video art

jim campbell

It fascinates me that Campbell studied electrical engineering and math, but clearly has an eye for composition and design.  It seems so rare the two sides of the brain intersect in such a way in a person, but when it does, the art is really interesting.  I would never think to create things the way he does, with all of the technical mechanical stuff going on.  I think my favorite works of his are his installations, especially Last Day in The Beginning of March.  Maybe I'm just drawn to things that are a bit morbid, but I really liked this piece.  I thought it especially interesting when the figure appears for a moment amidst the throbbing lights.  The piece called (I think) The End 1996 confuses me.  The statement under the work says: "This work uses a counting algorithm to generate all possible images. Any image that one can think of will eventually show up on this screen."  This baffles me.  How is that possible?  That's beyond the realm of anything I can wrap my head around.  There are so many images to think of...I don't think I understand how this piece works.  I also really like his public art; the collaborative chapel piece is beautiful, as is Scattered Light - one of his works in Madison Square Garden.  Overall I found Jim Campbell really interesting; I'd like to read an artist statement or interview or something he wrote.

piplotti rist

I'm not entirely sure how to feel about Pipilotti Rist's work.  I certainly enjoy the level of fantasy she incorporates into her short films and installations, and the vibrant colors that dominate her films - though sometimes I think this to be overpowering, which is likely the point of employing such bold images.  She is usually classified as a feminist, which I see in some of her works - like the "Open My Glade" or even "Pickelporno" but I wouldn't say she's ultra-radical or anything.  I like her earlier works better; her more recent installations are not really my cup of tea. I think that I struggle with video art because it isn't really the way my mind works, or maybe I just have a really specific aesthetic that I enjoy.  At any rate, I really do like her "Open My Glade" series - it's really interesting that it was played in Times Square, and neat to watch it switch from her smush-face to an advertisement.  I enjoy that.  There's just something about the whimsical nature and colors of her newer installations that doesn't appeal to me. I would be interested to see her feature film, though - Pepperminta.  She's one of those artists I think I need to spend more time with to really get what she's doing or have a concrete opinion about it.

performance

I wanted my performance to speak to the idea that technology - especially social technology - is consuming our lives and isolating us from others.  I wanted to represent a taking back of my life from the frivolous temptations and distractions such technology can offer. 

concrete music

As far as most of my research was concerned, a French fellow named Pierre Schaeffer pioneered the concrete music "movement".  Its public debut was in 1948 at a concert in Paris.  As a result of new technology full of possibilities, namely a tape recorder/player, though the very first concrete musicians used record players and mixing boards, people began experimenting with the ways they could use such technology to create something new.  Concrete music is not by any means restricted to the use of traditional instruments - many musicians would use common objects, like we saw in the video in class with bottles and a box of gravel.  Anything that made an interesting sound could be recorded and collaged back together with other sounds to create a song of sorts.  Some of them are more melodic than others, though it seems there is generally a pretty strong influence on some sort of rhythm, albeit an unconventional one.  Anyway, after he first played his music for the public, Schaeffer went on to form various groups focused on furthering this musical experimentation.  The longest-lasting group was called Groupe de Recherches Musicales; as far as I found, the group still exists.  Using record players, recorders, mixing boards, and microphones, these musicians experimented and refined the budding musical concept.  When magnetic tape came out, I believe in 1949, it created many new possibilities for concrete musicians.  Essentially, concrete music was the analog precursor to electronic music.  Then, musicians would have to create all of their own sounds and recordings, and today, with so many complex computer programs, musicians can search databases to find the sounds or instruments they want. 

"looks like an alien and sounds even weirder"

I've got a soft spot for that Klaus Nomi fellow, and I'm not sure why.  Perhaps it's the singing voice, maybe it's because he seems somehow a little reserved, maybe because I know how he dies in the end of his story.  But damn, talk about range.  I'm floored. I don't really think he sounds "weird" either, I just liked that quote.  Something I found that I thought was interesting was that after their SNL performance, Klaus was so taken by Bowie's funky "tuxedo" suit that he had one made for himself.  He wore it a lot, too, until he started getting sicker and went back to performing mostly operas and wearing his baroque costume. 

