Will+Bell+Fall+2017

=Augmented Reality Project=

=Augmented Reality Response= I think smartphone-based augmented reality is an exciting frontier. Smartphones are widely used across the world, and augmented reality technology is improving very rapidly, so this technology could be widely mainstream in the very near future. I think this technology will offer us mostly good things. Augmented reality could be used in many different was on a smartphone as a tool for productivity, entertainment, and information. Imagine you’re in a foreign city and you aren’t familiar with their language. You don’t know what any of the signs say, so you pull out your smartphone and point your camera toward the signs. Your phone can instantly translate those signs into your language, so you can easily navigate around this new foreign country. It can be used to help you navigate directions, plan decorations for a room, play Pokémon Go, or just create beautiful art. There are tons of ways that augmented reality can benefit us. It allows us to use our smartphone as a tool in a new dimension. It makes the screen less flat, and makes you more interactive with your environment. Many activities could gain another “layer” or “dimension” with augmented reality. Daily activities like shopping, driving, and cooking could all be made easier with smartphone-based AR.

I do see how there could be some downsides to the widespread use of augmented reality. My first concern is a concern of privacy. If the whole world around us is being monitored and altered by cameras, thats when I start to get a little nervous. If everyone was walking down the street with smart-glasses that allowed them to record their point of view, no one would have any sort of privacy. Augmented reality makes me worried about facial recognition technology too, with cameras and computers learning and memorizing your face. I think that the government and the people have to figure out some new laws about net neutrality, facial recognition, and personal technological privacy before the use of augmented reality becomes widely used.

It also makes me worry that humans, as a whole, will become more attached to their phones, and not in a good way. In general, people are very attached to their phones right now, and many think that we don’t take in the world enough. One could argue that the spread of augmented reality will make us less likely to interact with the world around us, because we will be looking at the world through the lens of our phone. But it can also be argued that AR makes us more interactive with our environment by using that very technology. The summer that Pokémon Go came out, there were more people than ever walking about outdoors and interacting with their world. In that situation, augmented reality allowed people to use their phone as a tool to help them explore their world around them, and I think that is exactly what technology should do. It shouldn’t take over our world and make us less developed, it should be used as a tool to help us benefit our lives and become more intelligent, and I think augmented reality will help us do that. = = =Cinemagraph Exercise= == =Old, New, Borrowed, Blue=



Added color/makeup Changed hairstyle Added tiara Added pearls Added bracelets Added corset Added bottom part of dress, blended to create one singular dress Added floral pattern to shirt Added dog Added trash bag Added shadows Lighting /shadows Added sunbeams

=Response to Krauss's //The Aesthetics of Narcissism//= In this text, Krauss is arguing that narcissism is the medium of video. She explains how video art depends heavily on the artist and performer and what they bring to the piece. In paintings, the medium is paint and a paintbrush. In videos, especially the performance art videos that Krauss describes, the raw emotions of a human are used as a way of creating the art. Krauss describes many works that fit this definition, with artists using video to create art about self-reflection and narcissism. In Vito Acconci’s “Centers”, he is pointing at the screen/viewer as if he is staring at his own reflection. Works like these support Krauss’s argument that video is inherently narcissistic - they depend heavily on the performer and what they personally bring to the piece. Krauss’s argument in 2017 would be a lot different than in 1976. I think her definition of “video” as a whole would be completely different from the way she thinks about it in this text. The concept of video has evolved a major amount since the 70’s. For one thing, everyone has a video camera in their pocket now. An incredible amount of people can create videos now, with millions and millions of videos being shared every day. I think the Krauss’s argument still holds up in these conditions. Although the technology and accessibility around video has changed, Krauss’s argument that “narcissism is the medium of video” can still be applied to the digital age. Now that everyone is creating videos, the genre as a whole has probably become more narcissistic.

