Goals for this class… Hmmm…
See, I don’t really know what I want or what to expect, at least not yet.
When I decided to take this course, it was mostly because I found that I really enjoyed working with digital media through taking VISA 110. Technology’s influence on art, the different methods, the mediums themselves – it all interests me.
I don’t really have any expectations, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I guess I just want to figure out what I want and learn more about myself and the world around me – that seems to be an ongoing thing with me and art classes so far (it’s a good thing, I think)…
It’ll be nice to learn how all this (technology, digital media) fits into my life and my interests.
The objectives listed sound pretty good to me, so I’ll just stick with that and see how it goes.
I’m not usually a notes taker, but I’m gonna take a stab at this. I think it will be more fitting to consider them reflections or responses than actual notes.
Technology is affecting us as we create it, as mentioned in class, the planet is being affected by us, but we’re also creating our own worlds now – virtual worlds that exist digitally.
As we create technology that replaces humans in the workforce, I suppose we could say that we’re also creating jobs and careers in this digital world. With the internet, there are people making a living off of YouTube, playing video games (a.k.a eSports) for a living, online sex work, etc
The thing is, all of those careers kind of rely on our humanity, but could technology learn to imitate humanity enough to take over these industries as well?
Then as we create artificial intelligence, we’re also trying to extend our life spans as our planet is changing drastically. I feel like the anthropocene will affect us more than the planet…
Images is becoming a language – or maybe it has always been, it’s just more universal now. Maybe it’s because knowledge is more widely available now, we’re all able to be exposed to similar things, which probably helps us create a mutual understanding. I mean, now people could reply to an article or a text with a random emoji icon and other people will understand the implications of that.
It’s like a new culture, I guess.
The image I choose is a picture I took of novel. At a glance, it’s a pretty plain book, on the cover is a black-and-white image of an uncapped salt shaker while the title and the author’s pseudonym is in red.
The book is from UBC’s rare books collection, I was wandering around campus that day and when I found out this edition of the novel is on campus, I decided to go check it out. When I was there, I snapped a picture of the book.
Right, so maybe I should elaborate on this book a little – it is a fictional novel that was written in the 1950s, it was one of the only novels that showed homosexual characters having a happy ending (or non-tragic ending) at that time. It was adapted into a film a few years ago; I was pretty happy to see something that I could kind of relate to.
I’ve appropriated materials from the film for a few of my assignments last term. I guess in this case here, it’s not so much about the specific image, but what it depicts. It was just present throughout the entire term. I honestly don’t know how to word this without sounding really pretentious…
I think that’s about it, it’s getting personal and is sounding pretentious, so let’s just leave it here.
What are images?
There’s no real definition for images…
In certain circumstances, I guess images (including sound, visual, signs, etc) are nothing, but also everything. We usually need a certain amount of knowledge to understand pictures and signs, without understanding, they are nothing.
But there are many ways to create images without the use of signs or representations, like how we can imagine a picture or feel strong emotions just from listening to a soundtrack.
We can decipher this images, but we can also just feel. I think it’s pretty difficult to create something that makes someone feel something, especially since emotions aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive and they can overlap.
It was interesting to see that humans would go out of their way to create images, even when they were probably worried for their own survival.
I’ve created three images by appropriating screencaps from the movie, Carol (2015), which was an adaptation of the novel I described in my first assignment. Each image corresponds to the feelings I felt during different points where this novel/movie was present last term.
Feeling =/= Thinking
The website hosting your work is a medium; size and presentation is also a medium.
Images can inform but also art, there’s a range between the two states.
It was really interesting to see how images can play into our unconsciousness and actually influence the way we think. I think there are a lot of associations that our minds make regardless of logic and rational thinking, much like what one of the videos we watched was saying.
How images can work with the unconscious is a curious thing, I feel like artists have been doing this in one way or another for a while, for example Rothko’s paintings. In a more… literal sense (not sure if that’s the term I should be using), the Surrealists were very much into the concept of the unconscious and Freud’s theories. Although the Surrealist movement was very different from what was mentioned in the Bernays video, I feel that there is a bit of a crossover between the two. While the Surrealists focused on tapping into their unconscious, the results of that actually taps in our unconsciousness as well.
While photography no longer represents the truth, especially with programs like Photoshop around, I do have a question: was photography really an accurate depiction of reality in the first place?
