Final Blog

Final Thoughts.

All things come to an end but ironically the end leads us to the first blog, my favorite. The First blog was about image and perception. Here I learned about perspective and perception, how people perceives a picture by photoshopping an original picture. Sadly, the Photoshop software is really expensive and not free at all and I had to use the version available in the Business computer lab. I learned how to use mask on Photoshop.



Here is the link to the first blog.


I have always been fascinated by synesthetes and how they can associate sound with colour. I've heard about colour blindness (color vision deficiency) but synesthesia is altogether a stranger and more intriguing genetic disorder. People afflicted by the disorder can sometimes see sound as a colour (see image below to have an idea as to how such a perceive might perceive sounds) or even taste sound. This obviously leads me to conclude that we don't all view the world in the same way. Using audacity, a readily available and sound editing software,  I realise that sound indeed has a visual component to it. Each unique sound has a distinct waveform. In fact some animal such as the dolphin may be able to see sound. The caw of a raven and the call of pigeon can be easily distinguished just by looking at the waveforms by recording the sounds and analyzing it using audacity.

How a synesthete might perceive sounds

Raven cawing.

Here is the link to the synesthesia blog and the link to the bird sounds blog.

How people perceive the world is recurring topic in media art. Video game art as a form of new media art is an interactive form of art. Nowadays with open world video game, each person can have a different experience interacting with a video game. Some might call video games pointless escapism but it is indeed a form of interactive art in its own. The Smithsonian museum seems to agree as they have a dedicated an exhibition on video game art.

Here is the link to the Open world blog and the link to video game as art blog.


Here are all the links:

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4
Link 5




 

All the lectures are outlined here and the way this is structured, there are a range of themes, image, space, sound and atmosphere, in particular, spatial and temporal are woven through all the subject headings and there are three weeks for each subject heading, this week and in the following two weeks. The aim of this subject is to think critically and analytically and the point is to develop skills theoretically and practically and in the tutorials with Hugh, Shannon , Felicity or Joel about perspective within a context of media  arts and media arts within a context of history. These are the theoretical part but to put theory into practice we were taught to use a wide variety of tool freely available on the internet such as the sound editing software audacity; the sound hosting website, soundcloud; free blog hosting websites such as blogger.com; and the not so free image edition, Photoshop (I only wish they would mention Gimp instead, which is free and almost as good).

lecture 2

 

 

LECTURE 2

In1969, with the advent of the internet, we did not have the three screen display, as on the video, on one screen above, behind Hugh, there were a whole lot of screens, here in the Agora theatre.  It is spatial montage meaning there are multiple windows over a screen, we see a whole lot of images, collage and montage. This is a standard way to see images now, an example was in cinema, 1969 film, Woodstock and they had so much recorded footage and they wanted to create what it was to be at that concert at the time. In the late sixties, Martin Scoresby, pioneered this approach, we see it in television shows, in the show called 24. We live in social montage, wherein we have multiple screens, most of  you have a phone and a laptop, around the house you would have computers and television. In this room there are twice as many screens to people, so the breaking up of images, even the youtube interface has all these images. He has all these smaller ones, little ones to open up to bigger ones, it is collage. In this lecture, we look at this practice as it applies to media practice and we look at its history. We attempt to do this with all these lectures and find out what has been done before. One of the first examples of this, is in Triptych through Google spatial montage interface. There are ancient ones, it is a Christian form, taken up by Christianity because there is a balance with an image. There is this resonance between the two and it has been taken up more recently, and within triptychs are other images. In this lamentation, Jesus being bought down from the cross and people lamenting his crucifixion. The icons on our desktop are symbols and iconography. The cross represents it, the clothing, they have their own separate sets of meanings. He will look at different art works and what the meanings were. It is good to look at pictures, of how they were interpreted at that time. How would people at that time interpret images today?

