Comic Goodness

Finally got around to finding all the comics I read before my computer died. I'm a comic SNOB so these are all excellent comics in some form or fashion. Prolly had more than this but these are all the ones I could find/read regularly(ish a long list but i loves me my comics!!!)

http://www.freakangels.com/

http://www.earthsongsaga.com/

http://requiem.seraph-inn.com/

http://undertow.dreamshards.org/

http://www.wayfarersmoon.com/

http://lackadaisy.foxprints.com/index.php

http://vampirates.comicgenesis.com/

http://www.alpha-shade.com/

http://juathuur.com/

http://www.skyfallmanga.com/

http://talesofpylea.com/

http://metanoia.studiowhippingboy.com/

http://pandect.comicgenesis.com/

http://redstring.strawberrycomics.com/

http://www.electric-manga.com/

http://www.flipsidecomics.com/

http://www.forthewicked.net/

http://www.misfile.com/

http://kitsune.rydia.net/comic.html

http://shadesofgrey.rydia.net/

http://www.drowtales.com/index.php

http://www.thezombiehunters.com/index.php

http://noneedforbushido.com/

...I like way too many comics but I'll prolly add mine once it's up and running.

Spewage 2

Judy Pfaff - It isn't hard to make abstract paintings. HOwever, being about to turn an absract painting into a 3d sculpture, thats a whole different story. Its interesting how she was first a painter then sorta switched into welding. She said the thought process had to change for longer projects. The idea can't be more important than the work and that a project can go on for many months without stop. She said sculptures were like a sequence of moments which is true even if you look back at ancient sculptures. THey took the most important part of a story and made it solid, tangible. The materials she uses, she cant be very hands on even though art is usually a very hands on profession. BUt she mentions that instead of working through the hand she works through the tool like an extension of herself.

Mark Dion - THat man is a pack rat. I thought i was bad, I aint got nothing on him. He doesnt care about medium as long as it conveys a sense of history or science. At one point he was painted dead rats with tar so he could hang them from a tree. He correlated the tar with the symbolism of torture from medieval times. I find it interesting that someone so 'left brained' could make unique art like he does. ITs not even that he makes most of it but that he gathers and compiles it to make his installations. HIs little vivarium/tree house thing made me think of this--nature as nature outside of nature.

Jenny Holzer - THe idea of her art does not appeal to me. Random strands of text parading around a building did not sound interesting. HOwever, the application of light and color mixed with surface and glass is just stunning. THe light is the art not so much the text. THe text is a byproduct. Also, she has very little actual input beside the idea. She does no make the lights, or the text, or anything except the idea.

Cai Guo-Qiang - Gunpower as an artistic medium. And the amount of detail hat he could get from it was amazing. His scroll unfolded was like a long storyboard but without any break in pattern or rhythm. THe tiger and the wolf sculptures ellicited an emotional response. I felt pain for the animals even though i knew they werent real. the look of pain is painful.

Oliver Hering - HIs art is very interesting. NOt many people use textile as art. He was expressing himself in a very restrained sort of way. It wasnt about the concept it was emotional response. It was the process not the media or the subject. He had a difficult time speaking so he had to convey through visual means to get his point across. HIs work was very playful and fantastical.

Bill Viola pt 3

Viola uses video to explore the phenomena of sense perception as an avenue to self-knowledge. His works focus on universal human experiences—birth, death, the unfolding of consciousness. Bill Viola received his BFA in Experimental Studios from Syracuse University in 1973 where he studied visual art with Jack Nelson and electronic music with Franklin Morris. During the 1970s he lived for 18 months in Florence, Italy. and then traveled widely to study and record traditional performing arts in the Solomon Islands, Java, Bali, and Japan.

