HW# 9/3: Programming Artist Research: Feng Mengbo

Chinese artist Feng Mengbo creates his own video games since 1993. He mashes up elements of popular culture with Chinese political imagery and patriotic music to make statements. His Long March: Restart, is an installation art. It was shown at MOMA in 2010.
 

HW# 9/2: Animation Process and Classroom Connection

My experience with exploring Scratch was a little difficult because I had a hard time physically making it although the tutorial video made it seem easy. I checked out many videos that were shared on the forum and studies how other people did their project. Drawing my characters was a little frustrating because I often accidentally "poured" all the paint throughout my canvas and I had to "clear" the entire image and redo it. After a few times, I started to grasp the drawing tools and I felt more comfortable with the tools later on. Having music in my piece was very important to my piece because the Dance Magic would enhance the mood of the overall visual experience. However, I could not have my sound play in the piece even though I added it. I also tried to find tutorials on the forum but there was no results. Overall, the experience was quite fresh and fun!

Two connections I can make this experience with an art classroom are 1) frustration in art making, 2) the overall design, drawing, and sound aspects in art.

HW# 9/1 Scratch Animation: "Hit Me!"

HW# 8/1 Sound Creation: Intro to Sound

           This was my first time using Audacity to edit sound. I used three tracks of various sounds I made when I was washing my dishes. I also experimented with materials that made interesting sound: slamming the refrigerator door and playing with plastic bags. The tutorial video on how to use Audacity was extremely helpful on how to manipulate sound. I examined the tracks one after another, cut out the parts I didn't like, relocated some areas, and manipulated the volume a bit. I enjoyed listening my tracks during the process to carefully select the sections because that's when I really paid attention to sound: how they work together. There are many times when I listened to the sound, I wondered what made that sound and what location/environment this could be. It was fascinating to me when various sounds are mixed together they become surreal.

HW# 8/3 Observation on Sound in My Life

       I think I take sound for granted in my life, especially in NYC, there are so much noise around. However, in contemporary art practice, I have seen more sound art pieces are showing in museums. Many short videos and installation work incorporate sound as a significant part. In terms of curriculum, I have never seen an art class (except college level) talked about sound. Since sound is still being seen as a new art form, unfortunately, not many people know how to appreciate it nor how to teach it. I wish sound can be accepted and included in public school art curriculums soon!

HW# 8/2 Sound Artist: Janet Cardiff and George Miller

        

    

Artists Janet Cardiff and George Miller worked together creating a series of audio which were functioned as a tour audio, where the audience would be listening the audio while walking on specific paths. What is creative about this series of work is that both artists cleverly used the audio with the physical experience (walking/looking) at a specific site. This creates a very unique and personal experience listening to the (hi)stories about that particular site and allowing imagination to happen and to think about what's like in the story. The audio also creates a context about the site which would change the audience's perception about the location. One of the series was P.S. 1 Walk, where Cardiff and Miller made an audio where they used the staircase as a site in their storytelling. When the viewer actually walk on the staircase, the experience of walking is dependent on the context of the audio whether he/she will feel sad, scared, happy etc. In this way, audio is very powerful convincing the mood of the walking experience. Reference: http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/ps1.html

HW#7/1: Video

HW#7/6: Selfie

I have been enjoying the past projects from this class. I feel like there is more to explore and discover in each medium that we learned in class. I hope that we would have more studio time in class or periods to spend to familiarize with each technology. For example, I never had done Photoshop and I still don’t understand how the basic tools are functioned.

HW#7/3: Potential of Video

I think videos have a lot potential in exploring in the following:
1) visual effect: the aesthetics of a digital, moving images
2) light: how lighting can change/affect the visual experience
3) moving images: as a medium and property
4) sound: how sound can affect/incorporated with a video
5) approach: handhold videos vs. moving camera
6) representation: where is and how is the video showing/ projecting

HW#7/2 Video Artist: Tony Oursler

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Tony+Oursler&page=2
Tony Oursler likes to combine sculpture and videos to create a visual experience for viewers. What I like about Oursler’s work is that 1) he combines images, videos, and sound to create a more 3 D effect. 2) He treated his videos as sculptures. He normally projected his videos in a very interesting way and this transform the videos in different ways and how viewers interact them.
PS. My undergrad professor did the audio for this piece.Reference: http://www.lissongallery.com/artists/tony-oursler

HW# 6/5: Lesson Plan-Stop-Motion Animation

Student: Fifth graders

Title: Self-Portrait

Material: found object, toys, iStop Motion app, etc.

Objective: Through creating a stop motion animation that represent one or multiple aspects of themselves, students will learn that they make a narrative art piece in a digital form.

Spark: Before I came to school this morning, I picked out this pink sweater to wear because 1. Pink is my favorite color, 2. I like the texture and the color change on this sweater. I think both of them represent my interests in color and texture.

1.) What about you guys? Why did you wear what you wear?

2.) Do you think your clothes and accessories can represent who you are and how?

3.) Besides clothes, what are some other things that can represent you?

Demonstration/Material Dialogue:

Teacher: “Based on what you guys just discussed about how you can use objects to represent you, let’s think about how we can use iStop Motion to make digital animations.

1)    How would you want to show the environment/atmosphere in your video?

2)    How would you do that with lighting?

3)    How would you show quick transition? How would you show smooth transition?

HW# 6/4: Impact 100 Progress

My partner Teny and I are interested in collecting objects people might deliberately or unintentionally left/ lost on streets. Here are the objects I found so far.

HW#6/3: Research Artist: Shugo Tokumaru

          Shugo Tokumaru is a Japanese musician  who created a stop motion for his song "Katachi." He also named this stop motion "Katachi,"meaning "shape" in Japanese. In the video, there were many shapes that transformed into objects and people and their movement. 

HW# 6/2: Documentation

HW# 6/1 iStopMotion