I completely forgot to update the blog with my final video!
The clip turned out well and I’m really glad I used the “radiohead” song as the soundtrack. Stopmotion was definitely a difficult process but I think the photoshop/digital photography method worked out very well. I would like to experiment with more stopmotion animation techniques, maybe claymation, or a diaporama of landscape photos. This project made me realize how interested I am in the relationship of music and video. Choosing the audio was the most exciting part of the project and I tried to time my slide transitions along with the musical beats. It was very interesting to see how people responded to the survey, some peoples’ “hells” were other peoples’ “heavens” I would have liked to take more pictures around campus but I did not have enough time to incorporate all of those photos into the video clip.
Post #1
So I decided to scratch my original idea because I realized that I’m not skilled enough with photoshop to use it for all the animation. After talking things over with a couple of people I realized that I want to incorporate their own interpretations of “heaven and hell.” First, I created a survey that summarized their ideas of heaven and hell. I asked them about the different places on Duke’s campus that they consider “heaven” and the different places they consider “hell”
I don’t want the film to be 30 seconds of montage so when I get home over thanksgiving I’m going to take pictures at the beach that I can use as the “motion” elements that I will then place between different images. I want to juxtapose people’s ideas of heaven and hell so I am going to project the images one after the other, with the “heaven” image in color and the “hell” image in black and white.
I talked to Bill and I think this can work if I focus on smooth transitioning between images.
For the soundtrack I want to use Radiohead’s “Jigsaw falling into place” or something similar.
I wish I could say the lacerations on my hands reflect the quality of the finished piece, but unfortunately this project was very difficult for me to finish. Originally I thought I would be able to create a human body using can and wire… someone even did this! but of course after hours and hours of attempting to build body parts, I failed miserably. I refused to give up on my idea of representing movement so I decided to look back on some art history as a source of inspiration. After taking a class on cubism last year I learned to value the ways in which artists chose to represent human motion and I realized that even though I’m not skilled in this bizarre medium, I was going to try and represent a human body in a fragmented cubist way. Surprisingly, I followed through with this idea but of course the body parts look like a five year old child had trouble playing around with cans. But no excuses. I really tried to incorporate all the parts involved in a figure’s movement and I used different colored cans to highlight each individual part. (Yellow Squirt cans are really cool!) Once I made it to my installation spot I realized that my hanging idea was not going to fly and I would be better off attaching the parts directly to the wall.
Soooo now onto the maya project. For once I actually was successful in carrying out an idea. After starting over twice because maya would quit every 10 seconds, I finished the nike swoosh! My original design had me changing the texture of the can to a blue gradient but I stayed with the original “coke can” texture since the image is printed in a perspective that does not really illustrate the color of the cans.
Even though this project was really frustrating, I’m very happy with the final maya piece. Don’t know how I feel about the sculpture, but hopefully my statement will help the viewer understand the overall idea of the work.
For the second project it took me awhile to figure out exactly what I was going to do using the cans and Maya program. Sometime last week I decided that I wanted a unified theme to the piece and I would try to relate my maya design to my can sculpture. I came up with the idea of representing “human motion” and the way in which our culture values a healthy individual and a fast paced lifestyle. For the can sculpture I am going to create an abstract figure of a human with cans trailing from the “feet” and I am going to cut long strips of can and attach them to the wall to serve as “motion lines” kind of like cartoon characters.
For the maya design I am going to arrange the cans in the Nike Swoosh. Hopefully I will be able to make the cans change gradients as the swoosh extends but I might run out of time, considering we only have a week left.
I’ve had trouble dealing with maya so I definitely have to spend more time in the lab but hopefully I can figure out how to manipulate the texture of the cans to achieve the gradient look I am going for.
