A.I. Exercise 2

Here is the final image from the second Adobe Illustrator exercise using Live Trace and Live Paint. I chose to first layer some images and adjust some coloring using curves in Adobe Photoshop. I took a background of some lightning and place a picture of my brother, Jack, dressed up as Albert Einstein next to a picture of professional surfer, Rob Machado.

Marina Abramovic.Frida Kahlo.Cui Xiuwen.

Marina Abramovic was very fascinating and regale as she spoke of her photographic work and performances. Her collections show self portraits that demonstrate a test of her physical and mental limits. Many of her pieces demonstrate natural and real feelings that she encounters in her own life. My favorite piece of hers is “Happy Christmas” where she presents herself in unaesthetic way expressing an emotion of utter despair and sorrow. It resembles the ending of her marriage with her husband. I love this photograph because I believe the main holidays people celebrate today have become artificial with there demand of gifts and glazed over get togethers with their relatives. This photo shows the other side of the holidays, the one hidden behind the decorative wrapping paper.

Frida Kahlo’s work was absolutely stunning as she brought out the beauty of herself as a woman and her Mexican culture. In

her self-portraits she portrays herself as strong, dignified and liberated. Her story was incredible entailing love, struggle, pain and the path of making herself an independent female artist. Her technique of painting with the use of a mirror’s reflection was very new to me and although staggering it seems extremely difficult. Her piece that intrigued me the most is “The broken column” where she paints herself nude covered in nails and bandages and split in half by a simple, damaged stone column in place of a spine. This photo is in reference to her almost fatal automobile accident that left her bedridden for months. It was during this time of hospitalization where she found her amazing talent in painting.

Cui Xiuwen’s photos were celestial and unblemished as she used the theme of displaying herself wearing white clothing. Her works address the life of a young single woman living in China and her emotions that she carries with her every day. I know that in China women are held at a significantly lower status then men and I could only imagine the agitation and frustration that females feel on a daily occurrence. Her interest in womanhood varies from the level of a child as those portraits where she is wearing a school uniform to the level of a grown adult experiencing pregnancy and maternity. Several of the works in her collection “One day in 2004” exemplify a growing tension that draws the viewer in and tempts them to call out to the girl and ask, “What is wrong? Is there anything I can do to help?”

illustrator exercise 1

p.h.o.t.o. a.l.t.e.r.a.t.i.o.n.

Here is the final result from the first project: photo alteration. I used the hole in the wall as a sort of setting which I related to a cave or underground environment. I then became intrigued with the interior of a printer and realized it could definitely be used to show a human interaction. That is when I asked two roommates from my floor to pose for my project. I worked a lot with altering the colors of each image to give it a more darker tone rather than a vibrant one. I also had to put numerous hours ino working with different layers of transparency. I found a lot of frustration and difficulty with this task but after a large amount of tweaking and undoing I'm pretty satisfied. I know I will become more comfortable with this technique with future Photoshop practice.

pictures for project 1

These are the four images I plan on using in my first photo alteration project. The top two pictures show human interaction for I will manipulate Tyler and Ryan so that they work as opposing forces towards each other. The third picture is the interior of my hp printer. Displayed in the center are the color and black ink cartridges. The bottom photo is one I took of the exterior of a hole in the wall of the girl's bathroom in Wolfe Hall.

c.l.a.s.s.m.a.t.e. c.r.i.t.i.q.u.e.s

It was great to read my fellow classmates' opinions about artists: Gregory Crewdson, Teun Hocks, Jeff Wall, & Cindy Sherman. I was able to see which opinions were similar to mine and I also got the opportunity to learn more about these artists then what I captured from my own critiques. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts from their blogs -

Gregory Crewdson ~

Keri: "Because his pieces were not titled, I was able to view with work without any "previously set" notions. It was completely up to me to set the scene, or "title," without considering the role the title may play.

Michelle: " Was this some sort of mockery of American life? I felt as if a crime just took place. His work is cohesive, very interesting and captures attention. With detail, I wanted to comb through the scenes like a detective, but finding nothing."