Even without Photoshop, photographs could have been staged or manipulated through various techniques (e.g. photomontages). But even though we all know photographs no longer equate reality, we still tend to associate photographs with reality – maybe we can use it to our advantage?
I was just nervous and pretty frustrated that I haven’t started on one of my assignments yet.
I had a pretty interesting conversation with a friend that night… but yeah, I just felt pretty worked up and nervous.
I was so frustrated and annoyed on the 27th, I wanted to get some photography done, but there was this power outage. I felt so trapped and limited by lacking resources, I was just in a terrible mood – didn’t help that I hate one of my classes on Thursday.
Later that night, I was in a more inspired mood, I talked to friend and discussed some ideas for a project.
It was a pretty boring day, I stayed at home. I played around with some rope, I managed to tie a hobble, unfortunately, I had to get out of it before I could take a picture of it.
I really like playing with rope, I find it really relaxing.
I really struggled to create this, today was basically the same as yesterday. I stayed home and I didn’t really do anything interesting. I didn’t feel frustrated like a few days ago, but I didn’t really feel any particular feelings about today or yesterday. I did have one frustrating conversation, but that’s about it.
It was a pretty dull day, I spent the entire day at home, I had to write some assignment/exercise thing. I had this conversation about religion as well, and it just so happened that this movie was playing on tv last night was well, so I thought it would be fitting to appropriate that to illustrate the conversation I had.
So I got to go into the darkroom today, seeing the image slowly appear was like magic… the safelight made the darkroom seem kinda romantic. Later on today, I walked by a bookstore so I went in to see if I could find this graphic novel, even though I’ve ordered it already, but I had free time on my hand.
I spent an entire day trying to work on an assignment that’s due next week and I had no luck. I spent hours, and I even skipped class, trying to get some photography done, but I just don’t know how my camera and its light meter works. I was and am still quite stressed out over this.
Later on, I had a friend come over to model for me, and that was fun, I had him all tied up, hahaha. But I couldn’t get as much done as I wanted to, since I just couldn’t work my camera.
It’s interesting to see how technology ties into art and humanity, and freedom.
The Futurist manifesto was scary, it was interesting, but a little scary. There’s this part that talks about fighting feminism, I’m a little curious to see how big of a movement feminism even was at that time. But what I find a little unnerving about this manifesto is that it could actually be from any era. The whole glorifying-war isn’t exactly limited to that era, it’s even happening now.
What is an image?
“Between what I see and what I say, between what I say and what I keep silent, between what I keep silent and what I dream, between what I dream and what I forget: poetry.”
It is something intangible, yet very real. Music, movies, visuals, pictures, photographs, etc can all act as a catalyst for an image.
Tech – Image – “Real”
The three are intertwined with one another, influencing and being influenced by each other, informing and being informed. What is “real” changes with time and our perspectives, what is “real” today was not “real” a hundred years ago, and what is “real” to me, may not be “real” to you.
Digital media – particularly through the use of our current technologies – is a reflection of our contemporary world and perspectives. While other mediums are relevant, they do not reflect the contemporary world as a picture of Instagram might.
We’re living in a crisis right now where we no longer know what it means to be human, what to make of this world we live in, what to make of the technologies *we* created. But I wonder: did we ever know what it meant to be human? Doesn’t that also change with time?
It’s no question that we’re experiencing a crisis; when we were shown the Futurist manifesto last week, the first thing I thought of was the politics of today – the alt-right, to be specific.
We may not know what to make of this world or the full extent of what we can do with technology, but humans have more influence than ever before – we’re like gods now. We can create worlds, new lives in the forms of AIs and clones, we can change our forms (e.g. plastic surgery, transhumanism), knowledge is more accessible than ever.
At first, I didn’t really feel much from this song. But after listening to it over and over and over again, this song began to give me this fleeting – kind of eerie (that could just be because I watched the new trailer for Godzilla that used this song though…) – feeling of stress and loneliness.
Technology and art
Art and freedom
Technology and freedom
I feel like art – or artists – always go after freedom, going against conventions and being unconforming, but as mentioned in class – artists end up establishing new conventions of beauty whether they like it or not. I see a similar phenomenom within certain subcultures and communities as well, there’s this idea of not conforming, but at the end, people would just be conforming to “not conforming” – take LGBTQ+ culture for example, there’s a lot of emphasis on not conforming, but there is a certain lifestyle or aesthetic that is being conformed to.
