Mark Amerika

Mark Amerika's letcure was interesting to say the least. Not being able to quite grasp everything he said was kind of irritating. The wording of his ideas and concepts was in my opinion more complicated than it had to be. Even still this is the true way of an artist. You think out of the box, and those around you do not understand you unless they know you and even still maybe not. Mark spoke on many different aspects of art today. He spoke a lot about where the movement of art seemed to be going. As most artists are taught to be creators and inovative agaoints convention, he explained that through corporate giants this has been almost exploited. Exploited to the point where no one is special anymore because they all are special. Everyone is programed to do the same thing, until nothing new is a surprise. I believe his argument was to take things further. Beyond what we usually understand or acknowlege. He presented a kind of poem that was more like free thought. Constantly moving, constantly changing subject. Stream of conciousness. His earlier work online functioned in a similar way except it was behavioral program that did the work for you. It was called Grammatron. It created sentences using various words to produce strange or fitting meanings. I disagree with him to a point that thinking outside the box ins't a step back into conformity, but a step forward in what artists should be more like. But selling out is bad in any profession.

Roy Ascott

Roy Ascott explains the change over the years in art and particularly the behavioral aspects of it. with an increase and availability of technology the face of art has changed dramatically. Now a days people create art for the soul purpose of making an interaction with its viewer. It could be argued that painters and sculptors do quite the same, except these days one can allow the view not only to enjoy, but to partake in creating or manipulating the piece. The viewer can now make the piece their own in a way. This was made possible through cybernation. The human working through the computer. People have gone so far as to say that computers can have a behavior. A computer can only behave how it is written, but with more options of action and free ability to choose or not choose makes them ever more human like. With technology a two way exchange between the viewer and the artist can be made on a grand scale. Roy Ascott believes that behavioral art and cybernetics can be used to further expand on the concepts and ideas of modern art. Hard to disagree with seeing as behavioral cybernetics has affected the up coming generation already.

Brandon Morse

Walking down in Dupont Circle it was bright. The sun was gracious enough to shine its light that day. Entering the Brandon Morse Exhibit I experienced a different kind of brightness. The walls in the room were completely white and I believe the floor and the ceiling were too. It was generally a quite exhibit with no recognizable sounds. Little did I know until I had checked around a bit, the artist had composed a piece that was playing in the exhibit that to me seemed like ambient sound. Building whispers of airconditioning and pipes. When I did realize it was a composition of sounds I was not impressed by its sound,but more impressed by the fact that it was so convincing that it was not made up noise. The name of the piece, also the name of the exhibit was "Static". This title fits with the work of the artist because Brandon Morse seems to make art that studies the pattern of randomevents, if there is such a pattern.
Black and white was a strong theme. The first piece you saw upon entering was cllled 'Run to Ground'. This piece to me wasn't so exciting. It was static slowly traveling across five screens. Not to engagable in my opinion. Two other pieces really caught my attention. They were Spinnaker and The Big Bang. Spinnaker was shot from a projection. 3D modeled lines mimicing a web would slowly decend and collect at the bottom. This was a program Brandon created to ensure that nothing happened differently but by the computer's choice. There was something eerie but cool about how the model moved. The Big Bang was composed of four screens. It has the same concept as Spinnaker, but everything is coming from the center of all four screens. Again lines alone make up the visual. There are so many that at times it looks perposfully animated to look like it has that many lines and little space. This piece put me in awe.

Dada

Walking into the East Wing of the National Gallery I saw a giant Portrait of Mona Lisa with a mustache. Upon entering I assumed that the rest of the exhibit would be equally humorous not remembering much history of dada art........I was greatly mistaken. Humor is the last thing dada represents. Though it plays a big part in dada work, the essence of it is more of a humanistic outcry. Dada art originated in Germany after World War One. The negligence of human life and the life of Germany's own soldiers and people by its own government sparked the reaction that is dada. It was a creepy experience that I felt familiar with in certain ways..... My favorite piece was The Prussian Archangel.

Max MSP

Max has proven to be a highly sophisticated programming tool. It has various and almost unlimited uses. Some artists use Max in their own unique way. One of these is David Tinapple. David Tinapple believes that we think with our eyes. He uses Max to manipulate video to create a different type of movement. He believes that perception is about the movement of images.

"It's not necessarily the image you get from one vantage point, it's the difference in images you get from two vantage points."

From this he dives further into observing human gestures. He took from the Bush/Kerry debate only gasps and breathes before/in between speaking. I believed this to be an interesting, but elementary composition.
Barney Haynes is an artist who works with robotic machines. He uses Max to write programs for his machines. I did stuff like that in high school with motion sensors, and motors. His work reminds me of a more sophisticated version of what I used to do using Max.
Composer Ali Momeni uses Max to play music. He used a generic USB device to play the music. Max MSP is used to manipulate, analyze, and control the sound.
These three artists have proven the versatility of Max MSP.

Interface Exhibit

The Interface exhibit in Bethesda Maryland was intriguing. The first piece I saw there is called "Look" by Thomas Edwards and Scott Hutchinson. It is a multimedia piece incorporating oil on paper a motion sensor, and animation. There were 12 different paintings of a pair of eyes. When you approach the screen you can see several paintings of eyes flashing as if it were a person looking at you. When you move to the left, the eyes move left. When you move right, the eyes follow. Every so often they would blink! To the left of the video screen there were the original paintings. Each revealed only enough of the person's face to see the eyes and eyebrows.

