Project 2.

On to project two! Appropriation…..

With the eharmony thing started, project two is taking shape.  Soon I’m going to make a page to place all the images from the evolving project, so they can all be located in one spot, with a more thorough discussion and dissection of my ideas here on the main page.

I think.

Here’s how I’ll be progressing:  Recreate webpages in such a way as to make fun of them, society at large, or just be childish (hey, gotta be good at something!) In a second part of project 2, I will learn a new photoshop technique that creates graffiti by way of affecting font…not sure how it works yet, but it’s bookmarked!  I’ll be learning soon.  As the graffiti text comes to shape I will then place it over prominent webpages, combining the graffiti you’d see on a fence or billboard in physical space, with the online images you’d see of those same things.

The third and final piece to project two (if at all possible) is to create a flash app of some sort where users can actually draw.  This will allow them to create their own graffiti on different webpages that I provide.  The graffiti they can create will not be very robust, nor will the drawing program, but it gets the point across.

I think.

gatt

Check out GATT as an example of what the yesmen have done to display their critique or unethical organizations like the WTO. Compare with the actual WTO website. Some of the colors have changed, but things are similar. It’s essentially a ground-up rebuilding and fully functional site.

I just want to capture and deface already existing web images.

~J

unHarmony

In the latest evolution of my project, I’ve decided to follow closely in the footsteps of the Yesmen, and recreate sites. Now, I doubt my final incarnations will have full-site or multi-page functionality, but it’ll be fun anyway.

I’m recreating sites to add social commentary to pop-culture, but the thing is — the Yesmen take things so seriously, and have real political goals. I just want to be sarcastic and smarmy. So below, take a look at unHarmony. Comments encouraged and welcomed.

Tactical Media

One of my favorite things about art (as I’ve mentioned before) is the whole activist and protest style of things. I love the way you can make a statement with graphics — it really shows that as an artist (and a person) that you’re really stellar at (or exceptionally lucky at) producing something that really connects with people.

Now, part of me doesn’t really care at all whether it’s some form of social or political protest, advocacy activism, or simply trying to make people uncomfortable, but I tend to like it all. Or at least I like the idea of doing it all. So when I heard about tactical media, I was super excited. Info about it Here at Wikipedia.

It’s been compared to culture jamming which, aside from also sounding particularly cool, is based upon the principle of trying to either steal or inhabit space normally occupied by mass media — you know, jam culture transmissions. Rad.

Wikipedia (which is never wrong) says that a slogan often adopted by tactical media participants and activists is “don’t hate the media, become the media.” So what we’re now talking about is essentially being the media for subversive purposes. Daddy like. I work in media, I should be able to figure this out. I desperately want to abandon my original project idea, especially after doing some research about subversive/alternative/activist/tactical media. I really love the idea of culture jamming if for no other reason than, if on a minute scale, it makes it harder for establishment to tell people what to do. I hate it when establishment tells me what to do if for no other reason than I question their motives. In some sense, and in some cases I suppose my motives and their motives could be similar or even identical — but at least mine are mine.

So that being said, I really love the idea of abandoning my project and trying to figure out how best to venture into a world of tactical media to cause disruption. I suppose for this I need to venture into the world of The YesMen. I’ll try not to copy them, or step on the toes of others in the class venturing on the same lines…but to me that seems right now to be my best option.

~J

Storytelling

I love storytelling, man.  It’s so much fun.  I love all the forms it comes in.

I especially love the way everyone can interpret art in their own way, or situations in their own way, or even static stories their own way in order to tell a different story each time — a story that speaks to them more than the one anyone else tells.

So I’m not sure exactly what to do for this project I’m working on.  I’m trying to create an image collage of sorts to allow for some interactive art where people can tell their own story by interpreting an image I put together.  Though one of my favorite things about art is social disruption (peaceful.)  So how do I do that?

No freaking idea.  But here are some basic images I’ve started appropriating so far.

So it’s not so much appropriating other net artists, but more appropriating the works of others as filtered through google searches for terms related to storytelling, then changing them in a way that makes me think of stories (the wispy outline) then allowing users to employ one of the greatest phenomenons the Internet has spawned: commenting, to tell their own story.

The dude abides.

So I says to myself

What am I really interested in art-wise?  This blog, being for class, has to serve some ultimate purpose — yes?

Do research…find out fun things about artists, expand my art-knowledge, find what kinds of art I really actually like!

I’ve been to the smithsonians and the louvre and other museums and galleries and seen famous paintings and statues, average paintings and statues, and below average paintings and statues.   For my tastes, these things are all far too static to really be THAT interesting.

On the other hand though, I absolutely love photography, but I introduce a double-standard here.  I love photography in all its static glory.   I suppose to me the lack of ability to apply any sort of “post-effect” is disheartening.  Adding things like filters and effects, and adding image distortion (and audio distortion now that I think of it) is really exceptionally cool.  So the fact that I can take a photograph and make it an HDR image (search flickr for HDR images) or I can simply Ansel Adams some sort of nature photograph, is really excellent to me.  You can’t do that to a statue.

But I guess there’s the rub.  Maybe you just have to take pictures of famous things and then remix those.  The ideas of remix is so much cooler to me than static art.

I think.

~J

Speakerphone Art

In honor of April Fool’s day I yesterday I really wanted to plan a great prank. Of course I forgot all about it and did nothing. It was too late when I thought of telling my mom she was going to be a grandmother, or something like that.

The best idea came in around 4p, just as work was winding down and I was getting ready to head to class. Make my voicemail a RickRoll. I had toyed with the idea of calling various people, and businesses and Rickrolling them by phone. However, the idea was brought to my attention that perhaps I should set my voicemail to act as a Rickroll. I dug the idea, still do, but alas nobody that calls me would get it. Stinks.

So coming up this Friday (April somethingorother) is First Friday and the Santa Fe artwalk. I think I be going. DOM (Denver Open Media) has a superb CD exchange where mix CDs are made, and exchanged. Show up, drink free beer, exchange the mix CD you made, leave with 20 new mixes. What I’m thinking of doing is taking Rick Astley’s song, and then “mixing it” through various forms of mediation. As in, play it through a phone and record it, play the song once forward and once backward and then mix those. Play it through great speakers, but wrap tinfoil loosely around the speakers, and record it. That sort of stuff.

Any other cool ideas?

…or maybe a garfunkel

I think my favorite aspect of new art (net art) or as I like to call it, “nart…”

is that its much more malleable than other forms of art.  sure, wet clay is malleable, but once it actually becomes what’s socially and culturally accepted as art, there’s no changing.

the fact that one can tak two things very un-art (or maybe one quasi-art, and one not art) and make it art, is incredibly impressive.

while not exactly public art, dotwalk is definitely personal art, highlighting the innate ability of art to be different for everyone.

ch-ch-check out socialfiction.org for more — <a href=”http://socialfiction.org/index.php?search=dot+walk”>.Walk</a>