I think technology is giving us freedom, it allows us to do things that we couldn’t have otherwise – and this includes art. As mentioned in class, we’re all able to make gifs now, but before, only a number of people were able to make short moving images. Through technology, there’s more freedom in art.
This is mostly a response to the relation between technology and freedom – technology promises freedom, and it does offer us freedom in many ways, including creating art. I wanted to focus on one of the questions rather than all of them, even though there are overlaps.
I wanted to post it on Newhive, but it’s down, even though the video would be the same – just thought the site would be a better medium than YouTube.
Philosophy is about – or attempting to – understanding what it means to be human, art isn’t.
Exploration in art is where all kinds of possibilities are open, I guess we should embrace the state of not knowing.
“Success” and “productivity” are both capitalist concepts that should *not* apply to art.
Photography is the drawing of nature, some call it light drawing, or heliography. The color – or lack of – can indicate when the photo was taken.
The sounds we hear everyday is the sound of life.
Silence is impossible to achieve as we can hear our bodies.
Do artists create the future or see the future?
If artists can see the future, then that means the future is predetermined. If artists can see the future – then what are artists?
I don’t know what to think, but I want to believe that the future is not predetermined…
So I took inspiration from the String Piece and the Stamp Act. The String Piece instructs to tie the audience up, but I chose a picture of myself tied up; the Stamp Act instructs to cover a nude model in stamps.
Goals for this class… Hmmm…
See, I don’t really know what I want or what to expect, at least not yet.
When I decided to take this course, it was mostly because I found that I really enjoyed working with digital media through taking VISA 110. Technology’s influence on art, the different methods, the mediums themselves – it all interests me.
I don’t really have any expectations, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I guess I just want to figure out what I want and learn more about myself and the world around me – that seems to be an ongoing thing with me and art classes so far (it’s a good thing, I think)…
It’ll be nice to learn how all this (technology, digital media) fits into my life and my interests.
The objectives listed sound pretty good to me, so I’ll just stick with that and see how it goes.
Class notes (reflections?): Week #1
I’m not usually a notes taker, but I’m gonna take a stab at this. I think it will be more fitting to consider them reflections or responses than actual notes.
Technology is affecting us as we create it, as mentioned in class, the planet is being affected by us, but we’re also creating our own worlds now – virtual worlds that exist digitally.
As we create technology that replaces humans in the workforce, I suppose we could say that we’re also creating jobs and careers in this digital world. With the internet, there are people making a living off of YouTube, playing video games (a.k.a eSports) for a living, online sex work, etc
The thing is, all of those careers kind of rely on our humanity, but could technology learn to imitate humanity enough to take over these industries as well?
Then as we create artificial intelligence, we’re also trying to extend our life spans as our planet is changing drastically. I feel like the anthropocene will affect us more than the planet…
Images is becoming a language – or maybe it has always been, it’s just more universal now. Maybe it’s because knowledge is more widely available now, we’re all able to be exposed to similar things, which probably helps us create a mutual understanding. I mean, now people could reply to an article or a text with a random emoji icon and other people will understand the implications of that.
It’s like a new culture, I guess.
Well, I think that’s about it…
Weekly challenge: An Image in My Mind
The image I choose is a picture I took of novel. At a glance, it’s a pretty plain book, on the cover is a black-and-white image of an uncapped salt shaker while the title and the author’s pseudonym is in red.
The book is from UBC’s rare books collection, I was wandering around campus that day and when I found out this edition of the novel is on campus, I decided to go check it out. When I was there, I snapped a picture of the book.
Right, so maybe I should elaborate on this book a little – it is a fictional novel that was written in the 1950s, it was one of the only novels that showed homosexual characters having a happy ending (or non-tragic ending) at that time. It was adapted into a film a few years ago; I was pretty happy to see something that I could kind of relate to.
I’ve appropriated materials from the film for a few of my assignments last term. I guess in this case here, it’s not so much about the specific image, but what it depicts. It was just present throughout the entire term. I honestly don’t know how to word this without sounding really pretentious…
I think that’s about it, it’s getting personal and is sounding pretentious, so let’s just leave it here.
Class notes/reflections: Week #2
What are images?