After much deliberation, I finally decided to change the focus of my collage entirely. Originally, I wanted to represent two contrasting views of the wall. One focus being on the elements of containment and another focus on the elements that went into the destruction of the wall. Sometime last week I realized that this idea did not fit well with my personal views about the wall and Cold-War Germany. I decided that I would examine instances of individual expression that occurred during the construction and the destruction of the wall. I placed an image of JFK to represent the president’s response to the Soviets. The entire background of the collage is made up of graffiti taken from the wall. Graffiti, is a perfect example of individual expression and the repeating phrase “Change Your Life” inspired the title of the piece. To finish the collage, I decided to hand paint barbed wire over the bottom section of the graffiti. I’m hoping that viewers will interpret this in their own way but I think the wire is containing the freedom of expression seen in the graffiti behind it, similar to how the wall restricted the freedom of Berlin citizens.
I’m very glad I abandoned my first ideas about the collage. With more photoshop practice, I was able to create a piece that represents the re-birth of individual expression.
I knew from the very beginning of this assignment that I wanted to include the elements of containment and separation as well as the elements of peace and the destruction of the wall. After sifting through flickr I came across many different photos of a soldier’s silhouette and I began to organize my ideas. I’m going to divide my collage into two parts. One part will illustrate the elements of separation and the other part will illustrate the elements of peace and unity. I have found an image of a watchtower with a spotlight resting on the top, that I would like to place on the left side of the collage. This spotlight is going to “illuminate” the upper portion of the piece, where all the elements of unity will be illustrated in white. As of right now I think I am going to use the soldier’s silhouette, a map of berlin, a paratrooper and the year 1989 to represent the peaceful section of the collage. Under the spotlight’s illumination I am going to place an image of a brick wall with barbed wire to represent containment. I still need to figure out whether or not I want to use actual images of the wall itself but I have found a couple of photos that I would like to incorporate. Since my collage will not cover the entire board, I spray painted the background a greyish silver so the viewer can differentiate the elements of peace (in white) from the elements of containment (in black).
Below are images of the graffiti that I am going to incorporate into the depiction of the wall itself. I have also added the image of the watchtower that will be the main focus of the piece. I’ve decided to abandon the idea of the soldier silhouette even though it was the starting point for the project. I found this picture of a soldier on flickr and I think it will really add to the collage. As of right now I have painted the wall and I am starting to paint the “stitches” on the map of berlin.
I was very intrigued by the way Barbara treated the medium of collage. Her arrangement of subject and text is very different from the other artists we were asked to research. Kruger’s pieces are simple yet provocative and thought provoking. The work I chose, I shop therefore I am, is a statement against American consumerism. Kruger keeps her image very clean by layering a small piece of text over a black and white photo of a child’s hand. Because this collage is not a collection of many different images, Kruger’s text makes a strong impact on the viewer, forcing them to think about the underlying message. Instead of trying to uncover the meaning of a thousand pictures/texts piled on top of each other, I was able to focus on the strong statement Kruger is trying to illustrate. The red box under the white texts projects the message out toward viewer. The colored framing and the paper-like texture of the black and white photo, make the image seem like an advertisement, maybe another statement against American consumer culture.
Overall, I found this work appealing because it differed from the other collage pieces I have been exposed to in the past. Kruger’s message is clear and her clean and simple treatment allow the viewer to focus on her profound statement instead of being lost in a chaos of images.
I have only been into the Smith Warehouse once before and that was to explore a photography exhibit at the end of last year. I was blown away by the artistic talents of the class of ‘09 and I guess I was hoping that I would come across some of last year’s works during my visit, but that was not the case.
Normally, I’m not a fan of nature scenes and landscape pieces but the unique depiction of trees on the first floor really grabbed my attention.
While looking at the first piece I immediately associated the tree with human anatomy. The way the artist gave structure to the branches made me think of a skeleton and outstretched arms. Part of me wanted to believe that the artist was trying to allude to the human qualities of nature and how trees are living organisms.
In addition to the subject matter, numerous formal elements caught my eye. The outline of the photo itself is very jagged, possibly mimicking the random growth of tree branches. Even though the color seems a bit bland, it fits the piece perfectly because it does not subtract from the important elements inside the picture.
