AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

Today's art world is a spiraling world of cafe's, latte's, black converse wearing students who wear too much black for reasons unknown. The art that's produced has to have a deeper meaning. Art today isn't just make for art's sake. It's make to express some repressed feelings from who knows when. Granted, yes...I myself fall into this trend. Its just irritating to think about. I've been an art student for far too long..We need to transgress back to olden days where there were no computers, converse or cafe's and just make art because we LIKE it. Sorry for the rant. 

Nation on the Move

Nation on the Move

In Minoo Moallem's Nation on the Move, Persian Carpets function as both literal objects of textual analysis and also metaphors for how objects of transnational exchange are produced, marketed and consumed. Along the way, they accrue a multiplicity of meanings and provide glimpes into complex citcuits of labor, ideology and imagination. The interface for the project is simple making for a playful metaphor for the weaving process its self as users are invited to make connections between nodes of information, artifacts and analysis is dense with allusion. Among the most powerful elements of this far fetched exploration are the author's own research materials, which remind us of labor and lived experiences of the woman who actually make the carpets. Their stories and experiences are rendered through images, conversations and testimonies that ground the analysis of broader circuits of distrabution and consumption.

Predator and Prey: Blog 3

I chose to take a closer look at the film Deeparture by Mircea Cantor. I chose to write about this short 2 minute and 43 second film because it has no sound at all. The opening scene is a wolf type dog sleeping on it's side in a start white background, then the film shortly pans to a deer like creature. It took me a few moments to realize that not only was this a cute deer and a cute looking dog, but my gosh, it's a deer and a wolf both together in a all white gallery space!! Myself being an animal lover, immediately thought that this was wrong and not morally write, what if the wolf were to kill the deer? The red blood would look like a murder scene on that perfectly white backdrop. My next discovery was my feeble attempt to keep hitting my volume button in hopes that a noice from the animals would so appear. No such luck, as I watched the film numerous times I began to realize that having no sound at all makes a much more interesting piece. With out sound, you then have to pay close attention to the actions of the two animals. You watch their eyes, you begin to sence that the deer look's ranther uncomfortable and somewhat confused. On the other hand, the wolf is just laying around, panting, without a care in the world, thinking hey, I have a free lunch, and it's even an easy catch. Having no sound it seems like you are peering through a glass wall into a strange sound proof room at a twisted exhibit at the zoo. Whithout sound, it makes your other sences work just a little bit harder to investigate whats really going on in the film. You actaully have to watch it, and not just multitask and listen while doing something else.

The fim that I want to compare is Patty Chang's Fountain. This film by all means is stark in constrast. It shows her infront of a mirrow kissing we own reflection as water dribble downs besides her. The sound in this 5 minute and some odd second film is beyond irritating. Slurping water and the sound of a girl kissing her own reflection is not my idea of fun. I would rather watch animals that want to kill each other be trapped up in a box for people to watch. What confuses me further more is the fact that the round mirror is placed on the foor and Chang procedes to kneel over it and slirp water off is just plain strange. Focusing just on the sound for a minute, if you were to close your eyes and just listen I think a girl sucking water from a mirror is the last thing you would think that you are watching. The noise could really be from a number of things. Perhaps, it's from our little furry friends from Cantor's film. Or from the sounds of people stomping through the rain outside. 

In conclusion, the importance of sound in a film is really not necesary in all cases. I think it's ultimately up to the filmmaker, what they want the viewer to get out of the film.

Thought Mesh

Jon Ippolito and Craig Dietrich are striving to create a more intelligent search engine, one that gets more intelligent and gives you more powerful searchers relating to academia. Their creation is called Though Mesh, the trick will Thought Mesh is that it will only grow and become more useful and powerful as it's users  begin to see it's value and feed their own content into it's system then and only then will Though Mesh begin to grow. 

The creators are trying to break the stereotypes with online publication, they want to make information more useful and easy to gather within the world of scholarly essays.

What users would do is submit an article / essay they have written to Thought Mesh with up to two levels of headings. What Thought Mesh would then do is search essays and headings for the topic(s) of your choice. It would also give you a list of scholarly essays with that same information in them. 

Thought Mesh is only on it's Beta version but if a user is unsure about how to publish or navigate a published article they offer step by step Quicktime videos to help you along the way.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure about the purpose of this website is, but it sounds like and interesting idea to check out and further pursue. 

I have enjoyed reading Vectors so far, it has opened my eyes about upcoming scholarly search engines like Think Mesh.

Check out Thought Mesh for yourself at the link below.

http://vectors.usc.edu/thoughtmesh/

Act/React

I really enjoyed going to the Act/React show at the Milwaukee Art Museum, to me it wasn't even like a homework assignment, just more so going and seeing/interacting with something that I enjoy. 

My favorite artist at the exhibit was Daniel Rozin's Peg Mirror and Snow Mirror. These were my favorite because not only could you interact with the piece and it personally showed you in the space, but it actually transformed you into the piece. It took you from a traditional museum setting and put you into a snowy wonderland and back. 

With Peg Mirror, I was really amazed at how intricate and sophisticated the inner-workings of the mirror were. It's far more that a camera and an image on a screen. Each little piece of wood was attached to a motor and moved to make your face or cater to your specific movements. 

Over all I thought that the Act/React show was awesome, much better that walking around looking at paintings, (which I really don't mind doing, I'm minoring in Art History) but being able to have the opportunity to interact with the works as much as you were able to do, especially in a museum setting was a very fun experience!

Waiting for Godot in New Orleans

"The longing for the new is a reminder of what is worth renewing."

I chose to further research Waiting For Godot in New Orleans because I really enjoyed his film Bagdad in No Particular Order. I think what attracts me to Chan's work is his real world style. I enjoy how he uses real life subjects in his films. It leaves things a little less to the imagination that a few of the films we have screened in class. The film that we screened in lecture on the first day of class; Valse Triste by Bruce Conner I did not enjoy at all. I didn't like the random images that I couldn't seem to make any sense of. Maybe it's the designer in me that I feel the need to constantly have things that I see make sense.

I also, think thats why I like Chan's work. Because my brain is able to make sense of it more easily that Conner's film. However, Chan's work does leave a little to the imagination, but at lease it gives you actual flesh and places to work with. 

The fact that he chose this film to take place in New Orleans is really kind of a cool idea. I like the whole idea of waiting.. it's able to hit home a bit with all the horrible destruction and in the film you are able to see the actual people and hear a little bit of their own personal story. 

I hope we see more politically charged films like Chan's in class, because I don't think I can handle many more sepia toned disjointed films. Please no one take offense to this, it's just simply a matter of personal opinion. 

Art Journal

I chose the Vectors Journal at the University of Southern California to follow for the semester because it seems to be more based about digital information. My major is Graphic Design so this topic interests me more than a journal all about film (since I really don't have much back ground in the subjects it's self.) 

The link to the site is listed below:

www.vectorsjournal.org