Google art project is in the same way as Google has sent cars around the world, taking photographs of everything, in the same way that Google has amassed a whole series. Google does not own that space but directs you to it. Google goes around to major galleries in the world and scans all their art works. Google’s previous tagline was don’t be evil, Google is not going away, we don’t know how they will treat our images, they own our bloggers.

When we scroll through a picture, we get better detail than when it is in the flesh, getting this close, we can see brush strokes rendering pores in the skin. See single brush strokes of beard and jacket. This is like the linked in profile, there is a cv, this is linked with objects around them, everything about them is represented here,  the clothes and artwork. Not just them, it represents the world. They are ambassadors, they travel around the world and that is what they are offering, the seas, the heaven and the earth itself. They are not only offering scientific understandings of these things through objects of recordings, diaries, rugs and culture. Not simply offering an objective overview, there is a lot at stake here. There are a whole lot of symbols, so things are not as they should be. The music has been played and the book has been read, a string on the guitar is broken. All these things have a meaning, we see a collage, a collection of images. Last week we discussed perspective and in this pic we see a single point perspective.. things diminish behind them. What about the floor..in this image, there are two perspectives.

Then in the earthly delight picture, there are a lot of contradictory meanings, like going to a website and there are icons and flashing gifts and the larger overall message of heaven and hell and us in the middle. It is difficult to detect all these meanings as well.

From the week 2 reading, I leant that the computer, was considered the third tool of media artists and in many ways it revolutionised the media arts-to the extent that many observers of this art form refer to the variety of art practices based on computers and the Internet as the “new media” arts. The computer is based on Charles Babbage’s “analytical engine”-which was conceived in the 18^th century and became operational in the forties-it was not until the eighties that the computer began to be adopted on a significant scale for artistic purpose. (Manovich, 2001a,  2001b).

McCarthy, O (2002) The Development of the Media Arts

Lecture one with Hugh Davies

LECTURE ONE WAS REALLY REALLY INTERESTING AND BECAUSE OF IT, I WAS HOOKED FOR THE REST OF THE SEMESTRE.. GREAT JOB HUGH.. THANKYOU!!

Week one with Hugh.. in the Agora theatre..July 30, 2013..

Hugh welcomed us to exploring media arts, so for those of you who have had Hugh before, you would understand Hugh’s methodology of delivery. He will go through this in class and the content too. As of today, all the class material will appear by the blog.. exploringmediaarts.wordpress.com and you can get information about lectures, tutorials and assessment. Hugh went through the website and urged us all to go in and the homepage is where all the latest information and material will come up. All the lectures are outlined here and the way this is structured, there are a range of themes, image, space, sound and atmosphere, in particular, spatial and temporal is woven through all the subject headings and there are three weeks for each subject heading, this week and in the following two weeks. The aim of this lecture is to think critically and analytically and the point is to develop skills theoretically and practically and in the tutorials with Hugh, Shannon , Felicity or Joel. There will be a range of tutors and it will change a lot as well and in the first few weeks there will be several changes as people are working to expert areas and there are eight tutorial groups. The headings are fairly solid but they may change and in terms of themes; image, space, sound and atmosphere… There were a whole eight tutorials, one was started on Thursday afternoon and if you struggle, then 2pm to 4 pm on Thursday and well the conspiracy theories are not true, tutes begin in week 1. The purpose of the tutorials is to digest lecture information and put in practice your own making of work, talking about media and art, so exploratory process needs to be articulated back.. The methodology is not through handouts and exams but it is from getting in there and playing. If you have an academic blog keep it, if you have wordpress, set up a blogger one or if you have blogger then set up wordpress.

Hugh discouraged people from using TUMBLR, he finds it locked in as far as what it can do, not enough flexibility, it is for finding images on the internet and posting them, not really something that is all that necessary for this course. Perspective within a context of media  arts. Media arts within a context of history, so basic engaging with perspective and next week, collage.

