VISA 0120 Foundations Media: Computation + Art

A big thanks to Jeff and Cati for contributing their time and expertise today and congratulations to all students on a productive Wiimote/Processing workshop. It was good to see you all creating coherent sketches by the end of our class.

I will send out a schedule for next week’s meetings in the next day or so. As for your assignment, please complete the following by Wed 4/29.

1. Assignment #8: See below for details
2. Continue working on your final project. (This is crucial!)
3. Upload an image, title, artists’ names and text to the blog, describing your Wiimote sketches and bring an applet folder to our next class using the convention “yourname_wii” as the folder and applet name.
4. Read Nicolas Bourriaud – Relational Aesthetics (excerpt) 1998
Although we will not have time to discuss this reading as a group, it will give you a good theoretical background of contemporary art practice that engages people in the public sphere.

Assignment #8 Make a PDF for your final project

Please prepare an one-page PDF for your project including the following elements by next class (Wed 4/29). Publish the PDF on the blog.

- your name
- title of the project
- abstract (1+ paragraph)
- visual representation that you have made (sketch, diagram, photo)
- a link to your work on the blog

This PDF will be given to our guest reviewer. These elements can be derived from work that you have done for your project so far, but must reflect what you will show in the Final review.

In the final project for Foundations Media: Computation + Art we will develop projects engaging public space.

During the course so far, we have focused on building skills and techniques related to time-based and interactive artistic practice. These skills include various methods like collage, montage, video, sound, blogging, and simple interactive programming. Now, each of you will have the opportunity put some of these new skills to use in the development of an independent final project for the course.

The final project will be to create a work of art in a public place that addresses the physical/virtual, psychological and social dimensions of a specific site. You will be asked to research various public sites in order to locate an appropriate context within which to respond. Consideration of the political and ethical implications of working in a public area will be central to the development of the project. Consider how people interactive and participate in your work. Document your project with still images, video and other means, as appropriate.

Your final projects may take the form of an installation, performance, projection, video documentation of a public action, or an online game or interactive work.

Note: Working in public necessitates considerations of safety, permission, and weather. Design your project with these in mind. You may work on your own or in collaboration with other classmates.

Exercise #1: Site analysis
Using drawing, collage or any other appropriate means, explain one aspect of a public space of your choice. Your investigation can focus on use, navigation, distribution, rhythm, air flow, temperature, sound, emotional qualities, color, etc. (no text). The results will be discussed in the classroom, so choose a site which is close.

Key Dates
Apr 15 – Project proposals due (Prepare a 5-10 slide Keynote or PowerPoint presentation with site analysis and sketches of idea and be prepared to present this in class.)
Apr 22 – Experiment
Apr 29 – Individual Meetings
May 6 – Final Review + Documentation due

Readings:
Nicolas Bourriaud – Relational Aesthetics (excerpt) 1998

As promised, here is the sample code, including the class Spot, that we worked up in class today. It will help you figure out how to create your own classes of objects for your pieces.

DUE APRIL 8
Assignment #7 Translate it is due next week AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS. (Sorry for the change, but I realized that we will need the ENTIRE session to review your work.)

Plan to spend at least 8-10 hours in this assignment prior to next Wednesday.

Be prepared to hand me a flash drive with your exported applet and the corresponding folder and files at 3pm SHARP. Also, be prepared to give a title and a couple of sentences to describe the work.

I will be available in the MML from 1-3pm in case you have any last minute bugs. If you would like help during that time, let me know and I will schedule appointments in 15 minute slots until all slots are filled. Be aware that 15 minutes is a very small amount of time, so be sure that your sketches are practically done before you see me.

Your next assignment will be due April 8 (our second class after Spring Break), however you will be required to complete part of it for class on April 1. See the description below for detailed instructions:

Create an artwork using Processing that re-interprets a concept from one of your previous pieces. Pick your favorite piece from a previous VISA 0120 assignment. Reflect, reconsider and distill your original concept. What worked and what didn’t about the original piece? What can you do better? Now consider how you will translate this concept into an interactive artwork using computation as your medium.

Due prior to class on April 1:

• post to the blog: a hand-drawn diagram (on paper) plotting how you might execute this work
• post to the blog (together with your diagram): a short paragraph explaining your concept and your strategy for translating it
• bring to class: a working Processing sketch as an initial prototype. Keep this simple and try to limit the frustration. The purpose of this sketch is to keep you fluid in the medium. Test out concepts we learned in class: datatypes and nested for loops.)

Also DUE April 1:
Please publish a screenshot of your portrait (applet) on the blog with a good title and a sentence about the piece. Add a link to the applet itself using the following convention. (This should work as I have uploaded all of your webpages with applets to the blog for you. Just be sure that you delete the space after both “<" in the code.)

