Experiment #4: Richard Serra's Verb List

TO ROLL

Reading Response 4 A+B

Performance: A Hidden History

By: Roselee Goldberg

Performance art is not as simple as its name. Performance art as defined by Roselee Goldberg is complex more than the average person can imagine and it was conceived by radicals who wanted to break the rules of traditional fundamentals of art. Roselee Goldberg’s essay suggests that performance has been a way for artists to break boundaries and a means for artists to engage with a larger audience and community. Rosalee mentions dancers and performers that made an opening for such rebellion, like Merce Cunningham and John Cage. The two dancers were educated in different ways but merged together traditional and experimental dance ultimately introducing performance art through sound and body language.

The Other History of Intercultural Performance

By: Coco Fusco

Cuban-American artist, Coco Fusco, wrote the essay ‘The Other History of Intercultural Performance’. In her essay she goes into detail of the ugly side no one mentions in the history of performance art history. Her voice stands for the indigenous people over the world, speaking of their history and the role they played in performance entertainment for the white upper-class—specifically mentioning of indigenous people being enslaved and exported to the Americas. Reading this essay I never considered this as a form of entertainment, but looking through history today it isn’t that surprising. A current topic that I think of today is fat comedy—how fat people in entertainment don’t have serious roles in cinema, but are always the comedy relief or funny fat friend that laughs at their weight for the sake of entertaining others.

Art Project #4

Art Project #4

Performance Art

Artist Statement:

Baby crying, TV blaring, dogs barking, mailman knocking, phone ringing, but my brain is static. In this Performance piece, I recorded myself drawing an illustration of a loving mother but altered it to mirror my overstimulation while trying to do anything, but especially something that usually calms me.

I really enjoy the juxtaposition of something hypnotizing as watching a drawing come together and having a piece of irritation from reality float to the surface and scratch that hypnotizing serenity. Conceptually I chose to draw a peaceful moment between mother and child that is only a fraction of what motherhood really is and often the only part we see. I wanted to have pieces of reality come in to disturb that.

Art Project 3

Artist Statement:

I was inspired by the saying I often hear “They grow up so fast, don’t they?” At first I would always brush it off to something people would just say, but in this video clip, I wanted to show the reality of that saying. In this montage, I added clips of several video of my daughter from when she was a baby to now a one-year-old. I used an audio rendition of Dancing in the Moonlight By King Harvest and had the clips change to the beat of the ‘snap’ in the song. I also added this broken TV filter over the clips so it looked like a TV clicking through the channels—I feel like this mirrors how I would visualize memories and how they are fleeting and changing flowing into one another.

Art Experiment 3

I was inspired by the Netflix show Bridgerton when making this little clip, combining a traditional Victorian aesthetic with contemporary pop music. I chose to work with Alicia Key’s popular song, If I Ain’t Got You, released in 2004, and combine it with the fairytale scene from Walt Disney’s 1950 Cinderella classic film.

I chose to combine both sounds, so when you listen to the clip you will hear “So This Is Love” playing softly in the background while Alicia Keys is played over. I also added a filter to the clip to give a nostalgic effect as if you were watching an old VHS.

5 Media Based Artists

Nam June Paik, Video Flag, 1985-1996:

Nam creates quirky screen-based sculptures and installations, experimenting with music and performance.

Rafaël Rozendaal, Into Time with mirrors, 2012

Carsten Nicolai Unicolor 2014 

Astrict Starry Beach 2020 Installation view

Cao YuxiShan Shui Paintings By AI installation-view

Reading and Response 3 A+B

Reading Response 3A + 3B

“Introduction to Video Art”

by Lea Collet

In this first article, it was very informative of the history of video art and cinema, but especially how technology has evolved alongside artists. Artists have adopted technology as a new form of medium to be utilized for their production and process. Collet begins by stating and pointing out that video art is different and ‘distinguished’ from cinema. One of her first examples that is shown is Le Voyage Dans la Lune, A Trip to the Moon, by Georges Méliès (1902) a film that illustrates how artists used traditional art mediums to create cinema. I immediately identified with this example as the inspiration of the Tonight, Tonight music video by the Smashing Pumpkins. It’s interesting to compare the two eras of videography from 1902 to 1995.

