"Hill Climbing" is a piece where a man falls and the dog walks up to him and asks if he is okay.
"The Killing Piece" shows an ironic approach to ways of killing. The chair is covered with pink fur with leather straps. The contradiction is very powerful.
"FOREST (for a thousand years...)" Installation was one of my main inspirations for my project. They enhanced the sounds of the woods to where people could not tell what was real or imaginary.
Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s art relies on sounds to bring their ideas to life. In order to construct this piece, I wanted to incorporate the beauties of nature on this campus. I decided to record my journey through some of the woods near Buckeye Village. As I filmed and watched back, I was not that happy with the bumpiness of the video. However, after I took a few more shots there were not getting better. I realized that walking through the woods is not going to be smooth anyway especially when there are so many things to look at. The bumpiness grew on me and ultimately gave the piece a sense of reality and suspense. I then wanted to incorporate sounds that would tell the story rather than my video. I was limited with capturing sounds that would not typically be in the woods, therefore I got all of my sounds from freesound.org. I downloaded sounds such as a cow, car horn, lawn mower, and crying baby. I did not have a plan when putting the sounds together. The finished project brought to life a suspenseful, movie-like scene in a bare wooded area.
Throughout this piece, I wanted to explore the idea of sound just like Janet and George do. I wanted to take away the object that was making the noise and place the noises in a scene where one would not typically hear this noise. This way people would have to use their imagination in order to bring this journey through the woods to life. I am communicating these ideas through time-based media by telling a story through sounds juxtaposed with nature.
My artists inspired me to tell a story through sound rather than imagery. Similar to their work, I used the woods as a scene. I also conducted what the viewer sees and hears wile letting the audience bring their imagination to life. Instead of making an installation like Janet and George usually do, I took a few videos of the scene incorporating borrowed sounds in premiere.
For my installation, I decided to use the woods near the soccer fields. What mainly attracted me to this location were the numerous amounts of beautiful trees lined up. I also loved how the sun only came through the trees making the scene peaceful. It was also very quiet in this part of the woods with the occasionally bird or gust of wind coming through, which made it very easy to work. The exact location I worked on is where a few logs had fallen or were previously placed against a big tree in a teepee shape. While making my installation, I began finding more logs to add to the teepee shape. I carried more logs and lined them up to give the piece more shape. I also added a few logs horizontally in the middle to form an ‘A’ shape. This took most of my time out of the whole project. Then, I went and gathered many rocks the size of my hand or bigger to build in a pile at the bottom of the tree. Lastly I wanted the piece to have more colors incorporated into it. To bring it together in the end I found many green leaves that had fallen from all of the trees and placed them in the middle of the ‘A’ shape I created with the logs. I also added a few leaves on top of the rocks. Throughout making this piece, my biggest problem I encountered was that some of the smaller logs would keep falling down causing many of the leaves to fall down in the process. The leaves also fell down because of the wind and lack of support. My finished piece is something that definitely would not go unnoticed if someone were to walk through the woods. It is a giant piece that many animals such as squirrels and birds could enjoy as well as all the bugs and spiders. While creating my piece, it was hard not to put in a lot of effort to create it, even though I would only see it maybe once again and some of it would probably be destroyed. After I was done, I did feel a sense of accomplishment and wanted a lot of people to see what I did. The pictures and videos do not do enough justice for the beauty of it in person.
Video Sound: http://freesound.org/people/symphoid/sounds/159192/
In my project "Is This Really Art?" I decided to question what art can and cannot be. Throughout my video you can see different everyday activities that I question to whether or not are forms of art. I came up with ideas my sisters and I usually do around the house. I began with recording my younger sister Julia doing a backhand spring to show that different types of sports like gymnastics could be considered art. Next, I painted my sister's to nails to show that all kinds of painting is considered art. After that I wanted to come up with something that most people would not consider art, which turned into Julia building a pyramid out of McDonald's nuggets and fries. After that I knew I needed to curl my hair for Easter service, so I thought that shaping and curling my hair would be another type of every day art. I also had my sister blow a bubble while my other sister Sophie recorded herself doing her daily make up routine. Another unique form of art my sister and I recorded was the famous "Cup Song" routine from Pitch Perfect. Lastly I started thinking that fashion was another form of every day art, therefore I wanted to incorporate footage of Julia and I's Easter dresses in a beautiful way.
