Project 6: Blender Self Portrait

I think of this as named something like "Homage to Doing Things Elsewhere" or "Doing Other Things" cos I did it late, and instead of doing the things I should, I played Minecraft. It is a block dinosaur, and is based on a napkin doodle I drew of myself as a dinosaur while eating shwarma. 

I make cartoon doodles of myself a lot, and I chose this one because me and Lizzy already got the idea of a dinosaur Mikki for this project. The blocks thing come from the New Aesthetic reading, where I really like the sculptures artists who made 3D pixel and voxel sculptures of objects and animals, and from Minecraft. I really dig Minecraft.

 I made the dinosaur by arranging tons of the same sized blocks, as if I were to make it in Minecraft. It's not colored, which adds to the low-res look and I think makes it seem more structural, rather than organic. Since it is made up of the same shape just copied and moved around, I have become a lot more familiar with navigating and moving objects in Blender. I like Blender, and really want to keep practicing with it, and learn all the different things it can do. For a free program, it's pretty swell.

Project 7: Digital You in Second Life

So with the limited capacity of the computer I was using for project 7, I could only explore some places, and only for so long. But, the exploring I did do is what I would do irl. I spend a lot of time wandering around and looking at stuff, spacing out. 
In relation to Project 6, there isn't much linkage here, since my project 6 is a block Mikkisaur.  I could emulate that in second life, with an outfit, but I did Mikki things.



The first place I went to was Hobo Amusement Park. After getting run over by taxis a couple of times, I took the tour and then ended up by this sign. Free T-shirt? I'm on board. Help the Hobos, guys. 
Then I went to a place that promised puzzles, but I went to look at things. There were these polyhedrons spinning in a hole I fell down. They look dangerous. But digital Mikki is interested.

The only sci-fi/fantasy place I could get to was this nice forest, apparently it's a nice place for couples? Those flying things make me think of kites, Also, dragons. I love kites and dragons.
The one on the right is probably the most representative picture of myself here. Feeding the loons, laying by a pond and watching them paddle around. I only do this ALL THE TIME irl.

  

 After all the watching and daydreaming, I wanted to dance. While I don't go to clubs, or out really ever, I do enjoy me some silly dancing, and the clubs in second life have those neat dance orbs full of free dances. I'm all over free access to dancing.
 








I needed a "how does ____?" picture somewhere of me failing at using a mundane object. It was bound to happen.How does chair?I got the chair to work, but couldn't stop dancing. That's alright, I dance sitting in chairs as much as standing up. 

 
 

So, these are self portraits of my digital second life self doing things that I would do if I could get to the places. Just doin' my thang, chillin' and watchin' and dancin'. She also has a hoodie, chucks and hair just like me. If I had the use of my own computer, I would a fantasy self, probably space-pirate related, what hangs out in the fantasy and/or combat areas, looking for drinks.

 

Reading 4: The New Aesthetic

When I read/watched James Bridle's Waving At The Machines one of my favourite parts is all his talk about pixels and pixelated art showing up everywhere. I love the aesthetics of pixels, and "voxels" as 3D pixels are called, apparently. The animal sculptures by Shawn Smith are amazing, and what I want to go for with project 5. When browsing about the New Aesthetic blog, there were quite a few things I like and that worked with the pixelated visuals I like so much.

  https://www.facebook.com/2spirittattoosf?ref=stream 

  

This is a repost of a tattoo by Roxx of 2Spirit Tattoo. The blog links to 2Spirits Facebook page, and a lot of their tattoo art, especially ones by Roxx, have these intense geometrical designs and loads of dots and solid black areas that take years to complete. This one was based on Huicho art, which also have these amazing geometric designs, mostly bead work. 

This picture appeals to me and the new aesthetic because the edges look pixelated, and the shading and squares are just perfect. And the idea of how much time and pain it takes to complete a tattoo like this is amazing.

Project 4: Video Emulation

" 'Lights' Emulation: From the Garden to the Casino, to the Sky"

For our fourth project we emulated or recreated a chosen video. The video I chose was Marie Menken's "Lights." She filmed various light sources, such as Christmas lights and  street lights, and affected the way they appear by moving and shaking the camera. I emulated her video by mimicking that sort of technique, but mine is digital video.

I also have different light sources, because it is not Christmastime and to give my video a local flair, I filmed the lights of different casinos in downtown Reno and Carson City. For a personal element I also have garden lights from my house, the solitary light source moving across the screen is more different from Menken's video than the other parts. This is because the main and overall feeling I get from Menken's video is a dreamy, mystical feeling, and at parts specifically of faeries.

The audio is something put I together in Mixcraft 6 using some of their default sounds. The goal for the audio was something simple that adds a bit of dreamy or transient ambience.

Video Project - Choice

The video I will emulate is Marie Menken's "Lights" from '64-66. 

http://www.ubu.com/film/menken_lights.html

I like the idea of using a camera to 'draw' with lights against a dark background. Rather than try to recreate Menken's video, I'm going to do my own but with her techniques, like shaking and moving the camera to make lines with lights. Also, instead of the Christmas lights she uses, I might try using Casinos for some local flavour. 

Menken's video is also silent, so I'll probably add just a little bit of audio for ambience.

Reading 2: Video Art

1.] Throughout the chapter the difference between "art" and "artful" is brought up several times, and the use of the electric medium for video art as opposed to used for stuff like news or documentation.The chapter talks about early video artists who were established in other mediums and then called their new work video art. So, the artist themself defined what they did as art, and is at least in part because they were recognised as an artist already.

The chapter seems to take the institutional theory that established artists, galleries or other art institutions are the ones who define what is classified as art. But a videographer or camera person doing work on a documentary may consider their work as "art", however this would be considered only as "artful" by the chapter's standards. What does it take for a video to be considered as a piece of art, and more than just a recording? Who gets to decide?

2.] Towards the end of the chapter, it mentions artists of 80's and 90's focusing on different issues for their art, that they "reflect a quest for identity (particularly cultural or sexual) and political freedom." Many artists use modern issues or personal identity in or for their art and the results tend, at least to me, to be better/more powerful/more engaging.

With video art, the artist can be shown literally interacting with the world, and the video can be controlled and manipulated for an end result that goes way past just performance. Keeping this in mind and the viewpoint that art is a means to interact with the world and to show that interaction, does video art benefit more for this purpose from its particular medium?

Project 3: Audio

This is Project 3, in which we added audio to the animation of Project 2. There isn't much audio, and most of it is different growling and roaring because, well, it's a dragon. The gyrados roar and the jingling at the end are from the internet, and the omnomnom voice is the recording I kept in. The rest are files included in Mixcraft 6, which is what I used to do the audio. There is still more that could be added, I think...

This is in Medium quality, because the high quality was taking muuuuuuuch longer to upload.