In tackling this project, I considered multiple facets of my own practice and what sort of motivations that would propel me into the semester and hopefully stimulate my imagination.
The constraints that I have selected for this project are:
1. The project must have more than one source of media. Text + image, Video=text…etc
2. Borrow your sources! Video/images etc
3. Don’t do the same themed project more than twice. (I don’t need 7 videos, k?)
I often feel somewhat conflicted about John Cage. I think to be more accurate, I feel conflicted about Artists in love with John Cage and seeking to emulate him, in appearance, and not process. There is much that can be learned from Cage, his thought process as well as how he generated experimental music. His treatment of sound can be a delightful breath of postmodernism, especially when you have a chance to listen to Steve Reich, Iannis Xenakis and Karlheinz Stockhausen at the same time.
Cage’s approach to process, can be slightly overwhelming at first for those unfamiliar with working in sound. Even for those more practiced, there is a weight to his words that can intimidate a practitioner. Once you work your way past the medium specific jargon, you find yourself lulled into a rolling cadence by the layout of the page. Is it possible to hear the words as you read them? Has Cage managed to make me hear a rhythm while reading? In the silence of reading, I have a meta experience as the eyes move across the words and there is a mental echo as each section breaks, even if it is mid-thought.
What am I interested in?
Art at the intersection of multiple media, and social identities.
Video, Interactivity, Installations and Writing
What Artists do I think are working in a way that I find interesting?
I don’t think that I could make a meaningful list of all of the artists that I think are doing interesting work, but I think that many artists go through a time period where there are clear influences by other artists.
In the last year, when I was in Montreal, I was inspired by some work of the following artists:
Jenny Holzer In particular, I think “Please Change Beliefs” and Truisms is why I am an artist.
What Conference do I want to go to this year?
I actually should strongly consider:
CAA I jjst missed this years, but I will go to next year’s conference.
Siggraph (maybe..for some reason, I just don’t think I fit in, maybe I’m too in love with being an outsider)
I got tickets to Pax East, although I would not call it terribly academically rigorous. Some of the Panels look promising.
I am on the committee that is organizing Critical Themes in Media
Much like staring at “magic eye” picture, once you read “Communities of Practice” you never look at the way you interact with other artists and designers the same way.
Lave and Wegner capture the problem of the technopile artist succinctly
For the fall ’09 iteration of our Design Challenge we work together with students from universities and schools specializing in User Experience and Human-Computer-Interaction studies around the world to find innovative concepts to the question:
“Browsing History — How can we make sense of this rich source of data and how do we best present this data to the user?”
Given:
Tasks | Phase 1:
My personal User Story:
“I am a heavy tabbed browser user. Sometimes I have up to 6 separate windows with different subjects organized by window. Often when browsing, it is a mix of regular sites that I visit like gmail or the new york times and new sites that I navigate to from links at the older sites. In reviewing sites that I normally visit and unique sites, it’s difficult for me to go through the history and find how I got to the unique sites because the history tree shows only general information about the frequently viewed sites, and no images that might give me a clue to how I got from one place to another. After enough browsing, I can’t trace back to determine how I navigated to each site or when a tab became a new window.”
Some Survey Questions that I developed for the class survey:
How Quickly can you find what you are looking for?
1-30 secs
30sec-1minute
1minute-2 minutes
2 minutes-10 minutes
Greater than 10 minutes
Never
What are you looking for in the History?
A webpage on a site
A specific Site
Browser state at a specific time
What I was doing at a time
Other[text box]
What web browser history interface do you like best?
Internet Explorer
Safari
Opera
Google Chrome
Other [textbox]
Why?[text]
Tasks | Phase 2:
A selection of some of the ideas that were used in my proposal:
Tasks | Phase 3:
Concept:
Unique Site Visited History Browser
The Low Fidelity Prototype was the first actual fleshing out of the Unique Sites History Browser. I took the integrated History window from Google Chrome and added Mozilla features. This was also the first test of the cached screenshot being linked to unique sites. Firefox already has a feature in the History that counted how many times a user visited a website, but it had to be toggled on. This feature side steps that and has the visit count be an important part of keeping track of Frequently Visited Sites and reducing clutter in the History.
Doskoch’s article is useful information sandwiched in the fluff magazine “Psychology Today.” Although the key words of “Gritty” was overused, the concept of “perseverance is more important than innate intelligence/talent” is a valuable one that shines through in Doskoch’s article. Without such perseverance, an otherwise talented person, would give up before they have any measure of success. This is poignant as our first articles as MFA candidates, because this is a vital lesson that we must internalize, if we have not already. Receiving an MFA is not enough to guarantee success in our chosen fields. Working without ceasing is what we need. Working without knowing what quitting means, is the key to our future and current success.
Agre’s article resonated with my overall goals of entering academia, yet, like many articles on academia, it feels like a awkward fit for a academic in the fine arts studio. Perhaps it is because of our separation from theory in our practice, or in the awkward joining of theory and practice that the field is undergoing. The sectiont aht I read was on Networking and building a network. Many of the advice that si proscribed is still useful, but I can’t help but feel like it is dated information that needs to include the rapid changes in electronic communication with the advent of web 2.0, or is it 3.0 now? It feels like he is still talking about bulletin boards and unix email, rather than the streamlined methods of collaboration that keep being developed. When meeting another professor, would you rather give them a paper copy of your thirty page article when a pdf could be shared just as easily and without having to wait a week, or more for them to receive it? Although many of the principles remain the same, this article wwould do well with a revision to stay current.
Today, I was sharing my worries on the phone with a friend and a storm suddenly swelled up and lightning flashed. Each shock of lightning punctuated the sage advice that she gave to me. With those transformative words, I was ready to see this video and take to heart what Elizabeth Gilbert had to say on nurturing creativity.
Here are a few selected shots from the Festival Mode et Design Montreal
I only briefly attended the Festival, catching only Bedo (a chain store here in Montreal) and Tony Jordan for Lingerie Couture.
Here are some shots from Tony Jordan (Bedo was not exciting enough to warrant uploading here.)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
My full flickr stream is here: Bedo and Tony Jordan for Lingerie Couture
On both nights that I went I got lucky to listen to some Montreal Bands. During the Tony Jordan for Lingerie Couture, Plastik Patrik played, all covers though. Glam as hell, but even in his g-string glory, he could only hold a candle to Fritz Helder and the Phantoms
First off:
Glorious fashion? Check
Ass long weave on lead singer? Check
Songs about fashion and poses on the catwalk? Check!
Actual dancing and striking of said poses that would put a model to shame? Check!
Was I totally in love? Check.
Here’s a sample to goggle after!