Keren Oxman

I have included Keren Oxman into my blog because I am fascinated by 3D printers and how they work. I find the idea of printed 3D objects a huge innovation because you can create new objects that you can use. Theres also huge opportunities for it to be used in the Visual Art practice. Keren Oxman interests me because she creates beautiful organic artworks that are also worn as a fashion piece. Her pieces are fluid and organic and look like wearable art. Her work experimentally investigates traditional media with digital morphogenesis. She also tries to incorporate disciplines like textile crafts with algorithmic behaviour. 

I am not a huge fan of Runway fashion as I like to wear clothing that looks nice but is still quite functional. I do however recognise that the runway is an opportunity for Fashion designers to explore their creative ideas. I have never seen 3D printing being used on clothing before and I love the organic, natural patterns that can be created. 

This is my favourite piece from Keren. This work was modelled on 3D anatomical models of the human body. Muscles, veins and arteries were then manipulated into a 3D modelling environment. The concept is for turning the body inside out and projecting the interior to the exterior of the body. I think this piece is beautiful and elegant and I believe that it succeeds in turning the body inside out. 

Out and about at night: Thoughts and Photographs

For my Story Walking exercise I have decided to follow constellations in the sky, the Southern Cross specifically. The stars have always fascinated me because they are so beautiful and how they only come out at night. I find night time very beautiful even if I do have an illogical fear of it. I wanted to explore the change between night and day and how the beauty of the earth changes completely within a couple short hours. To add boundaries to my walk, I decided to walk the shape of the Southern Cross, as it is seen as an Australian constellation and it is a direct connection in my map of night time. To represent the stars at each point of the Southern Cross, I have focused on photographing light sources at each of the five points. Photographing them at night makes them symbolic of stars, and of how it must be night time for their beauty to be fully recognised. Here is a map of my walk:

Tonight I went out and shot my Story Walk. I don’t really like the dark, so I was a bit apprehensive about walking around. Its not that im scared of the dark itself, its more that im scared of falling over something (because I don’t have the best coordination!) Shooting at night time was crucial to this exercise though so I pushed through. I started my walk at 7:30 pm. I began the walk just before it went dark intentionally as I wanted each photograph to get darker and darker as I was wanting to explore the relationship between night and day. I started my journey on the main street. There were a couple of people walking around and some of them were looking at me inquisitively. I smiled at them and continued taking my photographs. The main street was eerily quiet even though there were people walking around. No one was talking and a couple of people were walking around like they were dreaming. I began to feel calm and almost fell into a dream myself, slowly taking photographs of the corner of the street I was on. I forgot how long I was there and I was surprised to see how dark the street was becoming. I packed up my camera and tripod quickly and started walking to the next point in the constellation. Since I was replicating the Southern Cross, I walked straight down the road towards an intersection called Goat Square. There was very little noise as I was walking along apart from my footsteps crunching against the gravel and the background fuzzy noise of the televisions inside the buildings that I passed. When I arrived at the square night was approaching quickly. I set up my camera in the corner of the little square and took my photographs. This square was very calm and even quieter than the main street was and once again I lost track of time. By the time I moved on it was getting very dark and I was becoming anxious. I kept thinking what if I trip over and break my tripod? or I wont be able to see where im going so I might get lost! (the first thought was a little bit silly because I was literally three streets away from my house). The fourth point of the sudden cross took me to another corner by the town oval. There was very little light on this street and the only illumination was provided by a street lamp half way down the road. I was dismayed at first but I then realised that the moon had come out and was floating almost above the street light! The moon looked so beautiful and I spent a long time photographing it.  Eventually I tore myself away from the moon because I still had two more points to photograph! I headed back the way I came, through the little square and around a corner to photograph the point of the cross. Here one of my worst fears were answered and I tripped over the curb but luckily my camera was alright! I became flustered and it became worse when I reached my destination and there was only one lonely, sad looking street lamp. Because I was concentrating on focusing on light, I took the photo anyway and the photograph turned out better than I expected (which was just as well because a lady in the house opposite the street lamp was watching me through the window). By this stage it was almost pitch black and I hastily (but carefully) made my way back down the very dark street to my last destination, the corner of my street. Walking along the only sound was my footsteps again and the sound of the trees rustling in the breeze. I thought about how lovely it is to live in the country and how rare this moment of peace was. Finally I reach my the corner of my street and to my delight it was lit up almost like a christmas tree! The school on the corner was lit up and so was the church opposite. I took quite a few photographs here from different angles so I could capture all the light in different ways. As I was photographing the lights, an epiphany came to me and I gazed up in the sky. Sure enough, there was the Southern Cross in full view. Gazing down at me from the final point in my journey. I took a photograph of the beautiful constellation to complete my journey . I returned home with a broad smile on my face and an overwhelming feeling of peace and fulfilment.

Clement Villa

Valla’s series The Universal Texture interests me because I have an interest in Photography and I have never seen photographs presented in this way before. I love the way the perspective of the photographs have been reversed and the work has taken on a 3D effect. While the photographs would still look effective presented in a more traditional way, the different orientation of them and the unusual way they are presented really makes them stand out from the crowd. I also love the way some of the photographs have been presented on the floor and they are of a birds eye view. Because the viewers of the work are looking at it from above, the birds eye view is heightened and gives the work more depth because you really feel like you are looking down at the cityscape. 

The images are of Google Earth images. He says that he is interested in how “the illusion of a seamless and accurate representation of the earths surface seems to break down.” I think this really shows in how he has chosen to present the photographs and it works really well.