While capturing most of this footage, my parents kept questioning what I was doing because I was filming everything I did that day that I considered to be art. If I had not filmed any of this, they probably would not have questioned me at all because it was all everyday activities I would do at home. Some broader ideas I had in mind while creating this project is the difference between what people consider to be art or not. Because I was never in an art class previous to this I always thought that art was just what is in museums and just physical pieces. However, now I have more of a broader idea of what art really is. Art is apart of our everyday lives whether we realize it or not. These different everyday tasks are considered art because they are creations both my sister’s and I created ourselves. Art does not have to just be a physical object, but it can also be an action also known as performance art.
Below are some before, during, and after pictures of my project questioning "Is this really art?"
For this assignment, I incorporated characters laughing from various movies, cartoons, and tv shows. My inspiration came from the examples of the two videos we watched in class of the different people answering the telephone and sighing. After watching the sighing video I automatically wanted to bring the mood up, and, what other way to do so by making a video of everyone’s favorite characters laughing. Whether it is a hero or a villain, almost all the characters on screen laugh in almost every movie, cartoon, or tv show out there. I wanted the audience to realize the significance of movies, because without them life would be pretty dull. In the beginning, I tried to strategically place the clips to get the audience's attention. Towards the end I started placing shorter laughing clips to build on the laughter. My clips do not fill the entire screen so the viewer feels as if they are in a movie theater. While there is a lot of different types of laughing in my video, in the background playing is “I Love to Laugh” from Mary Poppins (also the title of my piece). Towards the end, playing in the background is ‘Merry Old Land of Oz’ from Wizard of Oz. Finally I wanted to finish the video with clips from the end of the movie, Monster’s Inc.. In the end Mike Wazowski gained enough laughter throughout the video in order to produce enough power for their monster community. The mood of this video is uplifting and humorous. I hope everyone has a good laugh watching these characters laughing just like I did making while it.
Before reading Remix by Lawrence Lessig, I was unaware of all of the strict rules companies including Sony have regarding borrowing and remixing content. The story about Stephanie Lenz recording her baby dancing to a popular song. Since she posted it on youtube for everyone to see she had to delete the video, or else she would get sued tens of thousands of dollars. I think this was a little ridiculous because the song was not even good quality and she probably did not have many views. I these situations artists should just be proud people enjoy and share their music with other people. Also in the story about the John Lennon tributes, they did try to ask permission to pay this tribute to him with a bunch of other fans. However, after a lot of time went by, their permission was denied. I just think there was a lot of back and forth and the company was trying to delay their time so the tributes would just give up. Greg Gillis was another person who wanted to expand consumer's experiences with various song mashups. He thought since he wasn't even close to competing with the real artist as well as only selling a very small amount of copies that he would be fine. However, he also was in trouble and possibly could be sued. Lastly SilviaO was a Spanish artist where someone else had "mutilated" her own work. I do think this person should have asked for permission but I would not call it mutilating her work. Rather this other artist used her ideas to come up with something new. I understand that there should be certain rules with taking other people's work however, not if hardly any damage would go to the artist. Creativity is always cool to hear, however, it is kind of becoming impossible especially with music. These rules should not be as strict.
In my piece, I wanted to focus on capturing scenes that are mostly apart of my everyday life. Since I do not have a car, for much of my piece, I incorporated me walking to the grocery store as well as to the school. Many of my clips are from the nature I come across throughout my walks. On nice days when I walk to school I find the walk very nature filled, beautiful, and calming. However, when I walk to, as well as in Meijer, the scene is loud and busy. Throughout my piece I went back and forth between the loudness and busyness and the quietness and calmness of two paths. Both of these different paths are very near each other, however, the difference in them is drastic. I incorporated myself walking throughout the piece to signify the different paths I take on a weekly basis. My shadow walking is constant part of my piece whether I'm walking by the trees in the wind or cars passing by. While capturing these videos for my project, I tried to capture them in different points of view than what I see every day. For example with the shopping cart clip, I took the video from inside the cart's point of view rather than my own. Also in the moving cars scene, I wanted to emphasize how busy the road was by making it busier, therefore spinning the frame. However, with the simple nature scenes, I kept the scene like it was and let the wind become the simple motion. Also, while incorporating sounds, I made sure to make the busier scenes louder while turning the volume down on the quieter scenes to emphasize their difference. Every day people travel whether it is to the grocery store or on a walk through the park. However, most people do not realize how different two paths could be while being relatively close in distance.
