Connor's+Page

=Spring 2015 Semester, page of Connor Delaney=

//In chronological order.//
Example of Recontextualization / Appropriation

[|Local Business Comedy - Kreezus]

A comedy group rewrote all the lyrics for Kanye West's album "Yeezus" to be Christmas themed and with the help of a Kanye West impersonator re-recorded the album and titled it "Kreezus."

Removal / Recontext Images











Mediated by a Mask Images





Adjustment / Refine Edges Images





AR Project Statement



"Pont Neuf, Paris" by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1872

The painting "Pont Neuf, Paris" by Renoir depicts the oldest bridge in Paris being traversed by the bustling citizenry on a bright afternoon. It was painted by Renoir from the perspective of the second story window of a cafe that overlooked the scene, and captures the brief figures of many people walking by beneath the cafe and crossing the bridge as well as the architecture on the opposite side of the bridge. Above all of this is a bright blue, slightly cloudy sky. The painting was made just following the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War, portraying the activity of the recovering city and country.

Assisting Renoir with this painting was his brother, Edmund Renoir, who at the time was a novice journalist. Edmond later divulged some of the processes that went into the creation of this painting, saying that Renoir had secured the permission to occupy the upper floor of the cafe for one day in order to capture the scene. Edmond also helped with the literal composition of the painting, as he positioned himself on the street below and engaged passersby with brief conversation so that Renoir could quickly take note of their figures and recreate them in the painting. Edmond himself is in fact included in the painting, he is actually featured twice.

This process Renoir underwent to paint Pont Neuf creates an interesting situation as the painting is inherently false. At it's most base level of deception, the painting is meant to show a single instant of activity, which of course is impossible due to the fact that Renoir spent an entire day positioned in the cafe window and that Edmond too spent a large amount of time causing people on the street to pause. It is speculated that if Renoir indeed only had one day to paint from that window, he must have prepared ahead of time by at least blocking out some of the major architecture of the scene. And of course, Edmond being depicted in two distinct locations is physically impossible, so the painting could not represent a single moment. Despite this, it still tries to make the viewer believe it is a short and discrete moment on the bridge, for the shadows of all point in the same direction.

Once it is accepted that this painting is not factual, many details of the composition come under scrutiny. Is Pont Neuf an accurate depiction of the city at all? It is possible that far fewer people passed through the area than the painting would imply? That would certainly undermine the painting's hypothesized intent of showing a recovering post-war society. Or is it possible that Renoir, through inclusions such as painting his brother twice, wants us to notice the impossibilities, and depict a city that that wishes to project the image of recovering much more than it actually is?

It is my belief that augmentations to this painting would be best presented if they emphasized the disingenuous nature of the staging of the scene. Currently there are two depictions of Edmond, but adding more copies of his figure would serve to highlight his presence while also being what is in all likelihood a more realistic recreation of the scene on the street that day. Other staging elements could also be included, such as lighting machines and directors and other crew members, the kind that could be found at a professional photo or video shoot. And on another note, expressing damage done by the recent war in the background or elsewhere out of the center of attention could serve to highlight what the painting is trying to not depict. Wounded soldiers sitting off to the side or structural damage done to the distant buildings may be a lot more genuine to the real state of the country at that time.

Cinemagraph



Augmented Reality Final Product:

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Response to "Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism"

If Krauss had written her paper, "Video: The Aesthetics of Narcissism" within the context of our modern day culture, surely there would be many differences in her argument. The culture around video art in the 1970s was one that had yet to fully develop. Artists were restricted not only by the technological limitations of recording equipment of the time, but they were hampered somewhat by the sheer lack of artistic precedent in the medium of video. Back then, a twenty minute video of a man pointing at the screen was a statement, but now it would merely be an unpopular YouTube submission. Modern video concerns itself much more with the viewer than the creator, striving to be relatable and concise, and can even completely forgo acknowledging the existence of the creator within the content.

