Website review

I really enjoyed Jennifer Simmonds webpage. The main page is fun and cute and really shows how organized the rest of the website will be because of each individual target area. I really liked her color themes alot as well has her choice of text. Maybe it would have been nice though if she had something that said HOME at the bottom of the linked pages.

My Final Project...YAY

A Whole New Mind Review

Maxine Wolfe
April 28, 2008
Seminar II New Media: Lana Caplan
Critical Review of A Whole New Mind

A Whole New Mind

Before reading Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind, I had never read anything about left and right brain thinking. I think now more than ever, it is important for everyone to learn and understand. I learned about the new age of thinking and how artists and free thinkers will soon be more accepted over lawyers and businessmen and women. It is the age where everyone goes to college to learn as much as they can and leave with little to no trade. Going to college and graduate school for art is one of the best degree’s you can get currently.
My favorite part of this book was when Pink gave the reader exercises to do on their own. I thought it made me feel as if I was apart of the book and it really forced me to focus and interact more with what I was reading. Pink also forced me to observe more things going on around me, and I started to notice things I had never before. When he talked about this new age of more right brain thinkers than left, I started people watching every time I was on the train. I labeled left-brain thinkers as the typical guy in the suit or the girl in the fancy boots, but when I started to label the right sider’s there were none in sight.
I have come to a conclusion after reading Pink’s books that in America we are all left-brain thinkers. Most of us do have right brain intentions or traits, but I think that our left side ultimately overpowers our right. On the train I watched as people shuved one another so they could sit or so that they could get off at their stop. Everyone looked tired and concentrated on getting somewhere as if they thought if they wish hard enough the train will go faster. Our country moves so fast, each person is trying to run the rat race of life a little faster and a litter better than the guy next to them. Even though Pink talks a lot about companies hiring more designers than lawyers, that doesn’t mean that designer isn’t cut throat with another. Our country and a lot of our world are very competitive and I just can’t imagine seeing that as right brain.
New media art and this book have merged a lot with me this semester. Before this class I did not like new media, and I am still not a fan, but this book has helped me understand its purpose and basically what new media means. While working on my own art I have come to realize that artists are a little left-brain and a little right brain. We use each side for different pieces depending on situations. An artist could get commissioned to do a painting for an office building that they might not want to paint, but they do it because they need money. That’s a little left.
Well overall I enjoyed this book for the most part. I thought that since I was able to interact with it as well as use conclusions to help me define a little better what new media art is.

OK SORRY MY INTERNET WAS OUT LAST NIGHT AND I HAVE TO PUBLISH NOW!!!

My final project is coming a little slow right now because I have been working hard on my website. I have been making the characters for the robot dance party stop motion but they are really time consuming. 

ICA

Oh the ICA...Well first off I had never been there before even though I have lived in/near Boston for 10 years now. I decided to drive there and got soooooo lost. I wish that they had a sign or two or maybe even something on the side of the building that said it was the ICA. I thought that the design of the building was very cool and really fit the type of art that was exhibited inside.

My favorite piece that we saw was the "Sun Sneezers Blow Light Bubbles" by Ranjani Shettar. The instillation was beautiful! I thought the material (muslin) and the natural dyes/powders gave the piece a wonderful texture that allowed for the piece to glow with natural and un-natural light. I looked up at it and it didn't make me sneeze but I couldn't help but to hear a few others sneeze a bit. I thought that the shape and design of it reminded me a bubbles and streaks of snot coming out of a child's nose after they sneeze. The other part that made it so memorable for me is that recently I have been very interested in design and patterns and how they influence interior design schemes. Her piece reminded me of a 2-d design/pattern that one might see on an urban outfitters pillow. Not to say that thats a bad thing, or should be offensive to the artist but it's just an observation I had. 

Over all I would love to visit the ICA again willing that I dont get lost and that I def. take the train! I want to go back and visit the William Cordova pieces because they were so interesting and really worth taking a second look at. Also I just want to mention that the man tapping his foot dummy thing was really creepy and I wasn't really a fan.

Meaning and Final Project

Meaning was a boring chapter. I feel like everyone searches for meaning in their life at one point or another. I think that everyone defines searching for meaning in a different way. I see it as finding the purpose of why we are each put here on the earth. Why our lives work out the way they do....WELL I'm happy the book is over. 

As for my final project I worked on my stop motion over the weekend. I started making the robots for the dance party. I also have not put the link to my web page up yet because it still doesn't work so I have to talk to the tech guys.