There’s no real definition for images…
In certain circumstances, I guess images (including sound, visual, signs, etc) are nothing, but also everything. We usually need a certain amount of knowledge to understand pictures and signs, without understanding, they are nothing.
But there are many ways to create images without the use of signs or representations, like how we can imagine a picture or feel strong emotions just from listening to a soundtrack.
We can decipher this images, but we can also just feel. I think it’s pretty difficult to create something that makes someone feel something, especially since emotions aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive and they can overlap.
It was interesting to see that humans would go out of their way to create images, even when they were probably worried for their own survival.
Weekly challenge: The Image of the Image
https://1drv.ms/f/s!Aqm2ZJQgpgtYjgrz0jTBFDD_fcOc
I’ve created three images by appropriating screencaps from the movie, Carol (2015), which was an adaptation of the novel I described in my first assignment. Each image corresponds to the feelings I felt during different points where this novel/movie was present last term.
Class notes: Week #3
Feeling =/= Thinking
The website hosting your work is a medium; size and presentation is also a medium.
Images can inform but also art, there’s a range between the two states.
What is reality?
What is an image?
Weekly challenge: What is an apple?
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aqm2ZJQgpgtYjlmixX9AmDG7QLO7
Week #4
It was really interesting to see how images can play into our unconsciousness and actually influence the way we think. I think there are a lot of associations that our minds make regardless of logic and rational thinking, much like what one of the videos we watched was saying.
How images can work with the unconscious is a curious thing, I feel like artists have been doing this in one way or another for a while, for example Rothko’s paintings. In a more… literal sense (not sure if that’s the term I should be using), the Surrealists were very much into the concept of the unconscious and Freud’s theories. Although the Surrealist movement was very different from what was mentioned in the Bernays video, I feel that there is a bit of a crossover between the two. While the Surrealists focused on tapping into their unconscious, the results of that actually taps in our unconsciousness as well.
While photography no longer represents the truth, especially with programs like Photoshop around, I do have a question: was photography really an accurate depiction of reality in the first place?
Even without Photoshop, photographs could have been staged or manipulated through various techniques (e.g. photomontages). But even though we all know photographs no longer equate reality, we still tend to associate photographs with reality – maybe we can use it to our advantage?
Weekly challenge: An image of today
Day one – 09.26
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoTYH7KHKiT/
I was just nervous and pretty frustrated that I haven’t started on one of my assignments yet.
I had a pretty interesting conversation with a friend that night… but yeah, I just felt pretty worked up and nervous.
Weekly challenge: An image of today
Day two – 09.27
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoVtEr3n-62/
I was so frustrated and annoyed on the 27th, I wanted to get some photography done, but there was this power outage. I felt so trapped and limited by lacking resources, I was just in a terrible mood – didn’t help that I hate one of my classes on Thursday.
Later that night, I was in a more inspired mood, I talked to friend and discussed some ideas for a project.
Weekly challenge: An image of today
Day three – 09.28
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoWRSGrnz8I/
It was a pretty boring day, I stayed at home. I played around with some rope, I managed to tie a hobble, unfortunately, I had to get out of it before I could take a picture of it.
I really like playing with rope, I find it really relaxing.
Weekly challenge: An image of today
Day four – 09.29
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoWRWsinmnv/
I really struggled to create this, today was basically the same as yesterday. I stayed home and I didn’t really do anything interesting. I didn’t feel frustrated like a few days ago, but I didn’t really feel any particular feelings about today or yesterday. I did have one frustrating conversation, but that’s about it.
Weekly challenge: An image of today
Day five – 09.30
https://www.instagram.com/p/Boa6Ijens7V/
It was a pretty dull day, I spent the entire day at home, I had to write some assignment/exercise thing. I had this conversation about religion as well, and it just so happened that this movie was playing on tv last night was well, so I thought it would be fitting to appropriate that to illustrate the conversation I had.
Weekly challenge: An image of today
Day six – 10.01
https://www.instagram.com/p/Boa84k0HCYe/
So I got to go into the darkroom today, seeing the image slowly appear was like magic… the safelight made the darkroom seem kinda romantic. Later on today, I walked by a bookstore so I went in to see if I could find this graphic novel, even though I’ve ordered it already, but I had free time on my hand.
Weekly challenge: An image of today
Day seven – 10.02
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bodq7F1F56V/
I spent an entire day trying to work on an assignment that’s due next week and I had no luck. I spent hours, and I even skipped class, trying to get some photography done, but I just don’t know how my camera and its light meter works. I was and am still quite stressed out over this.
