VISA 0120 Foundations Media: Computation + Art

Link to PDF: Faunce Arch Day

On Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 12-2 p.m., Jina, Rhianna and I had 50 surveys completed regarding Faunce Arch Day (FAD).

The questions were:

1. On average, how often do you pass through Faunce Arch in a week?

never rarely once a few times daily multiple times a day

2. Do you ever stop to think about the arch as you pass through it?

Yes No

3. Do you think of Faunce Arch as a public space?

Yes No

4. Do you think Faunce Arch is underappreciated?

Yes No

5. Do you like the idea of ‘Faunce Arch Day’ to celebrate the arch?

Love it Sounds Fun That’d Be Okay Erm, what? No That’s ridiculous I hate it

6. Would you come to ‘Faunce Arch Day’?

Yes No

The Results of our Survey

According to our experiment of doing a survey under and nearby Faunce arch, most of the people tended to pass by the arch at least few times a week, most of them passing through the arch daily or even multiple times a day. More people never stopped to think about the arch as they passed through it. (31 didn’t and 19 did) A pretty surprising result as we were not expecting any people at all to have thought about the arch. Approximately 4 out of 5 people thought of Faunce Arch as a public space, and thought that the Faunce Arch is underappreciated. According to some people, doing our experiment(the survey), actually helped them rethink about and appreciate Faunce Arch more. Most people were either excited for or confused about the idea of ‘Faunce Arch Day’ to celebrate the arch, but no one hated the idea. 70% of the people who filled out the survey said they would or might come to ‘Faunce Arch Day’.

Our Final Conclusions:

It is important to note that the blue bars are from the surveys taken under Faunce Arch, whilst the red bars are the ones taken on the Main Green. Conclusions drawn from this survey:
• The majority of students pass through Faunce Arch with some degree of frequency.
• Although most don’t stop to think about the arch as they pass through, more than a third of them do.
• There is general consensus that it is a public space, although interestingly the fraction of students asked under Faunce Arch who see it as private (~1/3) is significantly larger than that of those who were asked on the Main Green (~1/6).
• The majority of students (78%) think Faunce Arch is underappreciated.
• There were mixed reactions to the idea of Faunce Arch Day, but the two most frequent responses were ‘Sounds fun’ and ‘Erm, what?’, suggesting that most people saw it either as a good event or else were just confused by the idea. There were also a fair number of people who thought it would be ‘okay’.
• Nearly twice as many people said they’d come to Faunce Arch Day as those who said they wouldn’t.
• Those who took the survey under Faunce Arch were significantly more willing to attend Faunce Arch Day.

After making some correlations between two of the questions, further conclusions were drawn:
• The majority of people who think it is underappreciated would come to Faunce Arch Day (and vice versa). There is no correlation between those who don’t think it’s underappreciated and wouldn’t come to Faunce Arch Day.
• The majority of students asked under Faunce Arch who think that Faunce Arch Day ‘sounds fun’ pass through it multiple times a day.
• There is no relation between those who think of this as a public space and those who think it is underappreciated.
• All of the students asked under Faunce Arch who pass through it daily think that it is underappreciated.
• Except the points stated above, there was no clear correlation between the frequency with which students passed through the arch and there answers on any of the other questions.

Here are some photos from the experiment:

Daniel and I (The Cheez-Its) created a piece entitled “Navigation Animation.” The piece is an interactive game where the viewer uses the Wiimote to navigate a ball around obstacles (geometric shapes).

My final project for assignment 7 – On My Own Time 3.0 is a program which allows the user to use “magnetic poetry” to rearrange the last two stanza’s of one of my favorite poems, “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. Originally, the words I chose had no personal meaning, but in this final product, the user can take this already written poem and translate for themselves the words into a new poem. This poem relates to the concept of “On My Own Time,” which is my stop-motion animation, which this project was based on. The poem is about choosing one’s own path, which is a concept I feel strongly about, and I hope this program will allow the viewers to be able to create their own poem, and ultimately create their own path, and follow it on their own time.