While Klaus was highly publicized as one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS, Bowery kept his own battle silent so that his illness didn't overshadow his work.  It seems to me like Bowery had a pretty rough go of it most of his life, despite a few bright patches here and there and some incredibly brilliant work.  He had some deeply rooted insecurities that he never really was able to shake.  The way he dealt with this was what led him to create much of what he did.  Rather than trying to hide from the world, he threw himself in its face, and used his outlandish costumes to distract from what he didn't like.  I think his costumes are pretty fantastic; really really interesting, but some of his performances are a little contrived.  I have yet to check out any of his short-lived band's music, but I intend to; I'm pretty curious.

I'm in love with Laurie Anderson.  I don't really know what else to say about her.

Joseph Beuys is seriously interesting to me.  Everything about his work is symbolic or has a personal meaning, and I like that.  With his sculptures, it's the materials he uses that have deeper meaning.  His performances are really what I enjoy, though.  Something I found interesting: we discussed in class that Beuys refused to come to America while the Vietnam war was happening, and I read that when he actually did come, he never really set foot on American soil.  He wanted it to be a totally isolated experience, and was driven in a veiled car to and from the airport directly to the gallery.  The only physical contact he had was with the coyote (which he hugged at the end of the performance).  Love it.  Really interesting guy.

xerox project

orlan and le tiers instruit

Okay, before I get into this, I found a really interesting article about Orlan.  It's called "Castration and Medusa: Orlan's Art on the Cutting Edge" by Danielle Knafo, PhD.  I found it here: http://www.visuality.org/genderandtechnoculture/wmst320_readings/orlans_art_cuttingedge.pdf

This doesn't really have anything to do with le tiers instruit or operation opera, but I absolutely loved this passage, something about it struck me, and wanted to share it:

"Several years ago, French multimedia artist Orlan spent the night at my place. Before retiring for

the night, she asked me if I had any makeup remover. I shall never forget how we stood shoulder

to shoulder before the bathroom mirror, each removing the masks we used to face the world, two

middle-aged women, me with wrinkles around the eyes and creases at the sides of my mouth and

she with her horned implants, swollen lips, and translucent skin, the results of her many cosmetic

surgeries. As she wiped the dark purple from her lips and the silver glitter from her horns, I

couldn’t help thinking about Freud’s concept of the uncanny

opposite

bonding experience and yet the difference between our faces

of aging, the surrender to time and gravity, whereas hers the result of unbending intent. Horns do

not normally grow out of the human head, nor do faces inherit a disparate collection of features

from classical art.

I wondered how my then 3-year-old son might react to Orlan in the morning. Would he recoil

in fear at her two-colored head, hair half black and half bright yellow? Would the matching thick

round black and yellow glasses remind him of an owl’s eyes? Would he want to touch the horns

on the sides of her head?....

When I awoke the next morning I found the two of them talking playfully, my son

unbothered by her appearance."

The article spends a bit of time discussing Orlan's Medusa piece, but there is definitely some pertinent information to this blogging assignment in it.  Something I found interesting was that, in 1978, Orlan was about to go give a performance, but was instead rushed to the hospital due to an ectopic pregnancy.  On her way to the hospital in an ambulance, she decided she wanted to film the surgery and send the tape in place of her performance.  "Her transformation of deathly emergency into artistic opportunity reveals the manner in which she creatively came to terms with loss—the loss of a child—by replacing it with birth—the birth of a new art form incorporating medical technology." (Knafo)  So this event is what planted the seed for her series of cosmetic surgeries that began in 1990.

