Jeff Soto

Q: How do you perceive, or not, the influences of Cinema, popular culture, advertisement and graffiti in his work?


I see a lot of influence personally from modern cartoons, which have for some reason decided that kids think ugly characters are more interesting than pretty ones.  The images have exaggerated facial expressions, and bright colors.  I see the influence of advertising and graffiti though the repetition of ideas, and characters.  It's like making a label for himself, so that everyone knows that it's him.  

Mariko Mori

Q: Mariko Mori in the series Pureland or Burning Desire explores a Relationship with Japanese popular culture, Elaborate on the use of parody by the artist.

I personally think the use of parody in this series is hilarious.  It's going on how much american culture has taken a huge liking to Japanese pop culture, and how silly a lot of characters from japanese pop culture are if they were "real".  Because anime is what, from my experience, most american kids are into, there aren't any real people.  There aren't any real actors to like on facebook.  This series I think is making a point of how silly things would look in real life.  I might be wrong.

Martina Lopez

9.- Martina Lopez

Q: Based on Martina’s work, develop the use of memory and narrative in her work.

In her work, it seems that she's taking ordinary pictures, and just incorporating more memories than one in the photographs.  Like in the couple sitting in front of a city with smoke coming out of it, she took a photo of two people, the memory of what they looked like and what they were doing at the time, and mixed it with the memory of where they lived and what their living conditions where like.  This tells a story about more than what just one photo could tell, which is why her manipulated photos relate to a more narrative theme.  Also, the images all seem to be something that could in itself be a still screen from an action movie- there's always something going on.  

Haziz and Cucher

Q: In the series Dystopia, what do you think are the main concepts, in relation to the digital effect and process?


I believe that the main concept has to do with loss of identity, derived from how the people seem to have been complete and detailed at one point,  but now are missing features like eyes and mouthes, but still have some details like noses and freckles and things.  I think the process went as such:  make an entire detailed face, or a complete person, and then take away its identity by generalizing it.  

Here's my map!

My messed up face thing!

I learned how to add pictures! :D

My animation!

I made myself a youtube account and made this!

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

Interesting way of putting things

http://infosthetics.com/archives/2011/10/revealing_the_facebook_social_graph_in_physical_reality.html

I thought this was pretty interesting.  I use facebook at least 25 hours a day, so this relates to me.  It's a  neat interactive map out of how connected people are to each other over facebook.  I would wanna stand on this just to see how well the sixth degree of separation works.  Everybody knows everybody else SOMEHOW.

Denis Darzacq

Q: Construction of meaning: Describe, location (actual) and (social), the age, expression of the body (look for information in reference to the country where the photos where taken), light, etc, and articulate the meaning that you think this series has.


Well, the first thing I did when I looked through the pictures was notice that all of the people in the photos were young, probably in their twenties, and that they were all in a supermarket.  The actual location, obviously, is a supermarket.  The social location I can guess is one of order and structure, and probably a bit of stress.  When ever I think of the super market, I'm reminded of my mom saying "no you don't need those put those back in the right place" or "get off of there you'll break it" or "don't run, this isn't a place where you're supposed to run". There are a lot of rules in supermarkets.  This idea is supported by what the artist wrote at the end of the series, about how his pictures are of how the body defies all of these social norms, or at least is able to if it allows itself to.  This supermarket was probably set in france, where the artist is from.  I can't find any clues in any of the pictures that would suggest otherwise.  
      What I get from the position of the bodies and their age is a sense of rebellion against social norms.  Yes, there are a lot of rules and regulations in a supermarket, like how you're supposed to act and how important it is that you act "normally", because of your community watching you, but these kids in these photos are basically throwing up a big "so what?  I don't care."  The reason that they're flying might be because they're breaking ALL of the social, and physical norms, like gravity. 

Teun Hocks

Q: Could describe how Teun Hocks makes his photos? How may this be linked to the history of his country Holland?


I'm pretty sure Teun uses a camera, photo reference, and photoshop to put together his pieces.  I also think that he uses reference and ideas from fairy tails originating in holland, like the image of him all tied up on the ground, which reminds me of gullavers travels, where all the little people tie him up.  

Erik Johansson

Q: What do you think are the concerns about the environment and landscape in his work? Do you see the influences of Magritte and Escher in his work? Name examples.


The first thing I see when I look at these are a very strong reference to M.C. Escher, with the distorted perspectives and mix-matched things.  I especially see this in the image of the roads with the cars on it going upside up and upside down.  I had to look up who Magritte was, but I also found reference there in the image with the fish with the island on its back.  
   I see concern for the environment in this in the way that in all of the pictures, it seems that humans are the ones doing something to the land.  In the image with the house that was cut in half by scissors cutting up the land, you realize that the woman in the house has a face on that looks like she's saying "Hey, where did my scissors go?"  And in the image of the woman carrying the cloth that is becoming a road across a field, she is actively spreading infrastructure across nature, leaving humans mark on the land.

Map project!

