Finalfinalfinal ever DigiPro class post.

Mapping Anticipated Carpal Tunnel

I was at work when I generated this idea. Playing the game of Flow during break. It was hard not to notice the patterns left on my screen by my fingers. Thinking of all the different patterns that come up with individual activities, I began finding ways to transfer the finger prints/marks to become digital inkjet prints.

 I used non-dairy creamer powder and cinnamon to stick to the greasy fingerprints I left on my phone. Then using clear packing tape I lifted the prints and smears off the phone. Using the film scanner, I was able to successfully transform the marking left by my fingers into a digital image. I put the scans into photoshop and began playing around with them. Inverting them was a great choice. The final images look very galaxy-like, which is relaxing and aesthetically pleasing to me. 

I asked other people to allow me to use their prints on their phones too. Their phones were as not easy to lift prints from or they just took my phone and started messing with it. 

This project was extremely fun to put together. I chose not to post all the digital files of the work online because I want to preserve the physical value of the prints. The way they were generated was based on physical marks and their preservation will be through the prints I create. 

Carpal Tunnel... unfortunate. It is the possible future of the avid cell phone user. 

Ok, I posted one but only because its title is "Facebook."

Oh my, but what would Bourriaud say? 

Well. He may say that I was extracting human prints from technology much like foot prints are found in archaeological excavations. Maybe. Documenting our life in the present, so in the future we can know what went wrong?

Tyler

More for the video!

 Day clothing and putting on lipstick

Mix in some sporty clothing.

A successful photo shoot.

Final DigiPro Project for Spring Term 2014

Drinks and Drawing

Drawing Games Played in Bars

The content of my piece will be drawing games people play with their friends in bars (or when hanging out in general).

I picked a few games such as scribble drawing. corpse, and paper telephone. 

I will get together a group of people in the Viking Room (more than just once).

We will play the games over drinks (alcoholic or not).

I will focus the camera on our hands, the artwork, and the interactions between people during the games.

I will produce images, video, and sound from the time together.

I have thought about including a bit about drinking games played in people's homes rather in public. 

Card games

Beer Pong (I am not very excited about this one)

Drinking games while watching TV shows.

A second idea: 

This artist lives a very different lifestyle than myself.
Hip Hop artists such as Tyler, The Creator and Macklemore live soberly.
I find work of artists who are sober very attractive. I live quite the opposite lifestyle.
How would it affect my art? How would it influence my creative flow?

Pamela? Vivian? Bannos? Maier?

Mapsmapsmaps

What happens when an artist keeps their talent a secret? 

What happens when creativity hides away in boxes?

Pamela unleashes mundane, teen-level photographs into the world and people smile.

Vivian Maier. She archived her pictures and decided not to share.

Pamela heard of the prints, keep it a secret she not dare.

This post is appropriately short as I feel like I paralleled the effort and work that Pamela put into her project proportionately to what was asked of me. 

Noritoshi Hirakawa

“The sexual revolution is over, the Puritans have won.”

-Noritoshi Hirakawa

Noritoshi Hirakawa’s work is relational in its social context and relevance to contemporary culture. He wants to encourage a shift in the viewers concept of sexuality in our culture, specifically in the aesthetics of depictions of nudity.

In the above project he uses trained dancers in order to promote ideas of desire and power.  This project was one a few collections that is meant to humanize and sexualize architecture. The people interacting within the buildings make it sexual

These types of models understand body movement and the connections with sexuality, emotion and intimacy that exposing difference curves can catalyze in an audience. He wants to use his camera to connect men’s and women’s desires as opposed to just using the camera to depict men’s desires for women. 

 In this photo, he puts the subject into the public space to capture a private part of her. It’s relational in the subject's way of exposing herself in public. She was in control of the camera taking this photo as Noritoshi took another picture from afar of her photographing herself. 

Aesthetics. Relational.

What's more relational than bar tending and drinking at a bar?

The collaborative piece, Serving and Drinking at a Bar, is short how-to video on ordering drinks and drinking them at a bar. The video speaks beyond the simple Can-I-have-a-Bud-Light-Yeah-here-ya-go exchange between patron and bartender but also to larger topics of bar and drinking etiquettes. The video starts with me asking for a Bud Light and taking unnecessarily long swigs from it, followed with Amber ordering a whiskey lemonade and sipping appropriately. In some cases, people must compromise in bars. Many places won't have ginger ale, but will make it on the fly by mixing a type of cola with a citrus soda. In our video, our bar does not have just lemonade, but raspberry lemonade. Though this is not a huge difference, people like what they like and don't like to stray. With perfect poise, Amber decides to switch it up and try something slightly new. This is not to say that one should short themselves in getting the drink they want in bars, however, there are times to complain and times to mix up the taste palette. Seasoned bartenders know what they are doing and work hard for tips, so, most of the time, they aren't going to mess with you getting your drink on and try to give reasonable alternatives when they don't have your specific concoction available. 

In proper etiquette, I then offer a round of tequila shots for the entire studio on the house, in order to  encourage the class to become part of our already collaborative project. Without the class participation, the piece would not have been successful.  Amber and I were relying on the assumptions that 1) people in the audience like tequila 2) they enjoy taking shots and 3) they would be up for taking a tequila shot while being video and audio recorded. This segment on the larger scale displays artists coming together on a whim and willingness to contribute their creativity. Relying on audience participation and creative input in contemporary art is part of a type of art known as relational art, which is discussed thoroughly throughout Nicolas Bourriaud's, Relational Aesthetics. Amber and my piece may at first seem like a normal art video, but it becomes clear in the latter half of the recording that we were relying on the audience to be and create the more raw art piece.

 It also minisculy demonstrates how people take tequila shots differently.  Though there is already the instructional salt, tequila, lime guideline on American drinking culture's radar, some people display supplemental behaviors such as hitting the table with the shot glass before drinking it, "cheers-ing" with others, and just slamming it and walking away. As long as the mess isn't too bad, I am sure however one completes this ritual as a right of passage into the American drinking culture is probably doing it just fine.

One of many Brosie drinks: Makers Mark with Raspberry Lemonade and limes

Try This: Experimenting with Gender Norms

I have an official draft of my video for the senior art exhibition piece!

Try This: Experimenting with Gender Norms

And check out This photo set!

These photos are from the previously mentioned photo shoots that work to challenge bi-modal gender norms.

I had four participants plus myself. Three of them identify as cis-gendered and the other prefers male pronouns but has played within the gender spectrum. The photos display how one may begin exploring various genders' clothing and behaviors, more specifically as a young adult. I first worked with the participants as the directing artist. I had them change from the clothes they came to the project in clothes of the opposite end of the gender spectrum. Two of the men put on makeup; one as an amateur and the other had much more experience. After their shoots, I asked two of them to become the director of the shoot and I became the participant. I brought multiple types of clothing and makeup for them work with as part of the shoot.

The biggest challenges I experienced were actually technology malfunctions. A lot of hardships come from that.