Okay, enough with all of this aside jibber jabber.  On to Le Tiers Instruit!
Orlan is quoted as saying, ‘‘I am in the process of creating a psychological self-portrait’’ which to me, pretty much explains why she chose to read the texts she did during her surgeries.  They were always philisophical books, or psychoanalytical books, so it seems to me that while her body was being modified to fit her perception of herself, simultaneously, her mind was being trained to become what she wanted it to be.  Le Tiers Instruit is a philisophical book about education, about conditioning and training someone to be a member of society.  Serres asserts that true education takes place somewhere between what we are familiar with and what is foreign to us, somewhere between science and humanities.  I think just these two points explain why Orlan would have chosen this text for her piece.  Firstly, in reading about training someone to be a member of society, or educating someone to be a member of society, while she is in the midst of cosmetic surgery - something that the majority of people choose to undergo to make them fit in, to make them more acceptable in the eyes of western society.  There's perhaps a contradiction present there, or perhaps the two ideas go exactly hand in hand.  Education and conditioning affect both the way we percieve physical perfection and the way we are supposed to act, think, and react.  We are a culture that cannot separate what is "outside" from what is "inside", and maybe this is something that is inherent in nature.  Serres' sense of true education, and the point that Orlan is making seem to mirror one another.  If true education is somewhere between what is familiar and what is foreign, Orlan is forcing us to see something that is familiar - cosmetic surgery - used in a way that is foreign.  In doing so, she makes the point that the way we use cosmetic surgery - to make our boobs bigger, our waists thinner, our faces more symmetrical, is a bit disturbing.  This constant striving towards "perfection" a la Barbie is pretty messed up.  She shows us another possibility for the way such surgeries can be used.—umheimlich, unhomey—and its—heimlich, familiar and of the home. We were engaged in a very conventional femalewas uncanny. Mine was the result

pryings

There are a lot of reasons why Pryings could be considered a political piece.  First, it's about force and agression, and about stoic resistance.  Dillon never fights back the whole time Acconci is forcefully trying to pry her eyes open, so it couldn't really be about revolution, but there is definitely a resistance or defiance about her actions.  She absolutely refuses to open her eyes, and Acconci only succeeds in exposing the whites of her eyes a couple of times thoughout the whole 20 minute piece.  It's also probably making a statement about the extent to which you can force someone to submit to your will.  Even though he manages to separate her eyelids, she isn't looking out; you can't see the colored part of her eyes, so she still can't see out.  You cannot force someone to see something.  Even if you can force them to open their eyes, you can't make them look.  This seems metaphorical to me, but I have trouble deciding how it fits into a political context.  Is Acconci the government trying to make the people see?  That wouldn't make sense, because largely the government works to reveal to us only the select information they want us to know.  Perhaps he is a revolutionary, trying to open the eyes of the masses so they might see what he sees and join his cause.  Perhaps Dillon is the government, and Acconci is trying to show her the plight of the people. 

performance art and fluxus

Performance art is one of those things I can't decide how I feel about.  Sometimes I definitely find performances very interesting, but sometimes I think maybe I don't understand the point of certain performances or something...either way I have something to say about some of the links and artists we discussed in class.  First of all, I have loved Yves Klein for a while; I think that his work is elegant and messy and wonderful.  The performances just make his work so much more interesting; I stumbled upon his finished paintings before I discovered how he achieved them.  I'm not into the sea sponge sculptures as much, but I do enjoy Klein.  As for the Vienna Aktionists: I can definitely see where they're coming from, and I do enjoy the concept behind the work; however, I really can't stomach watching a lot of what they're doing.  I don't even know if I can discuss it in detail...I have a pretty responsive gag reflex.  I couldn't do what they're doing, I like the idea behind it - leave it at that.  The Buto dancers are also incredibly interesting.  The way they move and dress is so beautiful and powerful.  I'd love to see a live performance.  Incredible.  The living sculptures of Gilbert and George are also a really interesting concept.  I think it's interesting that this bred a whole sect of street performers who act as living statues for money.  I also really enjoyed Stelarc - obsolete body.  Even though this is another one of those pieces that is really difficult to watch for me, the lack of body fluids being expelled and ingested makes it a bit more watchable than the aktionists.  I found a lot of the performances here really just sort of beautiful in a grotesque kind of way.  The way the suspended bodies look is pretty incredible, it's just thinking about the hooks pulling your skin like that that gives me the willies.  Absolutely beautiful, though.  And I loved the piece where the man is suspended in the corner with his body pressed between two planks of wood.  The aesthetic achieved through this sort of work is really appealing to me.

