Major Themes in Digital Art (Assignment #5)

Some of the major themes and ideas in digital art are artificial intelligence, tactile media, gaming, mapping and the like.  Interestingly, some of these areas, though certainly digital, do not necessarily bring the idea of art to mind.  While this is true with various forms of art, digital art seems to be the most difficult to truly and fully define.  It seems that an individual could take a poll and have answers that are completely varied.  One of the more interesting ideas in the discussion of digital art (for me anyway) is the thought that digital art can truly be almost anything.  It appears that there are not many boundaries for defining digital art and one can make anything from wearable digital art to something robotic in nature.  As stated in one of the original writings for this course, it seems that digital art is ever-evolving and changing and that the potential is nearly limitless.  As technology continues to improve, ideas and projects will continue to change and grow.  

Personally, it is difficult for me to view artificial intelligence as “digital art,” however, there are digital artist’s who have used AI to make art.  By exploring scientific-seeming matters and subjects, a different spin can be put on up and coming or even better known areas of science.  There have been many robotics and science fiction movies produced over the last forty plus years.  The subject matter seems to be one that consistantly explores and questions where the lines are drawn between human and artifical life.

Gaming is another area that has significantly improved with time.  The Atari games of the 1980s illustrated graphic content that was quite simple compared todays’ gaming potential.  Many games are so “real” looking, that it is easy to see the potential social effects on society, as we hear and see of more and more children and teens (and even adults) participating in online games or becoming so completely involved in their personal gaming systems that they lose touch with reality.  Their alternate gaming universe becomes their reality and some have had trouble separating that world from the one we all live in.  While reading this story http://www.newsday.com/news/local/nassau/ny-lirobb0627,0,5611979.story about a video game inspired crime spree, it is possible to see that some people will naturally become overly-involved in an alternate world, believing that their real-life actions won’t actually affect anyone adversely.

All in all, digital art and the medium itself will continue to evolve and change as people gain new skills and technology becomes available. Keeping an open mind to all areas and possibilities seems key and hopefully, as this medium continues to evolve, the boundaries will seem limitless.

Bananastic! The Final Project (#4)

Here is the last project for Digital.  The assignment was to create a narrative video or slide show.  Below is my project.  I actually couldn’t stop laughing the first time I watched it… a little gross, but hopefully it will make a few people giggle.  It’s bananastic!

<object width=”425″height=”350″><param name=”movie”value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/wkIPpHPr8yQ”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/wkIPpHPr8yQ”type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”425″ height=”350″></embed></object>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkIPpHPr8yQ

Project 3

You can visit project three here:  http://clem.mscd.edu/~jmorgant (please note, this will only operate in internet explorer or safari – firefox isn’t cooperating for some odd reason as a browser)

This was one (if not THE) most frustrating projects to date.  Dreamweaver was not my friend, but ultimately, I’m excited to thrill and annoy others with all the Homer-web page-like sounds.  Yay!

After preparing to just give in, I actually don’t completely hate the project.  I’m sure there are others that turned out better, but because I couldn’t ever get a table to cooperate, it was a bit of a challenge to get things where I wanted them to be.  After starting over a few times, the final product is annoying and amusing – well, at least to me. )

The background image was a black and white image that I made some changes to and changed some coloring.  Then, I used Photoshop to get the actual elephant parts to the size and shape I desired and created links to various sites.

Great Article

This was an interesting article about the things that went on behind the scenes of the election.  http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581/page/1

Directions for adding Sound/Music

How to play music on a website, blog or MySpace with HTML music codes.

There are several ways to place music, midi’s, mp3 and wav files on a webpage. First you need to know the name of the music file you wish to use.

Music on choice.

The first html music code gives your visitor the choice if they want to hear the music or not.

<a href=”yourmidname.mid”>Click here to play music </a>

Website Music plays automatically on page load. This is cross browser compatible.

Place this code in the <head> of your html document so music starts automatically when the page loads. Your visitor has no choice to hear it or not and there is no option to turn it off. Using the “embed” command makes your music compatible with Netscape.

<embed src=”yourmusic.mid”>
<noembed> <bgsound src=”yourmusic.mid”> </noembed>

To embed music on your website with a shut off button.

You can embed music into your page so it starts automatically when someone views your page and have a small image where your visitor can turn it off.

Place the html music code where you want the button to appear on your page.

<embed src=”yourmusic.mid”
width=25 height=25 autostart=false repeat=true loop=true> </embed>

Embed music with console.

Instead of the button, you can have a small console with on and off switches on your page.

<embed src=”yourmusic.mid”
width=”140″ height=”40″ autostart=”false” loop=”FALSE”>
</embed>
Music Parameters.

To make the music play automatically the parameter is Autostart=”TRUE”
You can put “FALSE” instead of “TRUE” so the person visiting your page will have to click on the play button for it to start.

The Link Method
Here is an example link to a sound file:

<a href=”http://www.pageresource.com/sounds/mattdum.mid”>A Cool MIDI Song</a>

This will make the browser attempt to view the sound file. In this case, I used a midi file. You can do the same thing with .wav, .aud, and most other sound files. As long as the user has the helper application or plugin installed and their browser is configured to use these, the user will begin to download the file once they have clicked the link.

A Cool MIDI Song

The browser opens a small new window to play back the file once it is downloaded to their computer. Once the file is downloaded, the window will begin playing the sound or music file automatically. The user can use the controls in their window to stop or start the sound. When they are through, they can use the right click method to save the file, just like an image file on a page. They can also close the new window and then return to browsing your site. The drawback to this method is that the user has to click a link and then wait for the file, but this has an advantage if you are going to have a large number of sound or music files for people to choose from.