“Vanishing and Becoming”

 by Sean Cubitt

Vanishing and Becoming by Sean Cubitt is an article on dichotomies about light, projection, and the origins of art. Sean starts his article by retelling a story from mythology that focuses on shadow and light. One myth he retells is from Pliny and the other is from Buddha, Pliny’s myth is about the absence of light and Buddha’s is about the projection of light. From these myths he goes on to technology and how it has evolved throughout time and history but up until recently is evolving at a rate we cannot keep up and enjoy.

Sktchbk from 2day

Vladimir Tretchikoff, “The Green Lady”, 1952

I love the shots you took from the movie to make into Gifs. You really captured beautiful compositions and moments to tell an epic adventure.

Art Project #2: Gif Series

ARTIST STATEMENT #2 Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) film.

I decided to make gifs from this film Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) film because I would spend my days off from school watching this movie growing up. It became my comfort movie because it's such a fun, colorful, and energetic film. To many people, they would say they love this movie because they were able to live vicariously through Ferris and his friends in this film. It provided that escapist, comedic fantasy that a lot of people want to dream of. This film is hard for me to forget because Ferris Bueller himself is such a unique character that we can never forget. I decided to make some of my favorite moments from this film because they are memorable, funny, and interesting to look at. It was challenging to turn these moments into gif. I did not realize I would need to put in some time to compress them without losing good quality. It's been a while since I've made gifs with Photoshop software, so I had to go back into my old adobe textbook to reteach myself how to compress properly. I was happy with the result in the end. It was a fun project to do! I find myself wanting to make more gifs now because it was fun to make something into something else.

In my book, this is the best and most successful set of Gifs. This series of Gifs is cinematic and tells a strong story, not only with how you arranged your gifs but the choice of monochrome as well as the harsh direct light creates this feel of franticness and urgency like an old horror film. Each Gif is so strong individually but as a series, each Gif serves a specific purpose in the narrative.

Art Project #2: Gif Series

I wanted to juxtapose the colorful makeup I was applying by making everything black and white. Black and white can convey several emotions and at the same time none at all. During this process, I applied makeup without any thought, I frantically applied eyeliner, lipstick, and foundation while at the same time making a mess around my sink and on my clothes. I struggle with appearance and expectations of appearance projected onto me. Everyday I try to look my best, and for the right reasons too. I try to look good to make myself feel good and not for the approval of others. If that is the case, then why do I still feel the way I do at the end of the day? Why do I still end up caring what others think of me or how they perceive me? It was a fun process making these gifs because so much can be said and gathered from a short clip, and it was interesting to see the way my story manifested itself through these gifs. We tell ourselves that tomorrow will be a new day. Tomorrow will be better. I cannot wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow has to be better than it was today. Is that something we think to mask our fear or insecurity that maybe everyday will be the same? That tomorrow could possibly be just as bad as today was? The frantic, chaotic, unique qualities of each day gets washed with the sameness and consistency that makes up our lives.

These Gifs look so special to you. They are so cute, and definitely remind me of a scrapbook in a way with how they are presented.

Art project number#2 Gif series

What’s the theme being open, I decided to open up my camera roll for the first time in a while. Although some may say it’s crazy to never look at your photos or videos after you take them. I have learned to live with the chaos and look at them when you need a little bit of cheering up. Making this gifs definitely did such that, as a show what I do for work as a full-time nanny, and what I do in my free time with my dog. I feel like the short gifs definitely open up and show who I am and what I care about, and they are pretty funny too.

