next week, supported by any visuals you can provide (even if just your own work).
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Alert for the 03:15 crew!
I have a 2pm meeting that I must attend, so our class will be starting up later than usual -- 03:30 pm at the earliest. I will see you all then.
Bullet Hell Game Beta Test.
Hi guys, I am making a small flash game for scripting class final, not finished yet; however, it is so funny that I have to share it with you. The game needs a microphone to play. You play your own background music, then the game will react based on the music beat.
I found that OSX runs my game much slower than Windows, so I made a Mac version. less bullets and less accurate beat detect. And Mac player maybe needs adjust the microphone sensitive level manually, just make the input signal as hot as it can be. (Sound design classmates: normalize the volume, no clipping plz)
Known bug: you have to left click screen once to activate keyboard control(bomb and change shield)
PC Version
Mac Version
I found that OSX runs my game much slower than Windows, so I made a Mac version. less bullets and less accurate beat detect. And Mac player maybe needs adjust the microphone sensitive level manually, just make the input signal as hot as it can be. (Sound design classmates: normalize the volume, no clipping plz)
Known bug: you have to left click screen once to activate keyboard control(bomb and change shield)
PC Version
Mac Version
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