Category: Reactive Writing Assignments

Wally Sutton’s Internet Art Making Creative Blogging Project #1

Wally Sutton’s Internet Art Making Creative Blogging Project #1

Who is Wally Sutton and why is he here?

Simply put, Wally Sutton is a fictional character. He’s a Walrus, however, he doesn’t know that Walrus’s aren’t supposed to wear human clothing or sell things like motherboards and other computer hardware… That is what makes Wally, Wally. He is following his own path. Wally believes that his Dharma is to be the best computer hardware salesman of his time! Nothing will stop him, and you certainly wont get in his way. (See the animation above in the top left corner). Wally is also crazy about digital art, animation and personal development. He loves to help others through sharing his learning process and creative discoveries. Wally is a blogger but clams up a bit about it when others ask him that question…He is working on that.

Wally is so aware of how his content reaches his audience that smoke literally comes out of his ears from thinking about it too much! He pays attention to how he is formatting and structuring his content in a way that is easy to access and follow (like, right here, in this blog post, ahem). He also wants his content to be shared easily as well. Wally has learned a lot about design, digital art, animation, blogging and storytelling from regular practice. Not obsessively ten times per day, but in metrics of at least once or twice per week. Making static images move and learning new animation skills have enhanced Wally’s ability to further communicate and reach his community while also connecting with new like minded people and beyond. Wally understands that reaching out to others adds value to their lives and the experiences they will have. A lot of the new experiences Wally has had have happened as a result of having a blog and simply sharing what he was learning.

It kind of seems like Wally is actually writing this blog post…hmmm?

Of course Wally is a metaphor and a catalyst to get your creative juices flowing. A reminder to be the best at being who you are, and then give that part of you selflessly. Adding value to the lives of others creates trust. This is another metaphor. When you give selflessly to others outwardly, you are really teaching the universe that you trust yourself. (Re-read that, and now go have some fun!)

Get creative and share your process with this assignment below!

Blogging Assignment –

Create a blog post(s) about a fictional character that communicates him/herself through blogging and the use of Internet tools. The character can be a representative for something that has meaning to you. (Yes, there can be more than more one thing.) Describe the character. What is he or she like? Kind hearted and compassionate? Mean and unsure? Happy and Sallow? A Lover? A Fighter? Get Descriptive and paint us a picture. What does a snippet of their day look like? You will surely need to create visuals for this illustration! Wally Sutton was passionate about Computer Hardware, Spirituality, Digital Art, Creativity & Animation.  He took a few creative “selfies” and created a series of animated portraits for this blog post. Sky is the limit. Feel free to use and reference this blog post as a visual example for content, structure and inspiration. Your first post will be used as a result produced, we will make assessments and grow from the first iteration.

Submissions

Submit your work in the method that you prefer. Hmmm, you will have to make a decision about this. Are you publishing to your own website, blog or social media platform? Send me the URL and I will re-post it here.

Would you like to post directly to this blog as a new author? E-mail me [email protected] and Ill get you set up as an author. (you must have a CUNY .edu e-mail address for this method)

 

This blog has tons of resources on creating digital images, digital art works both static and animated and simple motion graphics that will give visual illustrations to support your written expressions.

 

PS – Hyperlinking = Value :)))

PS#2 – Questions? Reach out! – [email protected]

 

**This blog post was written and created as an example for my CUNY York College CT101 Digital Storytelling Students but it certainly transcends beyond, like here, right now as you read this.

Mobile, Smart & Cell Phone Digital Art Making

Mobile, Smart & Cell Phone Digital Art Making

Its no secret that there is a ton of potential in mobile/smart phone art making. In fact, you might be a little late to the party! (Im kidding, its never to late to join in). There are literally tons and tons of apps that are both practical, fun and objective, however, I think that the true potential in the medium is hidden in the cross testing of multiple apps combined. After that, the beauty and further discovery is in synthesizing them together for your creative output. I know, that sounds ambitious, especially if you are new to the mobile/smart phone art making game.