'In 1979 Viola and Perov traveled to the Sahara desert, Tunisia to record mirages. The following year Viola was awarded a U.S./Japan Creative Artist Fellowship and they lived in Japan for a year and a half where they studied Zen Buddhism with Master Daien Tanaka, and Viola became the first artist-in-residence at Sony Corporation’s Atsugi research laboratories. Viola and Perov returned to the U. S. at the end of 1981 and settled in Long Beach, California, initiating projects to create art works based on medical imaging technologies of the human body at a local hospital, animal consciousness at the San Diego Zoo, and fire walking rituals among the Hindu communities in Fiji. In 1987 they traveled for five months throughout the American Southwest photographing Native American rock art sites, and recording nocturnal desert landscapes with a series of specialized video cameras. More recently, at the end of 2005, they journeyed with their two sons to Dharamsala, India to record a prayer blessing with the Dalai Lama. ' From 1973-1980 he performed with avant-garde composer David Tudor as a member of his Rainforest ensemble, later called Composers Inside Electronics. Since the early 1970s Viola’s video art works have been seen all over the world.

'Viola is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1989, and the first Medienkunstpreis in 1993, presented jointly by Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, and Siemens Kulturprogramm, in Germany. He holds honorary doctorates from Syracuse University (1995), The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1997), California Institute of the Arts (2000), and Royal College of Art, London (2004) among others, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000. In 1998 Viola was invited to be a Scholar at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles and in 2009 received the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts, MIT. In 2006 he was awarded Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government. Bill Viola and Kira Perov, his wife and long-time collaborator, live and work in Long Beach, California.'

Chase/Artemis

Set of animations that I made in the same style.

Bill Viola pt 2

Bill Viola is a trailblazer in the realm of video art. Since 1970 he has created videotapes, architectural video installations, sound environments, electronic music performances and pieces for television. HIs work centers mostly around exploring the 'spiritual and perceptual side of human experience'. Some of his works include Hatsu Yume (First Dream), The Passing, and installations Room for St. John of the Cross, The Messenger and The Quintet of the Astonished, recently shown at the National Gallery, London in "Encounters, New Art from Old". But probably his most famous work is the Five Angels for the Millenium.

'All I knew was that I wanted to film a man plunging into water, sinking down, below, out of frame - drowning. 'A year or so later, going through this old footage, I came across five shots of this figure and started working with them - intuitively and without a conscious plan. I became completely absorbed by this man sinking in water, and by the sonic and physical environment I had in mind for the piece.

'When I showed the finished work to Kira [Perov], my partner, she pointed out something I had not realised until that moment: this was not a film of a drowning man. Somehow, I had unconsciously run time backwards in the five films, so all but one of the figures rush upwards and out of the water. I had inadvertently created images of ascension, from death to birth.' Bill Viola, 3 June 2003

Andrea Zittel/Do Ho Suh

Andrea Zittel - It is interesting how something like this could be considered art when it is so mundane and ordinary. HOwever, what gives it life is the context. You would expect to see this in an urban setting. BUt its not.

Do HO Suh - THe little people under the glass, say to me 'we are oppressed' "we are trodden". Jamie BUrmeister did a piece using little clay figures which he posed ona record. When the record was spun it looked like the clay people we dancing.

Spewage

hokay, so I went back and reread/watched some of the older class blog stuff from the beginning of the quarter and here are my takes on some of em.

Michael Burton - I had the pleasure of seeing Frequency when it was in the Elkhorn Campus Gallery. It was interesting to see an animation in a painting medium. I had never seen it done before nor did I think it could be done. The amount of paint and effort that goes into one of his paintings is just amazing.

Website - http://www.burtonworldart.com/

Sketchup - Sketchup is a 3-d model program. Basically, instead of making flat drawing like in Photoshop and what have you, you can make 3-d models of stuff! Cool, right? WRONG! It is innovative in that there aren't a lot of model programs that are free, but it is such a hassle to use. If you don't have a super awesome computer, you are very limited in the scale that you can work in. If you do have grand plans to making something big and complex, choose another program because otherwise your computer will get locked up every time you try to move something or even better crash with all yer unsaved work. But if you do have the patience of Buddha and don't mind getting frustrate after having to make the same thing 50 thousand times, Sketchup is for you!

Sketchup project I made -

Award winning short films - I liked the Maestro video. Wasn't really sure what was going on and it kept me guessing(I'm weird, I like to guess at where something is going) until the end. Then I laughed.



Peter and the Wolf - Waaaaaaaay cool and totally worth a look. It's a little lengthy but it was done very well. If you didn't guess it's an animation about the story of Peter and the Wolf along with that soundtrack.