He skipped through a lot of content, as it was hard to read  and you can check on your own computers.. Today and this week is about perspective. Perspective within a context of  Media arts, people think is, contemporary within a context of history. Today, basic engaging with perspective, next week is collage and then the following week is emulation and the first assignment is due in three weeks. Through projects and tutes build to submission in three weeks. Some people may be more experienced so there are different levels.. He intends to do this with all assignments, if you feel challenged, there is scope to address that. Copy one of these images.. I took the first image and these projects are scaled for different levels of difficulty. Some may be more experienced.  This is something he intends to do with all assignments, people are coming in with different skill sets. In terms of support, lots of tools here, blogging engines, sound editing, video editing, so go in and get a basic understanding, once you understand the principles it is applicable everywhere. This goes for sound and video imaging. Every year there are updates, so each year in terms of skills, they will need to be updated, understand and use all the interfaces, we are using adobe premiere for example. That is what employers want to see, don’t think, oh no, I need to do a course, you can learn it all yourself. Today set up your blog, set up URL to it and send the link to Hugh and whichever tutorial you are in. He will put all the links to this page.. First name and first letter of second name will be there. Sometimes readings and lectures don’t always link up, sometimes they are more tangential…This week the reading is a video.

This looks like a Wes Anderson movie, in terms of the font. Apart from looking like say Moonrise Kingdom or Royal Tennenbaums, if you watch the whole film, it is two hours, we can watch today or alternatively read the book which takes about two hours but he recommends the film over the book. A2, always black and white, it is important in terms of the images, be seen in color.  John Berger said that a large part of seeing depends on habit and convention, perspective centres everything on the eye of the beholder. With the invention of the camera, we did not see everything travel to a single centre, I approach and pull away , this is I, the machine, recording one movement after the other, I coordinate all points of the universe, he explains a new way of the world unknown to me. These words come from the movie in 1928, The Man with the Movie Camera. The camera can only be in one place at one time. The camera is based on your eye, when images hit your retina they are upside down, your brain flips reality so you see things, it can be reversed, scientists hand out mirrored glasses so it flips your vision, so switching two times, it is part of what the brain does; physiological perception, volume, mass and texture correspond to the eye. What the brain does with the images, how we fit them within a constellation is explained in John Berger's book, Ways of seeing!!!!

 

Presentation

Presentation

Jessica Elizabeth Topliss and myself (Janet Bridgman)worked initially to organise our project for presentation day which was on October 22 in the Humanities computer laboratory and Felicity Collins would be marking our work. Later on Keely joined us so we had a third member join us and we seemed to stay back so that the whole two hours allocated toward this subject in the lab this week. We worked on our theme the week before which was October 15 and also on October 8, during the two hours allocated toward Exploring Media Arts with Felicity Collins following Hugh Davies lecture at 10am in the Agora Theatre..(Well there was a three hour gap), so class began at 2pm sharp and we stayed mostly right up until 4pm.Facebook was where most of the social networking occurred,  although only Jessica and I communicated this way and we communicated with Keely via email. She was great in responding to emails and I discovered that if I wrote a long email to her, she would receive it by her mobile phone and appear from nowhere to join up with us. I found this a rewarding experience as I became increasingly aware of the importance of the speed of light communication and  Information technology at its best. (Keely was contactable at mz_keely@hotmail.com). I could also get Jessica at bluesunflower_3@hotmail.com

The night before our presentation, we were communicating until after midnight with one another just to check that we were all prepared and that nobody was too nervous and that everybody felt confident. It seemed all team players were ready, willing and able. The next morning, I knew I had to hotfoot it to Northlands and buy a light projector, preferably one that reflected stars from Australian Geographic. I was fortunate to meet a lovely sales girl who sold me one for sixty dollars and I was out in a flash and off to La Trobe University, bus or no bus as I did not want to miss the presentation that was to occur during the lecture time in Hugh Davies class in the Agora Theatre. I made it, racing by the Humanities lab to pick up Jessica who was waiting patiently as the plan was to test run our lamps in the lab if there was time between one class and the next. It turned out we were not allowed to enter so I would be back after Hugh's class at 11am.