Video may very well still be a very narcissistic medium, but now it's about the narcissism of the viewer. An artist creating a video must constantly be on the lookout for excess footage to trim or interesting moments to expound upon all so as to not lose the viewer's attention. The typical viewer values their time enough to cease watching a video midway through if they don't find it entertaining enough, especially when's there is such a glut of alternative videos they could be spending their time on instead. The typical video uploaded to the internet will contain dozens of cuts, sometimes completely removing any pauses in the dialog or action of the film. Viewers exhibit such a drive to consume as much content as they can, so any dead air time included in a movie is very risky to viewer retention rates, even if included purposefully.

Most videos posted to the internet explicitly engage the viewer, encouraging them to rate or comment on the video to drive other viewers to watch it as well. The creators have to literally pander to viewers, because this is the most effective way to increase the traffic to their piece, and thus increase the creator's revenue. Occasionally videos will even include screenshots of specific comments that the video maker is responding to, possibly the most involved a viewer can get without actually being featured.

There are plenty of videos in the modern day that do feature the creator, and there are many internet celebrity-types who build entire careers around the persona they adopt for their videos. There's an entire subset of internet videos in which personalities will record themselves playing through video games, adding nothing but their own reactions and commentary. So to say the creator-centric narcissism is absent would be incorrect, but it certainly is not as prominent as Krauss's original argument would suggest. It's also common for artists to not appear in their work in the slightest, such as in many works of fiction or documentaries. But the shift seems to be clear from transitioning to the focus on the artist to the focus and exalting of the viewer. Instead of showcasing the ego of the subject, to be successful video must now stroke the ego or otherwise enrapture the viewer.

Video Project - Exercise 1 media type="youtube" key="z5lHeo8vyG4" width="560" height="315"

All translations were provided English to Chinese by Google Translate, and with no offense intended towards anyone with knowledge of the Chinese language.

The music featured is Imaginary Friends by Laszlo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXppQviIKCc This song is not copyrighted and thus featured here legally but without express permission, as well as with much appreciation to the song's creator.

Monument Project First Assignment

The first idea I had was to literally remove the bottom ~6 feet of the Washington Monument, so that it would not touch the ground. Then, have actual visitors to the monument take turns holding the structure aloft. Below is a picture I took that I tried to draw onto, but the resolution was too poor.

Here is a sketch on paper I did to represent how the idea would look up close.

This idea is to put many statues in front of the Vietnam Memorial of visitors viewing the memorial. I think that sometimes our country falls into the pattern of obsessing over the sacrifices of our past, and this idea alludes to that by memorializing not just the fallen soldiers of the war, but also all the people paying respects.

This idea is not dependent on a particular part of the mall necessarily, though I do (I had taken some shots of different potential areas, but ultimately decided the best place would be farther east of the mall where I hadn't taken any pictures. Regardless, this idea is a sculpture that is mostly two dimensional. When viewed from the North or the South, it portrays an image a lot like a mural, with the subject being various ways people are unhappy or suffering in the world and country today. When viewed from the West or the East, which notably is how it would be viewed if one was at the Capitol building, one would only see the edges of this piece, and ideally it would blend in with the Washington Monument off in the background. To explain the sketch some, the above design is a very rough draft but it has four distinct things going on. In the bottom left is a figure being checked by a policeman with a metal detector. In the bottom right and along the right edge is a figure laying atop a large stack of money, with a panhandler sitting on the ground beneath him. In the middle is a figure balled up and crouched over, trying to protect himself from the punches being thrown at him by the two figures looming above. And lastly, in the top left is just a big face with an agonized expression. A lot of the negative space in this piece, which is to say space between the figures and such, would have no material to represent any kind of canvas this work was on. The negative space would be see-through, in other words. The bottom right of the sketch shows a map of the mall with an approximate location for the piece, and the bottom left shows a diagram attempting to illustrate the multiple angles of view.

"Selfies" as requested.

Museum Room Exercise