I love your work. It feels so thoughtful and clean, not rushed and thrown together. This series takes a nod at your previous work but also recreates it by adding movement. I think the reason why I enjoy it so much is that you create a mood with your color scheme and surrealist settings and environments. I don't really read the in-depth questions about AI in this series as you mentioned in your statement, but they still the Gifs are still really strong and striking visually individually and as a series.

I started this project with the idea of doing a video performance piece and turning it into a gif. I started by planning out a few post-production ideas that would elevate the performance, but in the end, the post-production concepts became my main focus. That being, the world of A.I generated images, videos, prompts, and even music. What started as simple A.I generated images for the background transformed into everything from stable diffusion interpolated images for video production to A.I generated depth maps for 3d animation and audio-reactive video. My goal for this project became an exploration into A.I assisted art which is becoming the future of digital art production. 

One aspect of this series is to ask the question: “Will A.I make the human artist irrelevant?”, “What makes art, Art?” and “Where does the value of art come from?” I believe these questions are becoming rapidly more important as A.I accelerates into every facet of the capitalist framework. 

Mia's Art Project #2: GIF Series

Jack Stauber is a more indie artist who not only does specialize in drawing, his works are notably mixed media, for he also uses claymation, props, LOTS of editing and manipulation of graphics, and creates his own music. This goes exceptionally well with his preference of doing surrealism with some slight humor, though, he also has been known and seen to lean into dark humor and topics as well without going into outright gore. I specifically chose to focus on his Adult Swim mini film called “OPAL”, for it not only shows how he uses mixed media and his own music to draw you in, but, it also showcases how he wants to delve deeper into darker, more depressing topics. For the film, you watch a young girl named “Claire” as she goes through a house and has terrifying encounters with the residents in it, all of whom are trying to get her for doing “something” wrong. In my GIFS, I did my best to select the moments that helped convey this story, such as showing the beginning, Claire’s initial distress, and the house that she eventually ends up inside. After that, I showed each person she encountered, such as the blind old man, the narcissistic mirror man, and the alcoholic woman, and with them, a GIF that shows a bit of their songs. Finally, to end it off, I decided to go with one of the last few shots of Claire as she cowers from these people, showing her vulnerability as a child. I highly encourage that you go to watch the actual mini film itself, for it shows you the exact reason why it is called “OPAL”, and why these people are targeting a child. 

I really enjoy your theme and title, “Narcissist Theater”. It's almost like you are poking fun and trying to have fun with the fact that you acknowledge the Gifs as narcissistic.

MSU Denver

@williamlmoore

Art Project # 2: Gif Series

“Narcissist Theater”

“Narcissist Theater” takes self-shot videos from the last 5 years and highlights a few seconds of each video. Sometimes a video contains more than one GIF-worthy clip. I tried to make them mostly re-usable for a general audience, but the main idea is fun. So feel free to share. If you’re having trouble with that, most devices let you save any GIF as an image/photo that you can upload just like a “still”.

This is a really great post! The series of Gifs I find I gravitate towards are the ones that reflect a commonality between them or a sense of unity. The use of texts does that as well as the rhythm of bodies in each Gif they really do evoke a sense of water moving and rippling.

Art Project #2

“water like our bodies” - a set of 10 gifs on the theme of dance flow as an act of healing.

I chose to utilize an archive of personal footage recorded since 2019 of healing dancefloor experiences. These moments were taken at events ranging from small gatherings with friends to large regional festivals. Regardless of scale - healing and connection can be be found in shared moments of movement; witnessed independently or as one massive being breathing into a wave of bodies flowing to the same rhythm. The synchronicity of our movement is like living water, and it provides just as much sustenance and energy as a wave crashing into itself.

Just as the motion and shape of water cannot be captured within a 2-second frame, the intimacy, community, healing, and connection that comes from dancing is limitless. We only get a glimpse of the larger picture, but even just 2 seconds of watching any body of water is enough to feel nurtured by its ebb and flow.