The output may be a series of still frames that work together as a sequence or a series dedicated to a style that you create. The output may be a series of subtle animations in the form of GIFs or micro videos (Instagram will loop them for you today). These creative experiments can surely be created from your imagination, dreams and emotions. They can also be creative ways of visually painting a picture to illustrate your response to an editorial, a news feed thread, a scholarly article, an interview, and so on. I think you follow, yes? Either way, the use of visuals are more present than ever in almost all of the media that we consume. And do we consume it! This stretches from all forms of digital and static public advertising, news feeds upon news feeds and interactive media that is user based and customizable. This includes academic publications and pedagogy. Yes, thats right, if you think that academia wont be effected by the how the media and main stream advertising plays a roll in our shaping our psychology and lives, watch what happens over the next 2-3 years. Human attention has become a commodity and a currency. More on that soon!

This week (and forward) is about experimentation and redefining how you perceive your device and what its expressive potential is! Lets get acquainted with some of the apps by visiting the links below. Some apps as we know offer a free version for the sake of testing the app. There is quite a bit that can be done today with options to both take screen-shots of still images and also capture screen-recording for creating short animations. I have a few favorites for sure and have tested the apps listed below. Make purchases only at your discretion. Lets dig in.

Where will you post your experimentation? Instagram? Twitter? Facebook? Reddit? Flickr? Tumblr, Vero? Your personal website?

Or here on the Net-Art site on the Commons! We would love to have your work and the work of your students.

Would you like to craft a project for an online exhibition? Contact me here  – rseslow (at) york.cuny.edu

**You may want to free up some space on your device before you begin. Applications take up space, and so does the work that you will create.

Mobile Apps:

Glitche’ – glitche.com

to.be camera – to.be/camera

Giphy Cam – https://giphy.com/apps

Instagram – http://Instagram.com

VHS CAM – http://rarevision.com/vhscam

Assembly Design App – http://assemblyapp.co

ImgPlay – https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imgplay-gif-maker/id989843523?mt=8

Imaengine – https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imaengine-vector/id599309610?mt=8

Ultra-Pop

Ultra-Pop -Infinite

GifVid (simple tool to covert GIF to Video, Video to GIF on the phone)

Glitch Wizard

iColorama S rich featured image editor that maintains full resolution of images
Decim8 – Glitch
http://royb0t.net/tagged/iOSartApps
ImgPlay – Awesome GIF maker!
Back Eraser – Great to remove background areas and make layers.
GIF Maker Create GIFs from a sequence of still images from your photo library.
Building Resources from the Web – 
Here are some websites, artists & interviews dedicated to Art making via cell phones and mobile devices. They range from old and outdated to new and very cutting edge. We will build this resource as our class evolves.

Casey Kauffmann’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/uncannysfvalley/
Interview with Casey Kauffman

Karen Divine

https://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/first-look-brushes-1

Michael Manning

Feel free to leave a few comments below! Share anything you wish. Troubleshooting issues? Urls and links? Lets participate!

Screen Cindy Sherman’s short film: “Doll Clothes” from 1975.

Screen Cindy Sherman’s short film: “Doll Clothes” from 1975. Click here.

Via the Ubu.Web Film & Video Archive – (An Amazing Resource!)

“When I was in college, I made this book of doll clothes for my photography course. I was documenting a piece that I had already made for a film course, but I wanted to bring the doll to life so I shot myself doing all the poses, and it became this goofy little film. It completely ties in to everything I’m doing now because I decided that I liked the cut-out figures more than the film.” -Cindy Sherman

“One of the First Cindy Sherman’s super-8 film,”Doll Clothes” has not been viewed since 1975, the year it was made. It comically crosses Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase with animated paper dolls in a sly, funny and clever precursor to the concerns that became signature elements in Sherman’s remarkable body of photographic work.” – UBU.com

“Sherman’s 1975 animated short Doll Clothes, is among the pieces that bring Sherman’s early exploration of gender and identity into focus.” – Paul Ha and Catherine Morris

React & Respond in the comments sections below.