The second piece I noticed was annoying but interesting. It also had motion sensing components. It is called "Blame" by Thomas Edwards. It has a motor that turns a pointing hand that stops when someone is close enough. As it pauses pointing at you a voice says something like, "I blame YOU, for teens getting their new from the Daily Show", or "I blame YOU, for Global Warming." It was interesting to see how many different phrases came out, but irritating to listen to all day.
The third piece that caught my eye was a collection of similar pieces all called "Parasite" by Claire Watkins. In these pieces small metallic objects were moving on a piece of canvas. Behind the small paintings of what seemed to be microscopic cells were magnets moved by motors. As the magnets spun the metal pins or shards moved with it. Making each piece come alive as if it were its own organism.





One of my favorite pieces there were two paintings entitled "10-30-05" The date of Halloween. The paintings had very extreme diagonals with yellows, oranges, reds, and browns. The paintings were eerie, but warm and pleasing to look at.
A piece called "Flock of Needles" also used a magnet, but there were needles hovering and circling around it. They were tied to string that was attatched to different walls of the corner of the room. This piece was fascinating. Another favorite was the "Looking Glass." It was a video piece that recorded the viewer with a small hidden camera. There was a program created with something similar to the Max capabilities that replayed what you do over and over with other twists. There would be three of you moving one after the other, or a small viewing of only your eyes. Sometimes weird color and contrast changes would occur, or the program would find various ways to play with the video. These were fun to play with.

Over all the exhibit was fun. I had a great time there.

Sounds and Shapes

Levin and Lieberman created audio visual art that uses the contours of hand gestures. In these Manual Input Sessions different hand movements make different sounds. Based on a previous audio visual project with a mouse they used these same goals as a guide for their new piece:

Simplicity/Difficulty: Easy to use, but sophisticated.
Repeatability/inexhaustible: The system response constantly with constant output, and never responds the same way twice due to
Create, Manipulate, Destroy: The system provides sound and visuals that can be made, used, and erased.
Audiovisual Commensurability: Sonic and visual dimensions are equally malleable.

They were influenced and aided by prior work on audiovisual tracking media. One of them was Myron Krueger's VIDEOPLACE system. In this body and hand movement was tracked and used to play various games and make various recreational artwork. It used computer vision to capture silhouettes of hands and bodies. It was programmed to detect the point of fingers to use the system. Mulder et al.'s Sound Sculpting allowed hands to manipulate a 3D object to create various sounds. It was effective in allowing the hands to control audio and visuals. Lyon et al.'s Mouthesizer. This piece was useful for tracking interior contours. A small camera observes the mouth. The movement of the mouth controlled different sounds. The inside of the mouth was tracked by comparing color and contrast of the mouth.

Manual Input Sessions are a way of expression of hand gestures. One model of this is the Neg Drop. In this system interior contours of hands is used to create an object. The size and smoothness of the interior space changes the sound and thickness of the objet. When the hand opens up, the objet drops and interacts with the edge of the projector screen. The Innerstamp model works the same way expect the object doesn't move and it plays one continuous sound. The Rotuni model creates a rhythmic melody for each contour tracked. A virtual clock arm originating from the center of the contour searches the perimeter of the contour like a radar line. The length of the clock arm controls different sounds. This model needs no interior contour. These instruments manipulate realtime audiovisual media through the use of hands over a projector. It makes for an interesting avenue into future media involving visual tracking and audiovisual manipulation.

Indeterminacy

When I think of indeterminacy I think random, free thinking, undecided, optional. Like a five year old child, or a slot machine. Indeterminacy in media is non linear and in realtime. It is composed of works that lead to many different conclusions; if there even are conclusions to come to. Linear recorded media goes in one planned direction. It leads to one conclusion. Like an episode of Smallville. If you bought and watched all the seasons, you will not be surprised if you watch them again (though you may want to). An episode will never end differently. But the course of the series is undetermined because it is not finished yet. It is being recorded in real time. Non linear media keeps on moving in different directions never stopping, never fully understood. Linear media is set in stone with definition.

Intermedia, interculture.

Everyday categorization dies. Various types of media are blending like Hip Hop and R&B. Painting, performance, music, the abstract. Every kind of media in the past century has blended together in various ways. At the same time social structure is blending. You can be dirt poor and work with someone rich, or be among the richest in the world and depend on someone dirt poor. Everyday people are learning more about the other side of life, or the other side of media. And every day we learn how to utilize the strengths and weaknesses of the other. Human thought is not as segregated as we'd like to think at times. Many times we are as random as an organized mess, and others we are clear cut and simple. But nothing can ever be fully explained in one point of view. Sometimes we want to show more of our point of view by reaching out to other's point of view. Nam June Paik is a great example of this. He uses arranged Televisions in his artwork to communicate to his audience. What is on the various screens differs with each projects meaning. But you can hardly compare his art to anyone elses, or any other type of art similar to his, because it is unique and can only be judged for what it is in its own entirety. His art is not simply a painting, and it's not a cartoon or just a sculpture. It is one step closer to seeing who the artist is. Or what the artist wants to convey.