On to fluxus.  Fluxus is a strange movement...I found information that seemed to contradict other information I found.  From what I gather, though, Fluxus is sort of an anti-art anti-movement.  As opposed to being a true "movement" it is more of a state of mind, a way of working.  Basically, it seems like fluxus artists are just trying to find where the rules and boundaries are, and then push them if or when they are found.  It's like Dada in that it's poking fun at modern art and trying to push the meaning of art, and a bit like Minimalism in the simplicity of the work.  An important aspect of the fluxus mindset is the combination of different medias. It is more of a mindset than a movement, and as time goes on and aesthetics change and technology expands, fluxus artists will still be able to work within their way of thinking.

bauhaus

In my many years of Art History classes, Bauhaus is one of those movements that was always skimmed over, or skipped entirely.  This suprises me a little bit, as even a cursory investigation into the movement makes it apparent that Bauhaus paved the way for all modern industrial design and architecture.  I would still today, almost 100 years after the school's inception, consider the style of design prominent in Bauhaus art, architecture, and design, very modern.  It's about simplicity and functionality, something that perhaps lost popularity around the 50s, when, in the US at least, people were living out their "American Dream."  Simplicity and functionality weren't necessarily what we were looking for then, and I think that industrial design strayed away from Bauhaus ideals, but more recently - in the last 20 years or so, I can definitely see Bauhaus influence in modern design.  From 1919 until 1933, when the Nazis shut down the school, Bauhaus worked toward an ideal unity: the Bauhaus artist would be able to combine creativity of design with functionality and industry.  Bauhaus was almost a way to keep a creative element in a place where machines had eradicated one-of-a-kind, handmade practical objects.  The goal was to combine architecture and industrial design in a way that was economical, functional, and visually appealing.  Really a fascinating idea.  This is something I'd like to research more.

Dada collage and Un Chien Andalou

Ok, first of all - to make up my Dada collage post.  I've been studying this for the past couple of weeks, actually, for another class, and don't have a whole lot to say about it.  Dada is one of those movements....I love it but I don't have a whole lot to say in any way because I don't really relate.  At any rate, I thoroughly appreciate Dada collage - and other Dada art - especially for the way it is like modern day graphic design or digital art but with the blood and sweat and tears of an artist's hand in a supremely tangible way.  This is absolutely not to say that graphic designers and digital artists don't pour all of those physical tears etc into their work, but you can't see ripples from a teardrop puckering the paper.  Getting a bit metaphorical but what I mean is that these Dada artists - provided, they didn't have the means to accomplish this sort of work digitally, and probably would have done so if they could have - created something physical and one of a kind that cannot be reproduced in a manner that is much like modern graphic designers.  I guess I really mean graphic design more than digital art.  Anyway.  Without technology, these artists were able to create these collages that so mirror modern graphic design with entirely tangible elements.  And that's essentially what this work makes me think of.  I'm so tired of studying art history.  I'm also a little bit afraid of technology; I think all of these advances are fantastic, but I don't trust technology to hang around all the time.  I feel like something will happen that will make the internet die and cell phones die and maybe even electricity die and we will have nothing but I will be surrounded by my books.  I will never throw out my books.  This has little to do with Dada collage. My mind doesn't like to stick to one thing.
Un Chien Andalou.  I didn't realize Dali had a part of this.  Which I like, because he was one of those nutjobs, whether it was merely an act or not, but I dislike the way I push away popular music or something; because it is so "cool" to the masses, I am inclined to shun it.  Again, tangent.  Either way, pretty cool.  I totally spent the whole class period trying to figure out what the f was going on, but apparently I'm not an idiot and there wasn't supposed to be anything going on.  In that case, I feel much less confused, and I very much appreciate the visuals the movie presented.  I almost think it really worked for this film to have been filmed so long ago with such low resolution and with no color.  It added to that mysterious sort of goings-on.  I'm still pretty much lost as to what is going on in the film, but it doesn't really seem to matter, since there is so much emotion happening, despite the complete lack of a plot.  The film makes you feel, regardless of whether or not you understand.  It is so surrealist for so many reasons that seem so obvious.  But in a nutshell, to be cliche:  I mean a man pulls two pianos full of donkeys and rats and dragging men.  When does that ever happen in any sensible situation or realistic scenario or even bizzaro Hollywood movie?  That isn't real; couldn't happen; doesn't happen; won't happen.  I don't know if it was just me, but it seemed like there were pretty much just two actors playing all of the same characters...again, beyond real life.  And on, and on.

ok.