< a href="http://camp-er.net/teaching/sp09/foundations/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/yourname_portrait/index.html">Title of My Piece< /a>

DUE 3/18

Create a self portrait using the Processing programming language, as we learned in class. Your self portraits can be realistic or abstract and conceptual. Your pieces may be static, dynamic or interactive. You may use color, but please use it sparingly.

Once you have created and tested your programs, export them using the Processing Export feature. Rename the directory using the convention “yourname_portrait”. Then put the entire applet directory and its contents on an external or flash drive. Be prepared to give me your drive at the beginning of our next class.

Good luck!

DUE MARCH 4

Write a blog post (with an image and proper credits) about an artist relevant to your work. Here are some suggestions: Daniel: Alfredo Jaar; Michael: Kader Attia, Verner Hertzog (Short Films), Bruce Nauman; Jina: Joan Jonas (Mirror Check), Paul Pfieffer, Yoko Ono (Cut Piece); Shane: Miranda July, Linklater; Jinsol: Maya Deren, Alfred Hitchcock (for cinematic cuts); Lissa: Erkki Kurenniemi, David Claerbout; Sean: Dan Graham, David Lynch (early works), Rhianna: Pipilotti Rist, Christian Jankowski; Diane: Pipilotti Rist, VALIE EXPORT, Paul McCarthy; Isabel: Stan Douglas (Nu•tka•, Television Spots / Monodramas ); Han Yang: Kurt Kren, Martin Arnold; Marlee: Chantal Ackerman

Watch your videos again several times. Ask yourself what worked and what didn’t? What intrigues you about this concept? Now pick the most compelling concept that you developed in one of your three one-minute videos based on your reflections and in-class critique. Write a paragraph describing your concept and how you will choose to address it in your new video. Include this description with your ‘artist’ blog post (as outlined above). Email the group for extra feedback if you are unsure what to focus on.

Make a new ONE-MINUTE (EXACTLY) video focused on your chosen concept. PLEASE USE ALL NEW FOOTAGE. The other parameters are the same as for the last piece:

Use as material for your video your physical self in space, possibly in relation to objects, props, processes or movements. Sound MUST be self generated. You may use drawings, but only as a prop. You MAY NOT shoot your film in your dorm or dorm room.

Save a high (for in class viewing) and low resolution version (for blog) and upload your piece with a title and one sentence description to the blog prior to the start of class.

Publication excerpt

The Museum of Modern Art, MoMA Highlights, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, revised 2004, originally published 1999

Meshes of the Afternoon is one of the most influential works in American experimental cinema. A non-narrative work, it has been identified as a key example of the “trance film,” in which a protagonist appears in a dreamlike state, and where the camera conveys his or her subjective focus. The central figure in Meshes of the Afternoon, played by Deren, is attuned to her unconscious mind and caught in a web of dream events that spill over into reality. Symbolic objects, such as a key and a knife, recur throughout the film; events are open-ended and interrupted. Deren explained that she wanted “to put on film the feeling which a human being experiences about an incident, rather than to record the incident accurately.”

Made by Deren with her husband, cinematographer Alexander Hammid, Meshes of the Afternoon established the independent avant-garde movement in film in the United States, which is known as the New American Cinema. It directly inspired early works by Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, and other major experimental filmmakers. Beautifully shot by Hammid, a leading documentary filmmaker and cameraman in Europe (where he used the surname Hackenschmied) before he moved to New York, the film makes new and startling use of such standard cinematic devices as montage editing and matte shots. Through her extensive writings, lectures, and films, Deren became the preeminent voice of avant-garde cinema in the 1940s and the early 1950s.

via MoMA.org | The Collection | Maya Deren. Meshes of the Afternoon. 1943.

Since 1996, Claerbout has explored the boundaries and overlaps between video and still photography, blurring the line between the still and the moving image. He digitizes found photographs and then introduces moving elements, and with them, time. He also uses digital video to create mini-narratives set in buildings or urban spaces that play on the changing light and passage of time to interrogate “the substance of time.”

Influenced by phenomenology, David Claerbout has developed a body of work that challenges our habitual perceptions, testing the limit of all forms of visual reproduction in his endeavor to transport reality. “I belong to a generation of artists that has problems with the aura of the art object, and that’s why I work in a medium, digital video, historically associated with mass culture,” says the artist.

Caption: David Claerbout, Sections of a Happy Moment, 2007, Yvon Lambert, Paris/New York; Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Anvers; Hauser & Wirth, Zurich/London; Johnen/Schöttle, Cologne/Berlin/Munich

via David Claerbout | List Visual Arts Center.

Erkki Kurenniemi (b. 1940)

Electronics in the World of Tomorrow (1968)

via U B U W E B – Film & Video: Erkki Kurenniemi – Electronics in the World of Tomorrow (1968).