Questions to consider:

  1. After screening the film (is it really a film?) share your first impressions in contrast to the artist’s current work on the popular platform Instagram <– go here.
  2. What similarities do you see? What contrasts are obvious and why?
  3. How did you experience the works shared in this post? Your mobile device? Tablet? Laptop? I would like to know. How did you make this choice?
  4. What other artists do know of that share a connection with the genre of Identity exploration?

Are Internet Memes ART? Please Advise.

Are Internet Memes ART?

Screen the video above first and read the articles below. Do an internet search for “Are memes ART?” See what you discover. No matter how you cut it, memes are here to stay…is this good or bad for Art? Is this good or bad for Education? Is there context for memes and appropriate application in your course? I would like to know what you think. And by all means, share you favorites via URLs, and or create your own as a reaction..

Are Memes the Pop Culture Art of our Era? Kate Knibbs – https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/when-does-a-meme-become-art/

Another piece with some good insights – http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/34645/1/is-2017-the-year-that-memes-are-recognised-as-art

Please leave your reactions in the comments section below.

Weekend Video Art Screening: Les Grands Ensembles & Tango

Please screen the video art works above and below and respond in the comments section below.

 

1. “Les Grands Ensembles” by Pierre Huyghe (1994–2001) – (Above)

(I was lucky enough to screen this piece above in full scale at the Guggenheim in 2002).

“On October 16, 2002, Pierre Huyghe was awarded the fourth biennial Hugo Boss Prize. Inaugurated in 1996, the prize was conceived to recognize and support contemporary artists making profound contributions to the cultural landscape. Huyghe has gained international prominence for works that explore the convergence of reality and fiction, memory and history. Incorporating film, video, sound, animation, sculpture, and architecture in his diverse works, the artist intervenes in familiar narrative structures to investigate the construction of collective and individual identities in relationship to various forms of cultural production. Huyghe is interested in both reading and making possible multiple, subjective reinterpretations of incidents and images that shape our realities. Through such retranslations, Huyghe offers a way for his characters and his viewers to take back control of their own images, their own stories.”

“At the Guggenheim, Huyghe presents a film installation, Les Grands Ensembles (1994–2001) that address alternative modes of representation and communication (the work has been compared to the attempts at contact in Close Encounters of the Third Kind). In Les Grands Ensembles a pair of bleak buildings, models based on 1970s French housing projects, enacts a subtle inanimate drama. Enveloped in fog, the uninhabited scene is both romantic and alienating. “These subsidized public projects ended up being an architectural and social failure,” explains Huyghe. “They were a corruption of Le Corbusier’s social and architectural Modernist theory.” Though meant to be temporary, these structures are still here, much as we may try to ignore them. Huyghe brings the buildings into view and gives them agency. “Without beginning or ending,” he says, “the two low-income towers dialogue in a strange Morse code given by the light of their respective windows, a blinking existence.”

Source Via – https://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/hugo-boss-prize-2002-pierre-huyghe

 

2. “Tango” by Zbigniew Rybczyński  – 1980.

Tango is set in one room with an increasing number and series of interesting characters that loop in and out of the composition over and over.

Can you stop watching? Tango won The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1983.

 

Questions to ponder and react to:

Tango is considered a “short animated film”, but is this a film? How would you describe it in 2018?

How would you describe both pieces technically? The year they were made plays a role for sure. Or does it?

What did you think of “Tango” and “Les Grands Ensembles” as a whole?

What is your interpretation of each piece? What is the artist communicating?

Does the art work(s) induce personal reflection in anyway? If so please share.

Do you find connections between these two works of Media Art? If so, please describe?

Please leave your reactions and responses in the comments section below.