I disagree with Krauss when she assumes that the artists performing in videos are always being genuine to themselves. A big part of her narcissism argument assumes that the behavior of the person on screen is being genuine. I think acting has a big part to do with the videos she described, and I don’t think she recognized that in this text. Video as a genre today relies heavily on “reality”, the most popular TV shows and video media shared on the internet are based entirely on reality. Krauss would also probably have something to say about the phenomenon of the iPhone and Snapchat. Every day, the younger generation of the world is creating and sharing millions of videos of themselves. This is making an entire generation focus heavily on their appearance, which is creating a more literal narcissism, where we become obsessed with our own appearance, especially in these videos. Every day, I probably watch over 100 videos, from 5 seconds long to 10 minutes long. Like most people in my generation, we are consuming the genre of video at a rate never seen before, so Krauss’s argument from the 1970’s has limits in that sense. We are becoming more and more dependent and obsessed with the technology, which isn’t completely a bad thing – the personal video camera that we all have in our pockets allows us to fulfill our narcissistic needs by creating endless videos of ourselves and of others.

=New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image - September 26, 2017=

Yesterday, I made the trip to the Smithsonian American Art Museum to visit the exhibit “Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image”. The exhibit is small, just a few pieces, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. The exhibit used videos, sounds, and many moving images on various screens that made you really think about each piece. None of them had a clear meaning, but the weirdness of each ‘moving image’ made each of them extremely hypnotizing. My favorite piece was the room that had 3 walls, each with big projections on them. A strange film was playing with beautiful music in the background. I sat there and watched this piece for probably about 10 minutes. I think the artists are trying to make you think differently about art and its limitations. We are exposed to ‘moving images’ every day, on our phones and screens, so it was very interesting to see these screens in the context of an art gallery.



=Homework 1 - September 6, 2017=

Copyright and fair use laws have never been a particular interest of mine, and it's something I don’t know a lot about, so this was an interesting read for me. I did not know about the complex levels of laws and rules that go into fair use, especially in the art world.

The first pop culture example I thought of was the case against Robin Thicke by the Marvin Gaye estate, who sued Thicke because his song “Blurred Lines” sounded very similar to Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up”. I remember hearing a lot about this case, because Thicke heavily sampled Gaye’s song and did not give him any credit.

Another example I can think of is on TV and in movies, the characters never seem to sing “Happy Birthday” when its someones birthday, they always find a different song or another way to do it. I had heard that the “Happy Birthday” song was copyrighted from decades ago, so many TV shows and movies choose not to feature the song. This is when I personally draw the line on where I think copyright laws are fair. I believe that artists should be allowed to use something as basic as “Happy Birthday” in their work. Personally, I think any piece of art, music, or film should become public domain after 75 years. That would allow for the creation of so much beautiful art, while still respecting the work of the creator.

Personally, I don't ever worry about copyright laws when I create art because my work isn't professional, so no company cares about suing me. When messing around on Photoshop making art, I love to use pop-culture images, logos, and many other things that do not fall under fair use.

Good appropriation is taking inspiration from work, and allowing yourself to create your own work from that. Bad appropriation is when the artist steals from another artist, without crediting them as inspiration. Its hard to define what is plagiarism when it comes to art, because art is such a creative and fluid concept. You can borrow ideas and concepts in art without it being plagiarism, but you have to draw a line somewhere on where borrowing inspiration becomes stealing ideas.

An example of bad appropriation would be - Artist A paints a dog wearing a tutu, and Artist B sees that painting and paints the exact dog in a tutu again, and calls it his own. An example of good appropriation would be Artist B seeing the painting, and putting a cat in a tutu or a different dog in another weird outfit, and crediting Artist A for inspiration.

For this semester, I will try to use images that I took myself or images that are under public domain. I suppose the easiest way to create original work is to take my own photographs as much as I can when I am working on a piece. Whenever I want to use pop-culture images or some work that is not my own, I will do my best to find images that fall under fair use.

= **Exercise 1 Presence/Absence - September 8, 2017** =