A couple of y'all haven't put your grid projects up to comment on yet, so I'm gonna comment on those projects here [I borrowed Drake's computer this time, so I was actually able to comment on most of the blogs]
Anyway...
Bianca: I agree with Santi- this project would be awesome bigger! Not even necessarily confessional big, but even just end table big.  You have a really, really interesting idea here.  The box you found is seriously awesome, and the project you created for it was perfect!
Nate:  I love love the map - it's really cool.  Very clever execution - it takes a second look to catch exactly what's going on, which I enjoy.  You have a really interesting contrast happening between the colors and the background squares.  Love your choice of material.
Matt:  Really, really interesting.  I love the red squares in the background and the way they complexly interact.  I definitely agree with your thought to bring out the colors, but I also really love the piece from the back.  It's still successful and  interesting, but in an accidental sort of way.
Natasha:  Love the ocean theme, and a really intriguing shape.  I loved the screen pieces where the grid overlaps and the wax interrupts the geometric shapes happening.  The glass adds a color that I love.  It reminds me of a net catching bits of the sea.
Alaina:  Really cool; it reminds me of an instrument or an abacus or something.  I really liked the your choice of colors and materials - the tennis racket is a very cool place to start.
Thuy:  I love it!  It looks like a decorative carpet - so soft!  It's absolutely beautiful, and the portrait is amazing.  I like the way you included your name; it definitely adds something.  The border is perfect to ground the image, and I love that you used a grayscale. Perfect.

grid project

After much trial and error, i finally have something together for this project.  it's not really how i wanted it to be (i wanted it to fit tighter and to use a material with a bigger grid, but i abandoned these ideas after starting my third suit.) but it's something.  like a swamp creature or something.  anyway, here are some photos:

 could've buttoned the back up a little better... sometimes it's hard to find the buttonholes because they aren't finished yet.

oh how fun...

untitled

i feel like i was supposed to blog about something...

TETЯIS: The Soviet Mind Game, and other video game stuff

Since its invention in 1984, Tetris has been released on nearly every electronic device that can possibly play a game.  It was created by a Russian guy named Pajitnov, who was working for the Academy of Science of the USSR.  I thought the way he created the name was funny: it's a combination of tetronimoes, which makes sense, and tennis, just because he liked the sport.  Anyway, Tetris' history has been full of legal battles and re-invention.  After the game became popular in Russia and Hungary, people began to really take notice, and everyone wanted a piece of the action.  Pajitnov sold the rights to Spectrum HoloByte, a company that existed in Britain and the US.  Another British company, Andromeda, had plans to first buy the game, then to steal it and claim it their invention, both of which failed - sort of.  They managed rights to make a computer game, but couldn't release the game for any other system. 
The companies and rights and selling and buying and releasing games gets pretty convoluted and boring, but however it happened, in 1988 the game was released for Nintendo (tag line: From Russia, With Fun).  The next year it was released for Game Boy, and that's when it really took off.  Nowadays, the game is available for everything - computers, video game consoles, cellphones, iPods - you name it.  There's probably a million play online for free versions, too, and plenty of downloadable ones for computers and handheld electronics.  Apparently Google now has a thing called Android Market, which I think is like the App store for Androids.  Anyway, there was a lawsuit that concluded this year that forced Google to remove about 35 "Tetris- clones" from the market (homemade versions of the game that can't legally call themselves "Tetris"). 
Interesting fact, courtesy of Wikipedia (which we all know is an extremely reliable website for information about anything): "In January 2010, it was announced that Tetris has sold more than 100 million copies for cell phones alone since 2005" 

Other video game stuff, i.e. why are movie studios making video games to go with their movies?  Seems pretty obvious to me: money.  Video games have become so hugely popular that perhaps the movie studios fear that people will spend more time playing video games than watching movies.  I read that in the past, and still today, movie studios would pay a third party to make the video game based on their movie, but now more and more studios are making their own video games so they don't have to share the profit.  Which could be bad news for gamers, since movie studios aren't necessarily specialists in that field, so the games may not be as cool as they could be.  But people will buy the movie based video games because they know the movie, not just for the merit of the game. 

mztv

I still can't get over this website.  The way it's made, I mean.  I'm in awe.  There's a lot of interesting content on here, too, but the way it's made is what gets me.  