Well see you at the ICA all.

My Video

Stop Animation Intro

Well I have to say I am very excited to do stop motion animation after hearing more about how to make my own. I really enjoyed watching the videos on youtube especially the polaroid one because when I think about stop motion I think about clay and cut paper. When I was younger I use to watch a lot of Wallace and Gromit, which is clay stop motion. I thought that frame thief made it a little bit simpler for me to make the video. It was fun to have everyone do a drawing and see how it came out! I am going to go to school tomorrow and work on my video. 

Chapter 6

I liked this chapter a lot, probably my favorite in the whole book. Self portraiture art at any age is really interesting to me. I think self portraits convey a persons inner soul. I believe they have a lot to do with psychology. Having a patient draw a self portrait can help diagnose possible behavioral issues the individual might have. This diagnostic technique is used a lot for children because they show so much personal feeling through drawings. I have attached a self portrait drawn by a young girl. It is apparent in this picture that the girl might feel confused about her race seeing as she has drawn her self split in half with two different skin tones. I also wonder if her parents had been telling her for a long time that she is half this and half that.

Link For The Presentation

http://www.aspectmag.com/issues/movie.cfm?chrome=none&workID=54

Carpenter Museum Trip

The Carpenter Museum: "Two or Three Things I Know About Her"

I was not very impressed by this exhibit. I felt overwhelmed by the tightness of all the pieces, there just wasn't a lot of room to really be able to focus on one piece at a time. It just felt awkward I guess. The piece I enjoyed the most was the K8 Hardy and Wynne Greenwood's video about being news reporters reporting a woman throwing out her paintings. I thought it was interesting how they had to describe to one another what a painting looked like as if they had never seen one before. It seemed strange that the artists would choose to do this since they are trying to convey a message about women not recognized enough in the art world (at least thats what I understood of it). I also was intrigued by the fact that both women news anchors/reporters made both their names Henry. It was if they were trying to come off more manly to be accepted? If that makes sense. It was a little hard to follow sometimes but it was the only piece that really drew me in. It was also the only one that I felt really had a big enough space where I could really focus on that screen and that screen only. 

The Fog Museum

In the fog museum I really enjoyed the photographs of the penny heads. I think I enjoyed this piece a lot because it was the least new media esq. for me. It was interesting to see how each penny had aged in different ways. Sometimes I'll find one penny that is older than another one but yet the younger one is even more aged. Looking at all those photographs made me think of all the many journeys each of those pennies have taken. I bet they have been more places than me.  Pennies are like those forgotten coins. I read a short story once written by the grand daughter of the designer of the penny. She talked about how whenever she sees a lonely penny on the street or in the trash she always picks it up because she feels that not only is it a piece of her history but it is also a work of art. 

Catch Up!

Well since I was sick last week I missed everyone's presentations on different aspect artists. I ended up teaming up with Michaela and we researched CarianaCarianee. We split up and I watched the Aspect DVD. I thought it was really interesting hearing basically the same thing said by the same person but in two separate frames and in either frame the clothes and set were different from one to the next. I enjoyed the seriousness and honesty in her voice. I felt very connected to her especially when she was looking directly at me. 

"Design"

The chapter on design didn't interest me as much as the others have. The part of it I did enjoy was how pink talked about car companies using design as a competitive factor. I feel like since there was ever a car the luxury factor has been huge. The average car buyer does not look for how fast it goes from 0 to 60 mph or it's safety features, but more or less how nice it looks on the outside and in. It's so crazy to think about how much design is involved in everything around us. Like who decided that Mcdonalds should be red and yellow, why not purple and pink? It's all about decisions of personal and consumer taste.

"Story"

This chapter made me want to free write so this is basically my brain pooping thoughts. 

I once took a class in high school about creating a definition for the term History and the word story came up all the time. Before people could read and write we told stories and "histories" by word of mouth, generation to generation. A story can be short or long and carries so much emotion even if we don't realize it. I feel like stories are such a huge part of who we are as people, they make up our past of knowledge. We hear stories everyday all day we just dont think of it that way. I can't imagine a day without hearing one story. That means silence to me. 

