Hello from Far Far Away.

Well, Obviously I have finished my Art and Technology class, but I felt the need to come back and post here if nothing more than to update a little on what is going on in my life.
It is almost the end of the spring semester and I'll be a senior this fall. I can't believe how fast time has flown and it's scary not to know where I am going. A lot has changed this year, and I really think it's for the better. I've gotten much more involved in campus and therefore in myself. I'm still learning what I love to do, which most recently is give back to the community.
I've started working for a local business here in Tampa, the Old Tampa Book Company, by being their social media extraordinaire. The couple that owns the shop has had it for almost 16 years and they are one of the cutest older couples I've met. Their story is really poignant, and the fact that they've been together since college really hits home on my romantic side. 
I've learned that I love small businesses and think I want to do ad work for them one day versus a big corporate company. I think this comes from my upbringing in a family that owned a small business and seeing the stresses that come from the corporate world. I also found that I really like volunteering for non profits. I didn't used to enjoy this, but now I can really appreciate the rewards that come from helping someone or something in need.
Some goals I have for this summer are to a. really enjoy summer as it's my "last" one as far as I know. Maybe I'll travel somewhere I've never been, that would be exciting. b. to read more books as I miss reading so much during the school year. and c. putting together my best works and attempting to make a portfolio and possibly a website. It's an ambitious chunk, but I want to take advantage of the time I have. I can already feel it slipping away and life hasn't even taken off yet.
I'm enjoying every moment and taking more risks which, thus far has proved to be rewarding. I don't want to pass up any opportunities, ever. I don't know when I'll post again, so until then, carpe diem.

Video Art

This is my final piece for this class. When I first got the assignment, I was definitely intimidated by it, as I know no more than imovie to make video projects/video effects. As I watched some of the video art by Pipliotti Rist (though I still find her completely disturbing) and pulled other concepts from Greg's performance piece, I got an idea. I decided to shoot myself through different mediums. All the colors and shapes in the video are unedited. Though I didn't use effects once the movie as shot, I took an old school approach and tried different lenses and filters per se. In some shots, it's almost as if  it's an old school photobooth shot on a mac. Quite hilarious. :)

The music is copyright free, a work from clownbasket.com. 

Ps. I'm using this project to make up for my lack of human distortion in my grid art. :p

Performance Art

As I thought about this project more and more, many things came to mind in which I wanted to execute in a performance. I thought about lugging technology around behind my bicycle, but the extent of old technology that could have been destroyed at my house was limited. The weather was also not ideal for that concept. I wanted to have interaction, having my family place the items on my body, they did not want to be on camera. I also filmed my friends and I playing rockband as a pun on the performance element, and then I realized that could have been a performance art piece in itself. The final product is a compilation of these ideas and obstacles with some snazzy music and video effects added to it.
The Result
I certainly respect performing artists more now, as I can see how much effort can go into something that may seem so simple.

I just came up with bonus idea. It will be added as well to this entry. Yay for spontaneous ideas!
The Bonus Video

More Crazy Artists (but aren't we all crazy?)

Thought I missed class today, I took on the responsibility of watching the links posted on the syllabus. Some that really struck me as interesting were Gilbert & George's "Gordon Makes Us Drunk" Bob Flanagan's "Obituary" and "Super Cystic Fibrosis Song", and finally "The Body is Obsolete" by Stelarc.

Gilbert and George's piece was amusing to me because of the great deal of sarcasm. They have the piece designated for the queens viewing. It has classical music such as Pomp and Circumstance while the video shows the Gordon's bottle and two men drinking it. The voiceover says "Gordon's makes us drunk." "Gordon's makes us very very drunk." Sometimes pieces like this frustrate me, but this one made me chuckle.

 The next pieces I watched were Bob Flanagans'. I really admire how he takes on a very blunt approach o his condition and makes it into a positive experience. He talks about how masochism keeps him going and that he could die at any moment, but he's living in the now. His "Obituary" piece was literally him reading his own death notice, a bold but creative idea. Though he is in a very deteriorating condition, he makes it benefit him in a way and I admire that.

Finally, I watched "The Body is Obsolete." Though I've seen people suspended before, I never understood any reasoning behind it. I had never seen the bionic machines before, and found those very interesting. I had seen things like them in movies, but the explanation that Stelarc gave was admirable. He talked about how the body was no longer an art piece in itself, but with technology, it's capabilities were so much more profound.

Overall, I saw some really interesting pieces. Performance artists have a way of thinking that is most definitely unique.

It's all in the name of art...that makes it okay...right?

Vito Acconci, Marina Abramovic

These two artist really messed with my head. The film of the woman getting her eye pryed open disturbed me. What is it with these man wanting to attack womens eyes? Can't we just leave the poor girls alone? I think I'm going to wear sunglasses all the time if men are obsessed with my eyes as much as I've recently seen in Santi's class. I really was just disturbed over the force of the man over the woman. The fact that she wasn't saying anything was also unsettling. It was almost as if she were drugged or mute or both. She was really helpless, and I did not like that she was being taken advantage of.

Marina Abramovic's work was also strange to me, especially the one with the man and woman running their naked selves into wooden columns to make them move. I do not enjoy theses pieces with such pain involved. I did however like her relationship piece. The nakedness of her performers brings a raw element to her pieces, and I can appreciate that. I just don't like people getting hurt, it makes me cringe and I can't focus on any other messages.

It should be interesting to see what santi has in store for us this week, as we were told this was just baby stuff compared to it. I could handle the lips being sewn together, and unfortunately, I've seen such works as two girls one cup, so hopefully I'll be able to handle it. If not, my classmates may have to pull a vito acconci on me, and pry my eyes open...ha ha ha. Not.

Xerox Project: My totem pole

This is my project that I thought reminded me of a totem pole. So much fun xeroxing myself, and I based it on decontextualization.

Tristan and Isolde

This movie really baffled my mind.

I understood some of the references to the man being dead or crazy, but some of the story lines that I made up in my head, never turned out to actually happen. I thought his hand stuck in the door would be the hand on the road. I thought the woman's eye was in the box, but it was the hand, then it was nothing. I did NOT understand the piano/dead animal/two men being pulled by the man, though this could be what the artist meant. I saw the references to the man in the moth and the belongings laid out on the bed. The man was haunting the woman, but she was unsure of whether she liked this or not. Was he a past lover? A present lover? Was he the same man she ended up with in the end?

Overall, I did not like the story, only because it was not a story. I don't like loose ends, and this film drove me crazy by leading me in four thousand directions.