The Embed Method
This method is a popular way to play a sound or music file because it allows for many options. The sound interface will be placed right on the page and can be configured to start automatically, repeat over and over, or just play through once. So, how do you do it? With the <embed> tag. This tag works in much the same way an image tag does. You will need to specify the source of the sound file and add additional commands as needed. Here is an example of the tag:

<embed src=”http://www.pageresource.com/sounds/mattdum.mid”></embed>

This tells the browser to place this file on the page right where you placed the tag. You don’t have to use a midi file, you can embed a .wav, .aud, and most other sound formats in this way. As you can see, the src=”" is asking for the source of the midi file, or its Internet address. Just type in the Web address of your midi file here, and you are on your way.

Info sourced from: www.hypergurl.com/music.html and www.pageresource.com/html/embed.htm

Digital Technology as a Tool and as a Medium (Assignment #3)

Digital technology is a phrase that our great grandparents, and in some cases, our grand parents would not have understood in the prime of their lives. Today, digital technology permeates our society and it is doubtful that, if surveyed, modern day folks would think they could survive without the services and ease that come with digital technology. Though there are still individuals who do not use these modern methods and technologies, even those individuals must admit that in some part, be that work, play or otherwise, digital technology plays some type of role in their lives.

These digital technologies have been around since the mid-twentieth century (http://www.answers.com/topic/digital-technology), but certainly have been perfected in the last one to two decades. Technology, as discussed in a previous writing, has been ever-expanding and has changed through the ages. As individuals continue to learn and adapt to changing technology, it seems only natural that new forms of art and media for artistic expression would evolve. Certainly, there is a huge difference between digital technology as a tool and utilizing these technologies as a medium for expression. The technology itself has existed for several decades and has caused the industrial revolution to rapidly morph into a new age – the technology revolution. The digital technology available to everyday people is amazing. Most people would find it difficult to live without a cellular telephone, a personal computer, an iPod (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod), or some other means of listening to portable music. However, digital technology as a tool for research or information is a very different subject than using digital technology as a means of expression or art.

The Digital Art Museum (aka DAM, not to be confused with the Denver Art Museum, also known as DAM), along with a slew of other websites, list a variety of digital pieces by numerous digital artists (http://www.dam.org/gallery/index.htm). Pieces range from the Surreal to the seemingly mechanical, to even geometric or realistic images. Physically located in Germany, the institution shows work from artists all over the globe and provides a means for sharing a medium that is still changing and evolving. When an individual views these images, it becomes obvious that these are works of art, and not just a use of digital technology.

Of course, there are also places at which it seems there is a crossover between the digital technology itself and actual art. One has to ponder what exactly “art” is, and what defines it, which has also been a challenge for digital artist pioneers. If a piece of art is completed in a matter of moments, is it then not a piece of art, but simply utilizing the digital technology itself? One college course introduces students to an art history course (http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/artartists/artartists.html) by stating quite simply that “An object regarded as Art today may not have been perceived as such when it was first made, nor was the person who made it necessarily regarded as an artist. Both the notion of “art” and the idea of the “artist” are relatively modern terms.” Obviously, art is continuously evolving and many of the individuals we refer to as artists from the period of time before common era, may not have considered themselves artists.

Defining the difference between digital technology as a tool and as a medium seems to be akin to defining the difference between the dirt an apple seed is planted in, and the apple tree itself. While the dirt and the seed are necessary to yield the actual apple tree, neither of the two reflect the life, the substance, or the glory of the apple tree. Such is the case with digital technology and digital art. The technology itself is an absolute necessity in order to create the art, but the technology is not actually the art. The artist’s conceptualizations and ideas, used in combination with the array of digital tools and sources available, allow the piece to be created and come to life in a two-dimensional format.

Certainly, digital technology as a medium will continue to evolve, and change as new digital technologies develop and become available to digital artists and all mediums of artists alike. Hopefully, all artists will be able to carry on with utilize the tools available for whatever his/her medium, which help to continually expand our minds and our perceptions of our society in our world.

Abject Self (Project 2)

Given the assignment to produce a slide show of our abject selves, I have found this project to be more of a challenge than I expected. I am personally fascinated by personality typing and was thinking about how the typing so often seems to focus on the positive aspects of a personality, when in reality, to be human we all have a very yin and yang, good and bad, light and dark side to ourselves in order to be complete. I know that when I read about my own personality type, depending on my mood, I can find myself going to the “dark side” of things.

Originally, this project started with a very brief definition of my personality type and then in pictures, I tried to capture things that are really quite the opposite, things that I consciously ignore, pieces of my personality that I wish did not exist. Ultimately, I removed the definition, but can share here that my type (INFP, for those familiar with Meyers-Briggs Typing) is one that is often defined as caring, selfless, concerned for others, original/creative, etc. However, I think that I personally fight with these things and find that I can be quite the opposite and not care about anything around me, becoming completely self-absorbed and narcissistic.

I utilized Power Point to get the timing a little closer to what I was hoping to have because the other slide show software types just didn’t seem to work for me, but ultimately the piece was input into iMovie and then finally into a Quick Time video. You can watch the video below.

YouTube Links

Amusing things, etc on YouTube.

POLITICAL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTkqosRiyYo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkWebP2Q0Y

COMMERCIALS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSG807d3P-U&NR=1

Frank

I had to add this one in as well.

Political Rundown (Project 1)

The poster project has been interesting… almost too interesting. I have had so many ideas that I have spent entirely too many hours starting a project and changing my mind. Ultimately, I could probably spend weeks working on a poster and continue to change my mind, but here’s what I have.

I was really excited to figure out how to “morph” faces in Photoshop, so I spent at least two days just messing with human/dogs pictures or human/animated character pictures. I will say this poster has nothing to do with my personal political stance, but I had a ton of fun and spent way too much time working on the project.