Later on, I had a friend come over to model for me, and that was fun, I had him all tied up, hahaha. But I couldn’t get as much done as I wanted to, since I just couldn’t work my camera.
Week #5
It’s interesting to see how technology ties into art and humanity, and freedom.
The Futurist manifesto was scary, it was interesting, but a little scary. There’s this part that talks about fighting feminism, I’m a little curious to see how big of a movement feminism even was at that time. But what I find a little unnerving about this manifesto is that it could actually be from any era. The whole glorifying-war isn’t exactly limited to that era, it’s even happening now.
Week #6
What is an image?
“Between what I see and what I say, between what I say and what I keep silent, between what I keep silent and what I dream, between what I dream and what I forget: poetry.”
It is something intangible, yet very real. Music, movies, visuals, pictures, photographs, etc can all act as a catalyst for an image.
Tech – Image – “Real”
The three are intertwined with one another, influencing and being influenced by each other, informing and being informed. What is “real” changes with time and our perspectives, what is “real” today was not “real” a hundred years ago, and what is “real” to me, may not be “real” to you.
Digital media – particularly through the use of our current technologies – is a reflection of our contemporary world and perspectives. While other mediums are relevant, they do not reflect the contemporary world as a picture of Instagram might.
We’re living in a crisis right now where we no longer know what it means to be human, what to make of this world we live in, what to make of the technologies *we* created. But I wonder: did we ever know what it meant to be human? Doesn’t that also change with time?
It’s no question that we’re experiencing a crisis; when we were shown the Futurist manifesto last week, the first thing I thought of was the politics of today – the alt-right, to be specific.
We may not know what to make of this world or the full extent of what we can do with technology, but humans have more influence than ever before – we’re like gods now. We can create worlds, new lives in the forms of AIs and clones, we can change our forms (e.g. plastic surgery, transhumanism), knowledge is more accessible than ever.
Weekly challenge: The Image of the Image II
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NExB6FR4RLk
At first, I didn’t really feel much from this song. But after listening to it over and over and over again, this song began to give me this fleeting – kind of eerie (that could just be because I watched the new trailer for Godzilla that used this song though…) – feeling of stress and loneliness.
Week #7
Technology and art
Art and freedom
Technology and freedom
I feel like art – or artists – always go after freedom, going against conventions and being unconforming, but as mentioned in class – artists end up establishing new conventions of beauty whether they like it or not. I see a similar phenomenom within certain subcultures and communities as well, there’s this idea of not conforming, but at the end, people would just be conforming to “not conforming” – take LGBTQ+ culture for example, there’s a lot of emphasis on not conforming, but there is a certain lifestyle or aesthetic that is being conformed to.
I think technology is giving us freedom, it allows us to do things that we couldn’t have otherwise – and this includes art. As mentioned in class, we’re all able to make gifs now, but before, only a number of people were able to make short moving images. Through technology, there’s more freedom in art.
Weekly challenge: Art/Technology/Freedom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rNDwcMIBRo
This is mostly a response to the relation between technology and freedom – technology promises freedom, and it does offer us freedom in many ways, including creating art. I wanted to focus on one of the questions rather than all of them, even though there are overlaps.
I wanted to post it on Newhive, but it’s down, even though the video would be the same – just thought the site would be a better medium than YouTube.
Week #8
Philosophy is about – or attempting to – understanding what it means to be human, art isn’t.
Exploration in art is where all kinds of possibilities are open, I guess we should embrace the state of not knowing.
“Success” and “productivity” are both capitalist concepts that should *not* apply to art.
Photography is the drawing of nature, some call it light drawing, or heliography. The color – or lack of – can indicate when the photo was taken.
The sounds we hear everyday is the sound of life.
Silence is impossible to achieve as we can hear our bodies.
Do artists create the future or see the future?
If artists can see the future, then that means the future is predetermined. If artists can see the future – then what are artists?
I don’t know what to think, but I want to believe that the future is not predetermined…
Weekly challenge: Art/Tech/Freedom
http://newhive.com/maggiew/censored
So I took inspiration from the String Piece and the Stamp Act. The String Piece instructs to tie the audience up, but I chose a picture of myself tied up; the Stamp Act instructs to cover a nude model in stamps.