The page with the quotes was really cool - the way it magnified different sections, but also a little bit of a hassle to use.  There were some quotes I liked a whole lot, too; I felt that part of the website did a really good job capturing different sentiments about television.  Still, it seemed everyone was essentially saying the same thing differently: that television is undesirable because it can consume our lives and become our connection to the world, making human interaction almost unnecessary by making loneliness tolerable, but it is fantastic for being such an escape from reality.  A brilliant form of visual art and communication that is so wonderful, it becomes dangerous.  At any rate, I loved this: "Don't you wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence?  There's one marked "Brightness" but it doesn't work." (http://mztv.com/mz.asp)  

The way the Marilyn Monroe page was set up and interactive was pretty interesting, too.  I never thought about the fact that movie stars almost need TV to become real stars.  TV is a large part of the way we find out about new movies coming out.  I thought it was really interesting that Marilyn had only been on TV three times, but after her death, when she appeared on TV a lot, she became even more famous than she probably ever would have otherwise.

I couldn't get any of the 3D models to work on my computer, which I thought was pretty disappointing.  I'll try on my work computer tomorrow.

flipbooks: my macbook is angry

so, my macbook is a few years old now, and a bit temperamental, and doesn't like blogger very much.  half the time it doesn't like to let me post on my own blog; i've been having serious problems commenting on other people's blogs.  it's mostly a certain style that i can't comment on.  i figure i'll post those comments here...my apologies to those folks whose blogs i couldn't comment on, but here they are:

Matyia:  absolutely love the zombie!! also loved all of the up and down movement in the margin - it made for a very interesting visual experience.  killing the zombie was my favorite part.

Cayla:  so well rendered it was a pleasure to see.  i loved the way you tied words into the cord - clever and beautiful.  so simple and well executed!

John:  beautiful colors - i love where the flower eats the little man, or pukes it out - i think i might have flipped it backwards.  either way it's really interesting...i liked that i found it interesting in both directions, but that it changed the story a little to switch the way you flip.

Sean: i loved how this animation kept returning to the line down the edge of the book.  it moved away and morphed and changed sizes, but it remained grounded in that line and i loved that.  the ending was also pretty clever

Alaina:  so cute! i like how you kept the same colors going in different ways throughout.  my favorite part was when the fishy eats the plants.  absolutely adorable i loved it!

Maureen:  so beautiful! i love how the dancer morphs and twists and moves and stretches.  beautiful.  it all works so well; i loved it!

Taylor:  really cute; i like how the tree doesn't stay solid black the entire time, but i wasn't sure how intentional that was?  it would be really cool if the black faded in and out of the tree subtly.  great story.

Nate:  really beautiful to look at, and fantastic colors.  i loved the part where the mouth is chomping and spitting close up and the way you used text in those pages.  really successful meshing of text and image.

Thuy:  also really really nice colors.  i loved the water, especially.  my favorite part was hwere the wave swallows up the boat.  it was very pretty!

Natasha:  loved your idea; it was a cool theme to pursue.  i liked the way the fishies eat each other.  i'm glad they got away from the fisherman! very cool!

Rob:  very aesthetically pleasing.  was that india ink you used?  love the way it looks when the city pops up and then starts smoking.  really visually stimulating, and a really interesting idea.

old time radio/flipbook

So, I listened to a lot of different things on the otr website, and I loved all of it - I'm a sucker for old timey stuff like that.  My absolute favorite, however, were the "Mystery" stories.  I listened to all of them that were on the site.  It's like being read a story in an incredibly animated manner, and I love being read to.  I'm so used to television, I found myself glancing up at my computer to see what was going on, and remembering that it was just the words.  I really think that made it better.  It forces your imagination to run away with the story, and see it exactly the way you want to.  I will probably visit this site again in the future.

