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.