Society-
http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Parents-wire-kids-to-prove- teachers-verbal-abuse-3509966.php
Upon reading this I was quite appalled at the situation that sparked the article's content. To see that a child could be called such terrible things by a teacher that they should be able to trust was more than disheartening. However I found the following debate about whether or not recording teachers should be allowable or not really threw me for a loop. While I understand why the national association of special education teachers would be concerned with patents altering recordings to falsely incriminate people, it is difficult to say if there is any other way to monitor something like that. If a person came in to check the situation then the teachers doing the abusing would act differently in order to avoid consequences. It is a fine line between breaching teachers rights and protecting children, however I think the idea of video monitoring is a sound solution. However, if that recording didn't have audio recording then it could be manipulated to avoid verbal abuse. I just hate that this has even become an issue, and I sincere hope that no parents abuse the ability to record teachers in the legal states to abuse the system for gains that are not warranted.
Art-
http://www.artnews.com/2012/04/19/use-your-illusion/
I was immediately intrigued by this article because I very much like trompe l’oeil art. The realism of these works are breathtaking, and the artists attempts are admirable to me. While that is all my aesthetic opinion, the new sculptors playing with perception and super-realism have interesting works. The painstaking remaking of reality in materials that contradict the purpose or general nature of the objects being recreated takes a lot of time, observation, and consideration. While objects that completely mimic reality seem to be an easy approach to making art, I find that to be an idea that undercuts the efforts and ideas of the artists creating these works.
I really like the quote from Elizabeth Armstrong, curator of contemporary art at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, “It’s taking Duchamp and standing him on his head—this notion of returning to what art used to be, beautifully crafted handmade objects, but in fact they look like throwaways.” I feel it really helps to construct the understanding of realistic sculpture's intentions.
Art, Thinking, and Social Change
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Final Project- Little Red Riding House
Final Product:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRJ63idCb88&context=C4c4d875ADvjVQa1PpcFO9VU_JvpmCyCnLEFiUJBjIdHP-Vmxb83I=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRJ63idCb88&context=C4c4d875ADvjVQa1PpcFO9VU_JvpmCyCnLEFiUJBjIdHP-Vmxb83I=
This project is an animation created based on the idea of time-stop collage animation. I hand drew images, uploaded them into the computer and collaged them digitally.
Project Description:
The project is entitled "little red riding house" and combines the ideas of escapism and feminism to create a cyclical animation. I heavily researched escapism through media (specifically film and television) in our society since spring break and wanted to center my project around that idea at the onset. Escapism is arguably an experience that can be associated with all art, which is partially why I found it fitting to explore. However, I wanted to move outside of the traditional art world and into that of mass media, which is more telling about our society. At the present I feel that fairy tales is one of the most prominent genres being explored in American film and television. With this idea in mind I knew I wanted to create something involving film using the idea of escapism. As I continued to develop my project I decided to embrace and negate escapist tendencies simultaneously. To do this I wanted to create a situation in which viewers normally find themselves falling in to (such as a familiar story like little red riding hood) while subtly undermining it through images that don't match the story as the viewer knows it. In considering this I decided to pick another theme to use in my project. I decided to use feminist ideas after the lecture we had towards the end of the semester. Little red riding house represents women (through the symbolism of the house) when she picks the flower it is representative of the reclaiming of her femininity. The wolf in a business suit is the male dominant political debates over women's rights and their destruction of a woman's familiar choices. However when the house is destroyed it still creates a flower thus showing that femininity and the choices of women will survive even if torn down time and again by political turmoil. I put a lot of time and thought into this project and I am pleased with the results as well as the reaction of my classmates in class.
Additional Images/Information
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Week 13 Art- Final Progression V
This is the up-to-date version of my final. It is about half way through the animation sequence at this point...I look forward to getting feedback on this animation...
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Week 12 Art- Final Progression IV- Opening Sequence Loop
While this is really short, it is a loop of the 3 second opening to my final project "Little Red Riding House"
I've scrapped the cell phone opening and have exchanged it for the ability for my video to seamlessly loop.
I've scrapped the cell phone opening and have exchanged it for the ability for my video to seamlessly loop.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Week 11 Art- Final Progression III
Little Red Riding House Plot and Story Board
Okay, so this is the newest story board idea I have. I am actually fairly happy with this one, but I would love to know what other students think before I start the long process of animating it. So the basic idea is that we see a patch of wild flowers, followed by a figure that seems to be little red riding hood with a house for a head picking those flowers, she skips along holding the flowers before the big bad wolf character (dressed in a suit) pops up and attacks her, she falls and the wolf takes of his mask revealing the thinker statue (tentative to change, not sure if I like it completely) he then leaves the house-headed maiden on the ground, and we watch her decay until the same flowers re-emerge and the video starts over (it will be looped.) If anyone has any suggestions or ideas I am open for feedback at this point. I am currently working on drafting Little Red Riding House figures as well as the swanky big bad wolf....
Week 9 Art- Final Progression I
In progress Warning Label for animation...
This is very tentative to change, however, for now I am planning on including warnings at the beginning of the film that are reminiscent of when someone watches a film. In reading a study of women going to cinemas in the UK, a writer used the term "dream palace" to describe the experiences within the dark of the theater. I really latched on to this phrase, and while I find this to be possibly too blatant, for now I will continue developing it to see where it goes. This may get scrapped by the final product, but here is some proof that I have been working to develop my idea.