HTML and Chapter 3

Well I have met my evil nemesis...HTML will be the death of me. Maybe it is something wrong with my brain or my patience, but I just can't get it right. It reminds me of math for some reason which brings me to where the reading talked about the SAT's, something I am also horrible at. I have always been a strong believer that testing someones ability to turn in a well crafted essay in a reasonable time frame such as a week, is much better than asking someone to write a 3 page paper in less than 40 minutes. I am glad to hear though that someone is trying to change standardized tests. This however will effect the next generation in a way that my generation has been slightly affected. My generation is one of which the youth were highly praised. Whether they were winners or losers, I remember as a kid receiving medals and certificates for just about everything even if my soccer team came in last in a tournament. Children these days are made to feel comfortable for who they are rather than forcing them to become what they "should" be. Like what Pink was talking about with this generation having more artists and free thinkers if you will. Rather than my parents generation when business-men and woman, lawyers, or even mechanics were more practical jobs. It was especially interesting for me to read that the Art Institute of Chicago has one of the best MFA programs considering I just transfered from there. This chapter has made me re-think grad school....maybe I really should go...as long as there is no HTML involved.

Chapter 2

In chapter 2, I really enjoyed the part about SAT, ACT etc. I myself have always been horrible at taking timed tests. I strongly believe that they do not show the strength in every student. I think that deadlines for essays and applications for college test a students time management skills a lot better than telling them to do x amount of math questions in x amount of minutes. 

I have always found it wonderful to be able to "strip mall shop" Its great being able to hop from one place to the next in a short walking distance while still being able to get everything you need. Recently when I was in the Mid west they had a similar type of shopping but instead of retail it was fast food places all lined up and the shopped could drive through each drive-through one after another...good for picky eating families I guess. Its amazing how our culture has evolved into making everyone only using a bare minimum of energy. It's even as simple as food these days. 30 to 40 years ago it would have taken hours to prepare a fancy chicken pasta dish, and now its a mere minutes before your microwaved meal is complete.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 was an enjoyable read. It had a nice flow and was very engaging. The brain is such an interesting part of the human body. The way the author separated each section made the very informative chapter easier to digest and added a perfect amount of humor to keep me going. The part where he discusses the MRI and FMRI testing really intrigued me. I myself have had my fair share of MRI's to the head so I could relate in one way or another.

New Media Artists

The two new media artists I chose to research because of interest are Lida Abdul and Mark Tribe. I thought it would be interesting to choose a man and a woman to look at. 

Lida Abdul was born in 1973 in Kabul, Afganistan. She lived in Germany and India as a refugee before making the trek to the United States. She attended the University of California at Irvine and obtained an MFA in 2000. She has exhibited her art all around the world. Her mediums of choice are photography, video, film, installation, and performance. 

Lida Abdul: "There is the desire to speak in them, as if everything had to be spoken at the same time, the sounds of all the words simultaneously expressed but remaining intelligible, even to myself. There is a certain automatism about them as I am sure there must be to all true witnessing. Maybe I am wrong But I am convinced that the body has its own memory banks that the mind always use. This for me is the paradox, the pornography of a necessary act that would require of some women to reveal everything, everything in order to really know if they have suffered."

Mark Tribe the artist, curator, and Brown University professor, enjoys art, technology and politics in his New Media work. He has an MFA in Visual Art from Brown University. He currently lives in Providence and New York City. He has had shows at many museums including our close neighbor MASS MoCA. He founded Rhizome. org, an online resource for New Media artists. He is very involved in the New Media community. 

After looking over some samples of their work, I am more interested in Lida Abdul. I feel her history and her unique cultural videos are very intriguing and leave the viewer with a lot of room for interpretation. I have seen her video in person and at the time i was very engaged and interested in it. 

First Assignment

I have never been truly interested in the art of new media, however I didn't and still don't know much about it. Watching the clips of pieces in class last week gave me a better understanding of what it is. The first clip by Joan Jonas felt slow paced and personal. I didn't enjoy it very much. Also the second clip entitled "spin out" was too confusing for my taste. It was very distracting to hear about 7 different sounds all at once. I think that my favorite was definitly the yes men. I have seen a few of their other pieces where they used sculpture in their video taped performance. I loved the seriousness of the artist and how knowledge-able he was on the topic. I always enjoy art when it benefits a cause. The humorous piece about the bird was quick and sweet which was nice, yet I still don't really understand the piece's purpose. The clip about the text rain interested me because I have been experimenting in how art and text work together for a while now. I would be interested in using text in the projects we do for this class. 

When I think about new media I find it hard to describe, partly because I do not know much about it. I think it has something to do with how video and technology relate to human behaviors, cultures, and overall enviornments. While researching definitions of new media, I came across key words rather than phrases, they are the following...Music, Internet, Video, Interaction, Performance, and Behavior.