Postcards from Google Earth is another series of works that I find very interesting. Valla has put together an archive of Google Earth images that have been distorted by the software. I find these images very interesting because to me they almost look like photographs from an alternate universe. The images look like they have been photoshopped and the fact that they haven’t amazes me because I didn’t know Google Earth was capable of manipulating the landscape like this. I also like the fact that the bendy roads look very delicate, like nature cant sustain the pressure we are putting on the earths surface. 

Google Maps Tutorial

I had a bit of a technophobe moment about how to create your own map in Google maps so I decided to find a good tutorial to help me. The first video I found on youtube worked perfectly as it was a good informative video that was very clear and precise. The narrator pointed out useful things like how to create shapes that could be useful in my map. Heres the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TftFnot5uXw

Storywalking Brainstorming

I have decided for this Storywalking exercise that I will use a constellation map of the Southern Cross and then replicate it in Google Maps. I will take photographs at each point of the constellation at night time as I am interested in night photography and it will suit the theme of the work.  I will plot the course of the Southern Cross because of its association with Australia and it will also be a-lot easier to plot rather than a larger, more curvy constellation.

I am considering using this idea for the actual assignment as well because I find the parallels between night and day very interesting. I would love to try doing a larger scale map of a bigger constellation such as Scorpio or Aquarius.

I will bring a tripod with me as I will be doing the walk when its quite dark and I don’t want any out of focus images. I will focus on lights when I go on my walk as at night I think they resemble stars. Lights also make good landmarks because they are very distinctive when they are illuminated in a dark environment. If I can, I will try and take long exposure photographs of the stars but I know this can be quite tricky. I would like to try and take long exposure photographs of the stars in my other project.

Storywalking Idea Experimentation

I have been thinking of ideas that I could use for our story walking exercise. Some of these ideas may possibly be good for the Locative media assignment.

The first idea I had was to attach a sound recorder to my leg so that it could pick up my footsteps as well as any surrounding noises that are happening around me on my journey. I really like the idea of soundscapes telling a journey as it allows viewers to use their imagination and imagine the path that i’m taking. I live in Tanunda which being a small town, has a large variety of sounds. For instance we have the sounds in the town itself (car noise, people talking and walking, music coming being played in stores) as well as the sounds from around the outskirts of town which include more natural sounds like birds singing, general animal sounds (sheep, cows etc) and the sound of running water.

My second idea was to overlay a current tourist map of Tanunda with an older map of the area. I will then visit places that were on the old map and take photographs of what they look like now. If I manage to find photographs of imagery from an earlier settlement of Tanunda like this image:I might overlay them with images that I took in the present day, creating a double exposure effect.

Lesson 2

– Read storywalking handout! 

– unisanewmediainternet.wordpress.com 

– Visual Arts is philosophy. Art is about asking questions about life. About unpacking things people don’t care about.

– Cartography: Map making.

– Try not to be obvious and predictable when you make art! Being predictable is boring!

– Helpmann academy: Apply for grants while your still a student. This is quite rare.

– Storywalking assignment: You can use text, video, audio, sound. Get away from the university its being done to death and theres nothing there that new to explore because its been seen so much. Use applications like Path Application, GPS, Runkeeper, Map my Walk to make the assignment easier.

Artists

– Michael Wolf: ‘Street View’, takes photographs from Google Street view and investigates human behaviour. ‘Portraits’ – beautiful series about identity.

– Aran Battholl: ’15 seconds of fame’ – coined by Andy Warholl.

– Molly Harris: Documentary photographer.

– Backward Rain Forcast.

– Jenny Odell: ‘Travel by approximation- inserts herself into Google streetview photographs.

– 9 – eyes.com: Tumblr blog about weird things seen on Google streetview.

Nam June Paik

I remember seeing one of Nam June Paik’s works last year in new media when he was being discussed in an oral presentation. The artwork was called T.V Buddha and like the name suggests featured a Buddha staring at a television. I was immediately intrigued by the artwork and it left a lasting impression. It left a lasting impression because I had never really seen an artwork that included a television before. The fact that the buddha was just watching it self reminded me of reality television. People are obsessed with watching other people and we are also obsessed with our own reflections. I like the way that Nam June Paik has explored this. 

Electronic Superhighway also captured my attention because of the use of televisions. I find televisions interesting because like what we were discussing in class, people are drawn to them and find it very difficult to look away. I know many people that have the television on just as background noise in their house and don’t even watch this. I have been guilty of doing it myself as I find the noise comforting when Im home alone. It’s almost as if the television becomes its own person and we become emotionally attached with it. Electronic Superhighway consists of dozens of monitors of small sizes that combine to form the map of the U.S.A. The neon tubing around the work gives it a tacky, glitzy, commercial look. To me this work symbolises how commercial Television can be and how much advertising we get broadcasted, almost on an unconscious level. 

Here is a very good page I came across with some great information about him: http://www.paikstudios.com/

Lesson 1

– Geo Location: Modernity product. Rise of the industrial complex. 1920’s, city based living. “Theory of the Derive”.

– Rizomic: Meshed together. Connected in difficult ways.

– Internet: Invented in 1995 by Tim Burns Lee. Its initial use was for the U.S Military to store information on a secure network.

– Computer: First computer was invented in 1944. Cracked the ‘Enigma’ machine in Germany.

– T.V: Broadcast medium. People choose what you want to see.

– Best artists ask good questions.

– Solarisation: Look it up!

– Bio Art

– Modelling components, 3D model, 3D gallery space. Options are available. Don’t be limited by lack of resources!

– Experiencing the work: Multi- dimensional.

Artists

– Blast Theory: Use technology to locate places. “Rider Spoke”

– Lynette Walworth