I plan on creating an interactive artwork using Processing that re-interprets the concept from my previous piece “On My Own Time.” I plan on focusing in the idea of learning how to read. I want to use similar imagery, such as letters, but this time using complete words. Inspired by magnetic poetry, I want to create in interactive piece which allows the viewer to move words (contained in small rectangles) to create sentences out of them. I am not exactly sure how I will execute this project, as I still am learning the basics of Processing. I am going to experiment with the different techniques we’ve learned and try to figure out some new ones.

This is my experimental self portrait. Using simple geometric shapes, I attempted to render my physical characteristics. I have never used Processing before, and though this piece is very elementary, I am proud to have created it and I feel I learned something new.

Paul McCarthy - Born 1945,  Salt Lake City,  USA.

Cover of Lisa Phillips’ biography, “Paul McCarthy”

An artist relevant to my work is Paul McCarthy, a contemporary artist, from Los Angeles, California. This painter, sculptor, video, performance and multi-media artist often uses the body as a paintbrush or canvas. McCarthy explores themes of family, childhood, violence and dysfunction, as he incorporates bodily fluids and food into his pieces to create elaborate and grotesque critiques of cultural icons. (www.vdb.org/) 

McCarthy aimed to test the limits of the viewer, and ultimately wants to repulse them. In a 1974 video, Painting, “Wall Whip”, he painted with his head and face, “smearing his body with paint and then with ketchup, mayonnaise or raw meat and, in one case, feces.” (Roberta Smith, May 1998, The New York Times Art Review). Another video of his in this vein is “Class Fool,” his 1976 piece in which he throws himself around a classroom splattered in ketchup until he becomes dizzy and vomits. He then inserts a Barbie doll into his rectum.

 “My work is more about being a clown than a shaman”- Paul McCarthy (Petersen, Magnus “Head Shop/Shop Head”, Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, 2006, p.20)

My video, “Chewing 2.0”, relates to McCarthy’s work. My concept is to create a video where time appears to be changing. “Chewing”, or eating in general, can be a leisurely activity or a rushed necessity. Food is needed to be consumed in order to live, and needs to be included on a daily basis, whether one appreciates it, or dreads it. “Chewing 2.0” is a second version of the concept. I used the same idea of filming people chewing, but added a few elements. Like McCarthy, I decided to make it more graphic and grotesque, to highlight the inherent barbaric and gluttonous nature of eating. This time, I both sped up and slowed down the footage. I also decided to focus on sound, as I added the ugly sounds of chewing and swallowing. The eaters listen to Jimmy Buffet’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” to highlight the significance of food as a means of attaining a sense of fullness, pleasure, and fullness (physically and mentally).

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“Bubbles”

Blowing bubbles, one of my favorite activities as a child, is a magical and calming. This past time is not typical for young adults, but my video is meant to show the viewer that in the fast-paced adult world, with responsibility and stress, this childhood activity can be calming and stress relieving. The use of FinalCut to slow down the footage helps convey this concept.

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“Chewing”

The process of eating and chewing is one that is often rushed. My concept was to show chewing at a hyper speed that appears to be very unattractive. The viewer is meant to realize that inhaling food and not taking the time to enjoy and savor it is not (and does not look) ideal.

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“Play Time”

“Play Time” is a more abstract video, where I played with store-bought toys. Toys can be used as a “time waster,” and in this video, I play with a metal needle impresser and a wind up plastic toy. These silly games lead an unfortunate accident at the end of the video. The concept is to convey a mindless result of entertainment, at the cost of what may seem like a purposeless waste. Sometimes the loss of precious time is worth a laugh or two.

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My animation reflects my approach to time, which includes the notion of doing things at my own pace. This is my second version of the animation for the time unit, and I decided to depict a more personal issue. As a child, I had a very hard time learning how to read. My concept embraces the revelation I had, which was that I could not rush the process, and that if I just took my time and practiced, it would eventually click, and I could “dive in” to the adventures of reading.