My flipbook is finally long enough for the assignment, though I feel it isn't quite finished.  I have several hundred more pages in the book full of opportunity to expand the project, and will likely do that when I have the time.  I'd also like to add a little color, or at least grayscale, to what I have already.  But, it's finished enough for now, and I have a lot of options if I choose to continue working with it.  Here are a few photos:

Not the best photos, but I was in a pinch and had to use PhotoBooth to take them.  So they're also backwards from the way they are in the book.  I would bother to fix it in Photoshop, but I want to scan the book into the computer and create an animation that way, too.

singing in the rain

I think the major change between 1950 and 1971 is a technological one.  Though there are obviously other world events going on during this time (Korean War, Cold War, birth control, LSD), I think the major change is the availability of information.  Because television is becoming something pretty widespread, a large number of people have access to information, and visual information at that, which has a more profound impact on the receiver than auditory information.  So, people not only hear about these horrible wars going on in the world, they can see the atrocities on TV, especially by the time the Vietnam War comes around, and many against the war work to broadcast the brutality.  In 1950, "there are 1.5 million television sets in the U.S. this year. By 1951, there are 15 million – ten times as many in one year. By 1960, Americans own 85 million TV sets."(http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/worldevents_01.html).  At the same time, medical advances, by which I mean birth control and the development of some recreational drugs like LSD, are working to loosen the moral fabric of society, making movies like A Clockwork Orange slightly less appalling to the masses of the 1970s than it would have been 20 years before.  The widespread availability of information, and the advancement of knowledge in professional fields, especially medical, worked to "corrupt" society, in a sense.  
As for the actual contrasting performances of Singing in the Rain in question, I found it incredibly interesting the way that the "percussion" varied between the two films.  In the original, percussive sounds are made primarily by tap shoes and are very rhythmic, and in A Clockwork Orange, the sound of his beatings replaces the tapping, in a less rhythmic pattern, but used as effectively.     

Aside, I thought this was interesting:

"Alex performing "Singing in the Rain" as he attacks the writer and his wife was not scripted. Stanley Kubrick spent four days experimenting with this scene, finding it too conventional. Eventually he approached Malcolm McDowell and asked him if he could dance. They tried the scene again, this time with McDowell dancing and singing the only song he could remember. Kubrick was so amused that he swiftly bought the rights to "Singing in the Rain" for $10,000."  (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/trivia)  I also read that Gene Kelly was distraught over this use of his song.

earthquake

As it turns out, and as I had anticipated, my mother, her boyfriend, and my grandparents all had no recollection of seeing the movie.  My family has never been terribly into television or movies.  Anyway, I called my aunt and uncle, thinking perhaps I would have more luck there.  Neither remembered the movie that well...they blamed it on something like a lot of pot smoking happening in the seventies...dead brain cells...being in college...that sort of thing.  At first, my aunt thought she remembered the earthquake of 72, when her brother, who lived in San Francisco, was visiting her.  They were watching a Phillies game and the earthquake struck, the news of which interrupted the game, and memories of seeing a bridge out and cars driving off the edge...something about a cow.  Anyway, as my uncle corrected, she was actually remembering the earthquake of 89, and the cow was in a wildfire, not the earthquake.  So I really have nothing to say about the film itself, except that over the course of 40 years, memories certainly do fade.

early film

Abel Gance was an actor in the early 1900s, and later became a director.  He made several films throughout his career, but only a few were taken seriously.  He had a reputation for being an extreme experimentalist, and many of his techniques would become staples in the industry.  His epic film Napoleon is his most notable accomplishment, considered a complete compilation of silent movie techniques, new and old.  He employed  close-ups and tracking shots (sometimes he mounted cameras onto horses or swings), and even shot some scenes in color, though these were omitted from the final version because he felt it might distract the audience.  It would be at least a decade before color films rose to popularity.  The most incredible feature about Napoleon was the way it was projected.  He created a panoramic view by using three screens and three projectors to show the film.  This technique would become extremely popular during the 1950s.
As a magician, Georges Melies was interested in special effects and camera tricks.  He liked to make objects appear and disappear, transform and morph.  Aside from pioneering many special effect techniques, Melies was the first to film fiction, rather than simply capture real life.  He is credited with the discovery of slow motion, fade-out and double exposure, among others that are standard in film today.  Something I found interesting was that by 1915, competition in the industry he had created destroyed his company and film career until 1930, when his films unexpectedly came into the light again, and he was given due credit for his work.