DEPICT - Some of these were interesting but others I wonder 'was this the best there was?' i often disagreed with the winners the judges picked when a lot of the other videos were better.

Don Hertzfeld

Don Hertzfeld made an animation compiling his commercial animations that subsequently resulted in pure genius. My favorite part(besides the ending) is the "My spoon is too big" bit.



Another good one of his is Billy's balloon. It is like 'wtf, why am i watching this' until you get to the end and then it's amusing.

Is this art?

THe problem that I have with most modern artist(pretty much all art past the 1900s) is that is doesn't say anything to me. It's just color without meaning. Even worse is when the art is just made to offend or get a rise out of people. Not all art was meant to be made but that doesn't stop people from making it. I don't respect artists like Andres Serrano. Is that art? Unfortunately, it is since the artist who made it declared it so. HOwever, simply because it is art does not make it good. AS the viewer we are only meant to do just that--view it or not to as the case may be. WE determine what it means to us but not whether it is or is not art. Artist determine what is art but as viewers we must make our opinion as to whether we like it or not. Just because it is offensive does not mean it should be destroyed or attacked, that just gives unnecessary attention to something that does not deserve it. It has the reverse effect of what the attackers may have wanted. And in the end, the attackers are no better than the artist for creating violence. If a museum or art gallery wishes to show filth like the Urine Christ, so be it but they will have one less viewer. And if everyone did that instead of buying into the hype of media and scandal, the museum would stop showing it or even boycott the artist for lack of revenue. Artists will always try to do or make something new but if people don't buy into the hype, they may try to make something worth looking at instead of making crap--literally.

Aktaion - Script

Script for the upcoming animation named "Aktaion".

-Forest setting, midday-
(SFX- ambience, birds, wind in trees)

~Feet of deer running
(SFX- running hoof on grass)

~Feet mixed with 3-4 dogs running
(SFX- running on grass, panting dogs, howling)

~Deer stops by lake to drink, hears something(attentive)zooms in on deer's face, pans down between deers legs, see woman bathing as deer runs off
(drinking, water lapping at shore, ambience(eerie) hoof beats receding)

~Woman bathing(sensual)

~Man comes to lake, kneels and drinks, dogs drink, looks up and sees woman, hand slips, falls in, startles woman
(drinking, ambient(lake) slippery noise, splash(big), shock gasp(female)

~Man surfaces, Eyes meet, his turn into deer eyes, antlers grow, hands to hoofs, stumbles and dogs attack

(water splashing, eerie music, deer cry/call, dogs growling, ripping crunching)
~Water turns bloody

Fin

Reference art

Bill Viola - Ocean Without a Shore

The art itself isn't really art but at the same time it is. It isn't in that the artist isn't making something physical but it is in how it is represented--how the idea is represented. In Ocean Without a Shore, a wide range of people are slowly walking out of this abyss-like darkness and moving towards the viewer, slowly, methodically. At first the figures are haunting and grainy in black and white as they come towards you. Then they pass through a very thin, shiney wall and become crystal clear and in color. This is visually unnerving and beautiful at the same time. It is meant to represent the division of life and death and how frail it actually is. The space is so confined that every little noise echoes and moves about the space eerily. It integrates the old and new technology seamlessly and the effects are so simple yet they look like they took so much work.

Marla

This is a perfect example of how royaly the media screws up everything. They latch onto a story and manipulated it to best get a viewers attention then milk it for everything its worth. It is disgusting. I hate what the media has become. It used to be a great way to learn about things but now it has evolved into a money machine that spews out gossip and filth. They took an innocent girl who liked to painted and with their experts and pessimists made her into a fraud. The family thought that this would be good publicity to further their daughter's prosperity. But they should have known that this was going to happen. This ALWAYS happens. A + B = C. Story + media = bullshit. They had no proof aside from an expert and film that didn't prove anything. They gave no difinitive proof that Marla didn't paint those painting. But on the other hand there was no proof that Marla painted them in the first place. So it is up to people to believe what they want to believe. As for me, I think she painted them. Call it blind faith or whatever.

