Replenish

Replenish takes the idea of objects taking life when left alone and adds a twist at the end. The haunting short film is presented in black and white to highlight on the unnatural tendencies taken on by the two wooden characters in the film.

The two wooden figures are prisoners of an artist who draws them day in and day out, trying to perfect his art. While away the figures see an opportunity to try and escape. After getting each other off of their stands and after painting on eyes to see and a mouth to smile, the two figures make way for their escape. When an accidental tragedy suddenly occurs, the audience is left to wonder if it was truly an accident or if it was planned. And if it was planned, who planned it? Watch to find out what the tragedy is and to see if the figures escape successfully. And watch for twist at the end.

Replenish Website

Do All Roads Lead to Rome?

Info graphic designers Philipp Schmitt, Benedikt Groß, and Raphael Reimann decided to see if all roads in Europe lead to Rome. The end result is a vast network of lines that feed into one another. To make the graphic the team overlaid a map of Europe with a grid and divided that grid up into 486,713 cells. Each cell was a starting point that lead to the end destination of Rome. The darkness of the lines depends on how busy the roads are. So, the more traffic the darker the line. The less traffic the lighter the line. They also did this with all of the capitals in Europe and the US, where they chose starting points in the capital's country or state.

World, Membrane and the Dismembered Body

Seiko Mikami's piece entitled World, Membrane and the Dismembered Body forces participants to look and hear within. Participants are seated in a room that is soundproof with no echo. The body then becomes aware of the sounds that it is making since the room has no other sounds. The participants are also hooked up to a variety of medical devices that play the body's sounds in an amplified external way. Visuals are also in the room and respond to the noise of heart and lungs. This piece makes people self aware of their body and the sounds it makes, and how intricate the body really is.

Shanken, page 157.

Genetic Images

Karl Sims' piece entitled Genetic Images is a piece where participants choose one of sixteen images that are generated by a genetics algorithm. Participants choose their favorite by standing in front of it. Then the program shows them new images formed from their selection. This continues, and ultimately the program combines the images as if they were genes to create new images. The program also keeps track of favorite images that are chosen by participants. In this work we can see popular preferences or preferred traits that were popular when the piece was going on. This piece reminds me of a newer version of this type of art by Scott Draves called Electric Sheep.


Shanken, page 151.

Electric Dress

Atsuko Tanaka's Electric Dress makes a powerful statement just as much now as it did when she wore it, even though today it is no longer a dress but instead a free standing object. The piece was a dress that the artist wore and was made from wires, multi-colored light bulbs and fluorescent tubes. The dress was a statement about technology that was just emerging and the female body and how the two relate to one another. Some critics believe that the piece today doesn't have as much of a powerful statement because it is no longer a dress, but instead a free standing object. To me, making the dress an object takes away the female body part of the piece, and just leaves the technology part, which is not what the work is just about.

Shanken, page 140.

Witness

I found Susan Hiller's piece Witness to not only be interesting but also aesthetically appealing and cool to look at. The piece is a soundscape where stories can be heard of encounters of aliens that the artist pulled from the internet. When a listener is not close to an individual speaker, the voices sound muddled and are hard to hear. But when close to one of the speakers, the listener can hear the story perfectly. It is interesting to see through this piece how many different people who are potentially far away from each other can experience the same thing, when that thing has not been scientifically proven. The book talks about how the piece looks like a spider's web and how the web is connected, but I see the piece as looking like a starry night sky that works together to create a unique look.

Shanken, page 115.

He Weeps for You

He Weeps for You by Bill Viola is a piece that looks at two things in one. The things in this case are the microcosm and the macrocosm, or the small world and the large world. Viola zooms in on a drop of water that reflects the world around it. The small world is the drop of water, and the large world is the world that is being reflected from that drop of water. Now I will always think of the large world and small world and how the two are one when I see a drop of water.

Shanken, page 107.

Present Continuous Past(s)

Dan Graham's Present Continuous Past(s) is an installation piece where past and present, occur at the same time. A room is set up with a camera, a large monitor on one wall and a mirror on the other walls. The camera displays on the monitor what is happening in front of it, which is usually viewers. However the footage is delayed eight seconds. So people who are observing watch as the past and present happen at the same time. A viewer is watching footage that happened in the past in the present. So what defines the past and present when the video is being watched in the present, but has actually happened in the past? It would be interesting to see this piece in person.

Shanken, page 106.

Hummingbird

Charles Csuri and James Schaffer's piece Hummingbird was one of the first films to include non-abstract figures. However, there is a level of abstraction as the hummingbird is fragmented and  abstracted. Even though it is being fragmented, it looks as if the hummingbird is in flight and is flying. This puts the piece in an in between position of non-abstract form and abstract, because the images could be looked at as the hummingbird flying that can be seem in real life. On the other hand the hummingbird is fragmented quite a bit in the film (that I could see at least).

Shanken, page 80.

Spinning Shaft

I like how Spinning Shaft by Alejandro and Moira Sina is perceived as a cylinder but is actually not, it is just spinning light. It shows how one thing can appear to be something, but is in reality not what it appears to be. The use of lights and bright colors heightens this perception of not being what it seems by adding another layer of a veneer appearance. The lights makes the piece look more interesting than what is actually is if it did nothing.

Shanken, page 69.

Greens Crossing Greens

Dan Flavin calls his piece Greens Crossing Greens situations or proposals instead of sculpture. When I first read that, I was confused. But after reading more in the book I understood what he meant. The lights create a situation that blocks the viewers from the space instead of welcoming them into it. The harsh green color in the room can be off putting, but the tubes act as obstacles that blocks the viewer. The other situation that I find in this piece, is how the room is completely green, but the lights seem to be white when the lights are the ones giving off the green hue.

Shanken 66.

Plastic

The University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Computational Design is experimenting with random piles of plastic and architecture. Instead of planning out the exact building and structure requirements, the institute is researching with injection molded plastic to see if small heaps of plastic pieces can be used to hold a structure instead of any support system.

From wired.com: "Instead of welding the steel frame of a building or pouring concrete into a mold, a robot could simply dump small plastic particles into a pile, causing them to form a self-stabilizing structure on their own."

On top of that the structures are interesting to look at, and are in themselves a work of art.

Microsoft's New Animation Tool

Microsoft Research, along with the University of Hong Kong and the University of Tokyo have unveiled a new tool that can help with hand drawn type of animation. The program makes it easy for designers or artists to draw out a sequence of movement without having to re draw multiple drawings. The video below discusses what the tool can do.

Maroesjka Lavigne: Namibia

Maroesjka Lavigne, a photographer originally from Belgium, recently took photos of the vast and nearly empty nation of Namibia in Africa. Namibia is one of the least densely populated countries in the world. She went there to show the beauty and peacefulness of the vast emptiness, and of the animals that live there. Namibia has 676 known species of birds and 217 species of mammals living within its borders. Her photos have a washed out look to them to due the white sand that was kicked up as she drove and took photos.

Adobe Students and Colossal Media

A few months ago Adobe Students put on an art show of 10 female student artists, where their works were painted into large scale murals. The students' submitted their work through Behance, and then were selected by Adobe. Adobe then, partnered with Colossal Media who took the works and painted them on the sides of building, making the biggest student art show. All of the students' works were originally created in Adobe Creative Cloud mobile and desktop product, and then were painted by professionals. Adobe did this "all in the name of empowering and elevating tomorrow’s creative leaders."