Back I went and then I had a goose hunt around the university, liasing with the media studies faculty desk to see if there was any possibility of us being able to present in a room adjacent to the humanties lab where we were told that it could be darker..(there is a light in the lab that comes on and off by itself and no light switch to be found). I could have organised all of this weeks earlier however being hesitant about spending the sixty dollars, I left it until the day, when I knew I would not back down from the idea as PRESENTING is something I love to do.


.. after a couple of hours of  communications with various staff members I went back to pick up Jessica and Keely in the theatre, after their two hour legal studies class. We went to the journalism lab to do some more writing, I wanted to improve on my script and then it was SHOWTIME
I feel that the running was smooth. We were given adequate time to set up and we provided chairs for our audience. The light did not come on in the lab whilst we presented and we were fortunate to have a glow lamp which was shaped like a space ship I bought at Savers in Greensborough.. one of those lamps that warms up and then there is a jelly like substance inside which moves about.. like a galaxy!!! Jessica did most of the talking and the girls decided they did not want me to say my part.. perhaps they thought we would run out of time.I had planned on saying..

I am looking at the spatial aspects...the atmosphere is quiet, yet i can hear movement, we are all breathing, being human beings, it is our nature and there is body movement because we are not naturally stationary figures, we breathe move and feel. The atmosphere is getting warmer as the lamp warms up and radiates heat, on a cold day this would be an optimum setting however being a little warm, perhaps that is because I have been running around, trying to organise a darker room for the occasion, i don't quite know how you are all feeling, but i would prefere to keep cool and away from the lamp. The lamp appears to take on a spaceship shape, as if it is mounted ready for take off and the view from above earth would echo images.
I think  from Hugh Davies and Felicity Collins class i have learnt what an advantage creating a positive atmosphere is and how important and instrumental it is in order to generate positive, stimulating and rewarding relationships. Once all the dynamics are constructed and in time and place, space is a dimension or vacuum we can all access, i mean right now, as i wrote this i was in cyberspace. I feel that many of us are in this medium more often that we would like to admit, but then again where else would one rather be?
I feel that the atmosphere here is quiet and the lamp is getting warmer and well as with a spaceship perhaps it is about to orbit in to space. i would imagine that an alien race from above looking at us would perceive as to be kind hearted individuals who are well educated and who know how to create an awesome atmosphere and the space here is welcoming of everybody regardless of gender, religion or political persuasion. This spaceship is here to possibly evoke you to go and see GRAVITY and then to  get a real feel for how quiet space is inside a spaceship and well how conducive this can be to bringing out your creative yearnings. There may be some of you who would like to travel in to space and others may be more grounded and feel you would prefere to keep your feet firmly planted on earth, where we may have created our own comfort zone.

We had decided at 12.57am on 22/10/13 that Jessica would start talking about the song and how it relates to night atmosphere idea, then Keely talked about the visual and how it relates to our night atmosphere(putting the themes of the song into perspective and showing the world from a different perspective), then I talked about the spatial aspect of creating the night atmosphere inside with the lamp on and blinds drawn.
Keely was  looking for a suitable program at 2.43pm on 18/10/13 and said she would download the audio as an mp3 and the youtube as an mp4 just incase(very responsible young lady)and let us know we would test it out in the lab.Otherwise the plan was we were going to have to put the video on youtube and let the mp3 play in the background.
on an email dated 20/10 Keely wrote

I've been listening to the song and it's lyrics, and I think one of the things we should comment on is how the night can be a time of reflection, and the music really illustrates this. Removed from the sensory distractions of the day, people can be alone with their thoughts. The image illustrates the infinity of space and puts our world and our concerns into greater perspective (got perspective in there!)

> Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 19:11:48 +1100

Here are the links to the youtube music. The first one is Stars from Space Station-Brillian News/video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiGeqsGjhoY and
The XX-night Time and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItX2cntpWtE