Teun Hocks ~

Tim - "Hock’s work I think is more interesting as a process than the actual work is when completed. I think its pretty cool to take the values and add color instead of the opposite that has been done countless times before."

Stephanie - "His works appear to be based in sections. Each section a continued piece of the section next to it. Some pieces are divided equally and others are divided with organic lines, giving it a feel of abstraction."

Liz - "Hocks main series uses the same model so that the focus is on the action, not the person. He has an isolated and obvious focal point and does not use excessive wide shots like Crewdson."

Cindy Sherman ~

Alayne - "Knowing the origin of Cindy Sherman's work, for example that they are all film stills, all conveying, pausing, particular emotions and ideas, has given me a new and towering respect for her."

Renee - "However, artist Cindy Sherman differs from her peers by setting her works in more of an enclosed space. Centralizing her works more upon the study of women, this could be to better capture the figure. Moreover, where the other artists manipulate color to shift the overall mood of their pieces, Sherman has set her works to tones of black and white."

Jeff Wall ~

Rahda - "Jeff Wall’s work refers to history of art and philosophical problems of representation. He captures social issues in life in a more realistic fashion than the other two artists."

Keith - "His photographs since the early 1970's have been on the cutting edge of the avant-garde and he is not even a New Yorker. Wall, a Canadian photographer, is know for his large scale Cibachrome prints (cibachrome being related to a positive to positive printing process that makes slides as opposed to prints on paper)."

Cristina - "They may not be as painterly as Hocks, or as visually exciting as Crewdons, but Wall's works are lyrical much as they come off street-wise and ordinary...his visual poetry evident in his philosophical and art historical references."

i.n.h.e.r.i.t.e.d. t.r.a.i.t.s

Today was my second time visiting Nina Katchadourian and Heidi Kumao's art exhibit: Inherited Traits. To my own surprise, however, I had a totally different experience and also a new appreciation for the six displayed pieces. The first, most obvious piece is Nina's Genealogy of the Supermarket. Not only is this piece extremely clever and humorous, but it is also relatable to almost every one of its viewers. Personally, I was able to recognize a large handful of the pieces and found myself laughing at the fantasized relationships between them. You could detect a personality and story from each of the portraits and their frames without any commentary or writing.

The next piece was Kumao's Translator. I discovered a greater appreciation of this piece when I was able to hear the "parents" speak and criticize their child saying things like "go away" or "I have no money." The use of video showed a different personality in each of the parents. One displayed scribbly extending lines that would eventually be erased. I saw this chair as the father, not really knowing much about his child and also not really caring that she is a mystery. The other video displayed a spinal cord that would disappear and be followed by plates crashing. I saw this parent as the mother, tearing down her child's inner strength by criticism or verbal abuse. It was compelling to know that you, as the viewer, was in charge of the decision of which parent to go to. The machinery and materials used gave a dreary and detached feeling as the crank dragged the delicate child back and forth to disappointment.

Katchadourian's Accent Elimination displayed a loss of inherited traits in the way that Nina has never been able to demonstrate her parents' unfamiliar accents. I thought it was really cool that her parents were Armenian because my freshman reading requirement was Black Dog of Fate - a novel about the Armenian Genocide and its effects on future generations. Her final piece The Nightgown Project also had a underlying feeling of a lost part of culture. The aspect that I enjoyed the most about this piece were the "flaws" or missing material. For example: when Nina spent three years trying to find the right location of one of the earlier pictures but decided to leave it blank due to frustration; and also when a year was missing due to the war.

Kumao's last two video projects were extremely moving. The entire display including use of furniture and accessories to the film really added to these pieces as a whole. I remember the story of Frederick Douglas and how he told the slaves trying to escape to follow the "drinking gourd" or the big dipper. Contrary to this, I had absolutely no idea about the Japanese-Americans who were held as prisoners during World War II. This piece went with the theme because of Kumao's heritage of being a Japanese-American. I'm sure that making this project was extremely important to her and exemplified a lot of emotion and pain.