Christo and Jean-Claude

I always find it interesting when artists use fabric in their art or in this case make fabric the primary focus of the art. It's very rare to find artists who can think of art in such a large scale. Or have the dedication to pursue it tirelessly for so many years. They waited patiently until someone accepted their proposal. They could have easily, adapted the plan for the piece to fit in another city. But they were hellbent on doing it only in that one special place. Also, Christo cmmented that if it had been only one arch, it would not have been art. It was the scale of the project that made it art. From an aerial view that may have been true but it would still have been stunning on a smaller scale. The reaction of the people was almost comical. They were so uptight and opposed to this even though it was only up for 16 days. They complained that they came to the park for quiet and to enjoy the trees even though the arches didn't hinder either of those. The massive funds that went into this did seem like a waste considering how the showing was so brief and they will never be used again. The fund probably could have been put to better use but it wasn't our funds to allocate. Plus, though it was brief, it wouldn't have been the same in the eyes of the artist if they didn't get to use the materials or scale they wanted. They've waited this long to do it, they might aswell do it right. I found it interesting that they didn't want to see the arches individually because the artists thought it would alter the idea of the art.

Matthew Barney / Drawing Restraint 9

Matthew Barney. Drawing Restraint 9. This film was weird. I didn't really get what was going on but I got the feeling that wasn't really the point. The point was not about what was happening but the meaning of what was happening. For me, it was about the subtlety of human interaction. A lot of this film was about the nuances of symbolism. Each scene, though not always directly related to the scene before or after, it did comprise a very slow paced story. Again, not based on narrative or plot but rather on much more subtle symbols. My favorite part(if I could really call it that) was the Construction Dance sequence. You think there is something going on as the movie progresses or you try to figure out if the two are connected but at the end they were not connected at all. You watch the movie in a sort of suspended state of mind, hung up on each scene trying to figure out if there is a point or something you missed from the last scene that will be revealed in this scene. It was frustrating trying to be thinking logically or literally in this movie. It would almost have been better to just think of it not as a coherent film and more as a series of short snipettes of visual information. It was like reading a story that wasn't a story that had a purpose or point and meandered all about without any real breaks or pauses in rhythm but just kept flowing. Overall, weird.

Andy Goldsworthy

I find it interesting how Andy Goldsworthy take nature as it is and turns it into art. He spends a lot of time and energy making these sculptures not totally sure of whether or not he will be able to complete the sculpture. But regardless he pursues it with a laid-back intensity. Some of his pieces are permanent sculptures that will stand up for a long time, while other sculptures are less permanent fleeting beauties. While he is making his sculptures he becomes in tune with his natural media and comes to understand it better as he progresses. I found it interesting when he was on the plane and he said that he feels disjointed when he travels and feels like he is suspended and rootless. I have traveled many places and that feeling is always so draining and I find it hard to reconnect with my art or find the energy to do art. While I was watching the video, I thought that this art would make nature activists very happy that he was creating art using nature and doing it so well to boot.

Lackadaisy

Reviewing Class Blog

Favs:

Janine Antoni. Her idea was very interesting and innovative. She took a lofty notion of walking on the horizon and turned it into performance art.

Ann Hamilton. She used an interesting media and installation techniques. I do think what she said about her art was a little bit of a stretch.

Kara Walker. Her use of silhouettes is very striking. Though I did find this comment from the video interesting: "I don't think I've ever seen a more sick & twisted artist than Kara Walker. She fantasizes about being a slave. Getting raped by Slave Masters. Killing Slave masters, killing the children that are the result of the rape. On & On. Her art is extreme and unhealthy. How can anyone live with this imagery in their homes? If an Artist is going to examine this subject matter, they should do so from a position of strength and come out victorious. Kara constantly emerges as the victim."

Cai Guo-Qiang. His art creates a very emotional response.

Construction Dance. I didn't really get it but I liked the visual and suspensful aspect of the video.

Chris Burden. I liked how this wasn't about making art but rather living in the experience.

Not so favs:

Jessica Stockholder. The only interesting thing about her piece was the interesting intermingling of color. Other than that, there is nothing that inspires or creates any thoughts.

Kiki Smith. Her fixation on death or rather dead animals is bizarre.

Stop motion animation using post it notes.

Way super cool graffiti stop animation made on walls and sidewalks and buildings. Definately worth a look.

Her Morning Elegance

Really superfantasmalrific video