jazz, blackface, and the stock market crash

What an exciting assignment, to research the origin of the word jazz.  I love both words and jazz,  and never thought about the origin of the word jazz itself, really had no idea what it was.  A truly fascinating summary can be found here: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-jaz1.htm, but to pick out the high points in my own voice, basically the first use of the word jazz (as is the case with a lot of slang) is quite debatable.  Rumors lie anywhere from a nickname for any of a slew of particular musicians named Jasper, Chas, Jasbo, and Mr. Razz, to a term in baseball that refers to a player's pep.  Within websites across the internet, different origins are speculated, but most reference the first printed use of the word in The San Francisco Bulletin in 1913 in an article about baseball, and in particular, ET Gleeson.  Basically, jazz began as a blanket term for vigor, spirit, vitality, energy, and on and on in that vein.  I guess it was like that word you search for when you lose your vocabulary in the midst of a conversation.

I really prefer not to comment in depth about blackface.  It's something I've studied before (2  years at Temple University; they require "race" classes), and something that can obviously be a sensitive topic.  At any rate, I feel that blackface is truly one of those "period" things, albeit a rather extensive period of time.  That is, it certainly fits the era in which it was not only acceptable, but quite popular.  In our modern time of equality and sensitivity, such behavior would not likely be tolerated, were it not appropriately in jest...although I guess in a way, that's exactly what it was in it's heyday.  I found interesting that virtually all of my research turned up information that was extremely impersonal, just recalling facts with no emotion.

Moving on...the stock market crash of 1929.  There's one of those things I've heard about forever, but don't really know a whole lot about.  In fact, I don't really know much about the stock market at all, so this was interesting research considering we are in the midst of an economic downslide.  As far as causes go, from what I understand (which is not much), the stock market had been growing in popularity in the years leading up to 1929, and people saw it as a good way to make money rather easily.  So because more people were buying stocks, stock prices were going up, and that made it look like it was a good investment, so even more people jumped in on the action.  But then, too many people were buying stock all at once and the market grew confused, or something.  Somehow, in a way that doesn't really make sense to me, stock prices went down, or maybe were lower than they were supposed to be, and people were scared and started selling their stocks.  Then a bunch of bank guys tried to fix it, so they poured a bunch of money into the market, but it wasn't enough to stop the decline.  And then everything went to shit, from what I understand, for a good ten years.  Ah, economic crisis....and something about history repeating itself.  Or is it not repeating itself.  I liked thinking about jazz better than thinking about this.

Madama Butterfly

I came across this fantastic adaptation of Madama Butterfly (Aria).  It is a short stop motion animation, and needs to be seen! It is amazing!  Go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E387c5RAhK4&feature=related 

I must say, I am loving this opera thing.  It's something I never paid any attention to before, so I am excited to indulge in something new.  I suppose I could do without so much shrill singing at one time, but I am thoroughly enjoying this immersion into a different sort of culture.  And, despite the warning about length, I absolutely adore Wagner as a composer, and would love to watch one of his operas start to finish. 

First Class

So, a bit about myself...I am an Art student in my last semester at UT.  My concentration, and passion, is painting, but I love learning about art and incorporating different mediums and techniques into my work.  I am a serious bookworm, and read anything I can get my grubby little paws on.  I have a pitbull named Clementine who is the best little girl in the world.  I also love plants and gardening.

After attending class for the first time, I am rather excited.  I've taken a lot of art history and studio classes, but this class seems different, and I look forward to learning under Santiago's instruction.  Technology is something I've always been at odds with, and I hope to be able to work more peaceably with it in the future.  Mostly, I hope to find myself empowered to incorporate something new into my work.  I feel like studying art has (perhaps ironically) dampened my creativity, and I hope this class will do something to inspire me and regain some of my lost imagination.