Week 11- Responses
Society-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/explosion-in-student-loan-debt-reaching-crisis-proportions-but-largely-flying-under-radar/2012/04/03/gIQADFFQsS_story_1.html
Due to the fact that this pertains to all of us, I thought I would write about it this week. I don't know about the rest of you, but I personally take out student loans to get through school, and this article describing the issues around federal student loans really hit home. Evidently the government is concerned that the student loan section of their industry will turn into the housing market, in that it won't hold up in the next few years, due to students' inabilities to get jobs after college and pay their loans off. While this is obviously a very real concern for those watching the economy to have, students as well as future students are getting sent so many mixed messages about colleges because of this student loan debate. We are told, from a very early age, that we must go to college in order to make a living. It would seem in the growing technology age this is growing more and more evident. (Not that my choice in majors is facilitating this idea that I'll go into a technological field, but the great number of students in Speed school does attest to this job driven mentality.) However, with the tuition of institutions rising it is becoming more and more expensive to get that diploma, making it harder to pay of the loans. Another problem that these articles generally neglect (this one included) is the decline of scholarships now that the economy is heading south. I promise you any student with a decent GPA would be going for free money over federal money any day if that were as much of an option anymore. Obviously it doesn't help that we are in a recession where there are less jobs. This has all been an obvious recap, but with higher tuition and more students with less jobs and greater student loans, it is obvious that there is trouble on the horizon. While certain conservative candidates are attempting to appeal to a 'blue collar' audience, the argument that going through a higher education makes a person liberal and threatening to those hard American workers (which couldn't be further from the truth, just taking the hard laborers at UPS who are primarily students into account counters this on our campus,) is so wrong it is almost frustrating to hear it repeated over and over again. The worst of these arguments, however, is that there are just as many, if not more, jobs waiting for the averagely-educated (those with high school diplomas only) as the higher-institution-educated is obviously false. If that were the case then not nearly as many people would be bothering with college. Some people arguing about student loans make it sound as if we like to just grab all the student loans we can and deal with it later, but any art student will tell you money really matters, and for the most part we are very conscious of how we as students utilize it.
While we hear we have picked a bad time to be artists, it would seem we have picked an even worse time to be art students.
Art-
http://buttnekkiddoodles.com/
Don Colley is an artist I have looked at a few times before, but I find myself constantly coming back to his work. He lives and works in Chicago, and while he does to time intensive works of art, the primary work that catches my attention is the ink drawings he does straight from life all over the city of Chicago. From watching a documentary on him previously, he prefers to draw in old accountants books, giving certain drawings a deeper dynamic. His versatility as well as quick study skills are very impressive, as well as beautiful to look upon. While he does has a sense of humor that lends itself to entertaining work (just look at the name of his website) his delicate attention to features of those he observes, and his delicate use of ink tones really takes my breath away. Don Colley is a dimensional, entertaining artist, who I love to be inspired by when I need a reminder that drawing quick life studies out in the open can lead to greater work.
Due to the fact that this pertains to all of us, I thought I would write about it this week. I don't know about the rest of you, but I personally take out student loans to get through school, and this article describing the issues around federal student loans really hit home. Evidently the government is concerned that the student loan section of their industry will turn into the housing market, in that it won't hold up in the next few years, due to students' inabilities to get jobs after college and pay their loans off. While this is obviously a very real concern for those watching the economy to have, students as well as future students are getting sent so many mixed messages about colleges because of this student loan debate. We are told, from a very early age, that we must go to college in order to make a living. It would seem in the growing technology age this is growing more and more evident. (Not that my choice in majors is facilitating this idea that I'll go into a technological field, but the great number of students in Speed school does attest to this job driven mentality.) However, with the tuition of institutions rising it is becoming more and more expensive to get that diploma, making it harder to pay of the loans. Another problem that these articles generally neglect (this one included) is the decline of scholarships now that the economy is heading south. I promise you any student with a decent GPA would be going for free money over federal money any day if that were as much of an option anymore. Obviously it doesn't help that we are in a recession where there are less jobs. This has all been an obvious recap, but with higher tuition and more students with less jobs and greater student loans, it is obvious that there is trouble on the horizon. While certain conservative candidates are attempting to appeal to a 'blue collar' audience, the argument that going through a higher education makes a person liberal and threatening to those hard American workers (which couldn't be further from the truth, just taking the hard laborers at UPS who are primarily students into account counters this on our campus,) is so wrong it is almost frustrating to hear it repeated over and over again. The worst of these arguments, however, is that there are just as many, if not more, jobs waiting for the averagely-educated (those with high school diplomas only) as the higher-institution-educated is obviously false. If that were the case then not nearly as many people would be bothering with college. Some people arguing about student loans make it sound as if we like to just grab all the student loans we can and deal with it later, but any art student will tell you money really matters, and for the most part we are very conscious of how we as students utilize it.
While we hear we have picked a bad time to be artists, it would seem we have picked an even worse time to be art students.
Art-
http://buttnekkiddoodles.com/
Don Colley is an artist I have looked at a few times before, but I find myself constantly coming back to his work. He lives and works in Chicago, and while he does to time intensive works of art, the primary work that catches my attention is the ink drawings he does straight from life all over the city of Chicago. From watching a documentary on him previously, he prefers to draw in old accountants books, giving certain drawings a deeper dynamic. His versatility as well as quick study skills are very impressive, as well as beautiful to look upon. While he does has a sense of humor that lends itself to entertaining work (just look at the name of his website) his delicate attention to features of those he observes, and his delicate use of ink tones really takes my breath away. Don Colley is a dimensional, entertaining artist, who I love to be inspired by when I need a reminder that drawing quick life studies out in the open can lead to greater work.
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