Hello hello!  I wasn't in class last wednesday, I had a fever and I figured that I shouldn't share that with the class.  But I did finish my map project in a way!  Mostly anyway.  I tried to incorporate new software that I didn't know how to use yet, and I couldn't get it to work.  I downloaded lightbox2 and watched a million tutorials and everything, but nope.  But anyway, here's my map.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/269/mapprojec.jpg/

The colored areas are the places I know, and the grey areas are the places that blur in my memory.  Here are some of the photos I took and wanted to make into buttons on the map, but couldn't.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/811/dsc00825b.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/192/dsc00826fa.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/17/dsc00827rr.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/713/dsc00828z.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/441/dsc00829h.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/28/dsc00830cl.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/440/dsc00831c.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/412/dsc00832mc.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20/dsc00833qe.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/11/dsc00834lr.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/443/dsc00835iqg.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/31/dsc00837p.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/6/dsc00838xf.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/51/dsc00839j.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/440/dsc00840c.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/580/dsc00842n.jpg/


I don't know if this will work or not, but I think you can view all of these photos as a slideshow here.
http://img811.imageshack.us/slideshow/webplayer.php?id=dsc00825b.jpg

Psycho Geography

Here we go! This is the map of my small neighborhood where I grew up.  I know every rock and tree in this place, but I couldn't for the life of me tell you any more street names.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/11/dorothys030.jpg/


Also, my meaning for intertexuality would be: The way newer literature shapes the way we understand old literature, or how cultural context effects the way things in the past when there was a different context are seen.

Drop Dead Gorgeous

The question of the week dealt with the artist Daniela Edburg, and her series of picures "drop dead gorgeous".  The question was:

 "In the series Drop Dead Gorgeous, what do you think are then links between the objects, gender, and context?"

I noticed that everyone in this series are female, and are in mainly places where you would expect to find a typical female, for instance in the bathroom, the kitchen, the home in general.  That could be a link between the gender and the context.  The only link that I could think of having to do with the objects is that they are things that people like a lot, and sometimes treasure a little more than they should.  For instance, a certain kind of candy, a certain type of ink,  certain foods ect.
    I suppose what the artist could have been getting at was that in such a mundane world for many females, being trapped into expectations created by their gender, they cling to the few things that they like in life, but sometimes cling a little too hard.  It might have to do with how obsessed some house wives become with simple things, like a certain kind of candy.  I've seen this happen before actually.  Mom mother was a stay at home mom for my brother and I while we were growing up, and we spent a good deal of time in twenty years or so stuck in the house, doing house things.  My mom must have washed dishes and done laundry at least a million times.  I suppose all of these boring and repetitive, almost mind numbingly tedious tasks were rewarded mostly with her own stash of her favorite candy which she would share with nobody, but always seem to be eating.  Her favorite candy happened to be circus peanuts, the little marshmallow peanut candies that you can only find in a few stores anymore.  She would flip whenever she found out that someone had found her candy stash.  That candy was like blood to her.

Map Visualization

Here it is!  My commute on campus from my dorm to my classes.  I feel like I never see my car anymore.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/193/mapgs.jpg/

Response to "Is Google Makign us Stupid?"

I wasn't actually able to find the article in question on the AVT280's blog, but I have a response to this question.  I don't believe that Google would make a person any more or less stupid than using a wrench would.  Google is a tool that actually enhances human productivity and knowledge, it doesn't take any away.  One could have asked the same thing about libraries when they were first created and asked "Are libraries making us stupid?"

I suppose that the biggest issue about the information on google is that it's just handed to us, and that the normal person doesn't have to do much of any research on their own.  That's not a bad thing when the answers to a lot of your questions are found in the same, convenient place.  The one thing one would have to watch out for is invalid information on google, which is entirely plausible.  We just need to keep our senses of what is or isn't plausible about us, and google is pretty much just an upgraded form of a library, which don'e make people progress into stupidity in the least of ways.  

"Buff"

For another class assignment, we were to look at a series by an artist and decide what it was that he was trying to express with it. The images he created were all screenshots or photos from pornography, except the people in the images were taken out, leaving nothing but a white silhouette.  I wrote this in response:

"BUFF"

I feel that the project that the artist that created the works of art for the collection "buff"  could have done what he did the achieve the following things:

• To prove a point about how people who are involved in porn don't want to be there and probably regret their pasts, and wish that they could erase that part of their lives.

• To protect the identity of probably mistreated women in porn, while still respecting that some people think of it as art, with the combination of photography and video work.  

• To make a point of "erasing" pornography in small scale, something that he wishes to bring large scale in order to stop the mistreatment of humans stuck in such a situation in which they would have to resort to such a thing. 

Alexander Apostol

Alexander Apostol, although I can't figure out how to switch his website text to english, so I can only understand a few of the words, is as I understand a really amazing and hard working artist who deals mostly with architecture.  He somehow has the time and money to create whole buildings that don't look inhabitable, but are just there as works of art.  I'm impressed. 

I suppose he works with architecture because it is the most mundane and common of things.  Everyone in the world probably spends most of their time indoors, or at least where I live.  Heck, in academia where I am right now, it's lucky for someone to have enough time to go outside and see the sunshine!  So Alexander takes these most viewed things, and changes them up a bit by making something a little off on them, like a lack of doors, or window panes that don't actually look into a room, which is a little shocking to the viewer and creates extreme interest.  It's like if you walk your dog around the same path every day for years on end, and then suddenly someone had painted the pathway green.  You would surely notice, even though people hardly notice the pathway they walk on.  

His website is http://www.alexanderapostol.com/07_residente.php.  Check it out, there are some really nice pictures there. 

Something I drew:

I really wanna post something that I drew here, but I'm not entirely sure how.
Edit:  I suppose I can just stick it over there in the side margin.  That's my profile picture on Facebook right now, It's how I feel sometimes when say, people are tailgating or something like that.

WELP, this is my first blog.

I hope I'm doing this right.