StoryBoard for Final

Degenrate Art Ensamble

It was really helpful toward my idea of my prosthesis project and projects I would like to pursue in the future to have them present their pieces to us. What really stuck with me was how when they were performing they become one with whatever piece they were wearing or whatever part they were playing, that's a whole other level of understanding a piece. It's not only that they became part of the piece but that it was evident through their performance that they had accomplished that, either through their motions or through their facial expression you could see their connection with the piece. It was interesting to know that they would use the sound from the pieces that they were wearing and incorporate the sound into the performance, it's little things like that that make their performance even more better; at least that's what I think. I also thought the stop motion piece they made was awesome, visually and conceptually. Stop motion, and animation in general, has always intrigued me. I actually plan on making my own cartoon one day, I could tell you what it was about but for now I will simply add this link to a narrative piece I did my senior year that took most of that year to actually complete, enjoy

Final Project

After the several weeks of this course I guess I’d have to say my strengths lie in my visual shots, incorporating reoccurring themes throughout a piece, and matching sound to the mood and narration. In this upcoming piece I plan on making a narration of myself trying various tasks to find my focus to complete a task. From focusing to my hands, to focus oriented video games to finally achieving a focused state of mind in the end.

 It would start off with me waking up in the morning from the vibration of my cell phone’s alarm tired and hesitant to get out of bed, though I would still manage to get up. I then get up and turn on some music as I look at my unfinished painting. Afterward it transitions to me looking at myself in the mirror and splashing cold water into my face and observing my forehead in confusion, and then I say “Low.” The perspective of the situation will then change to outside of the bathroom from far away to capture my whole body and a box with the all-seeing eye symbol on the front will be on the right of the screen. I will walk to the box after a little bit in the bathroom and then pick it up and shake it to hear if anything is in it or not, it will be full. Then I’ll set it down, stand for a moment in silence, then heads back into the bathroom to look at my forehead again. The view will change to a close up of my hands as I do hand gestures to simulate a focus method of a rhythmic matter. It’ll then be a close up of my thinking face, looking to the side as if imagining my next move. The next scene will be of me walking out of the room, followed by me entering a weight room where I do a various amounts of workouts (though in the video it will all be fast forwarded). I then return to the room and play portal 2 on the xbox to return to the idea of focus, because portal 2 is an intense puzzle game which will be evident through the video. Unfortunately, at first, I won’t be doing so hot so I’ll take a break and glance again at the box. Except this time I’ll actually take one out of the container and eat it and continue playing though way better/faster than before. Afterwards the screen will transition to a little sculpture whose holding a light blue triangle, I will mimic its position and say “Brutha.” It will close up to my face and a third eye will gradually appear on my forehead. As it’s fully opened my other eyes will open and I will say “Hye,” it will then flash the scene again and flash through earlier scenes so I would say “Hye Low Brutha” all together. It’ll then flash to me finishing the unfinished piece, once finished I go to bed satisfied. The next scene would be in the morning and I would say “Elims” as I wake up with a grin. Then I’ll rewind the “Elims” part slowly so that it says “Smile” backwards then rewind quickly back to the beginning to then slowly rewind the beginning where I say “Smile” so it can say “Elims.” Which will then reference the “Elims” poem I made by saying “This is just the beginning,” but ironically the video will end so it’s up to the viewer as to what it’s the beginning of.

I would say my motivation for this piece is this constant desire to seek out a tranquil state of mind and not worry about the little things in life that just obstruct my vision when in search of one of lives’ best treasures, control of the mind; focus. Unfortunately I don’t know who specifically my audience is but I guess I could generalize it to people with open minds and a spiritual aspect of life because they would connect with the concept better than others might. 

References: I used All-seeing eye as a reference in this piece because it's something that i'm really interested in, mostly because of how widely used it is across the globe and how they all resemble something very similar; I always wonder how it came to be that the same symbol could be used across the glove in cultures that didn't even confront one another it's very fascinating. "All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become." - Buddha This quote is basically a summary of what this piece is about, it's simply a means of portraying a goal that I one day plan on achieving. "Attaining Buddhist enlightenment is awakening to what is real. To free yourself of pain and suffering, to experience the underlying joy of your life, you must awaken. To do this you must live a certain way" (http://www.noble-buddhism-beliefs.com/buddhist-enlightenment.html) This quote reminded me of the end of this piece because of how I would wake up from my slumber and smile instead of dread waking up. I really want to make that evident through this piece, that a dream is one thing but making it a reality is all about the mind-set. I honestly believe that if you have the right mind-set everything is possible; the sky is the limit. The Third eye eye reference is a symbol of enlightenment, one in which I choose to channel into my art, which would become more evident if you'd click on this link here.

Inspiration: 

Prosthesis project

Research: Propaganda is a means of spreading concepts or ideals to a mass of people to either change their opinion on a matter or strengthen it. It’s been in used in many various ways throughout history, some for the good of the masses and others for personal gain. During wars, for example, many countries begin to speak to their people by using propaganda to gain their trust and support for what the government is doing. Such as when America began advertising war bonds in order to finance the military needs or how they began advertising “Uncle Sam” in order to gather more recruits. Then there are those unfortunate countries where people do not have a choice in what to believe in, their leaders force information on them basically brainwashing them into supporting their ideologies. In most cases during wars it’s a common for either side to spread propaganda bad mouthing the opposing country/enemy, which in terms of propaganda would be referred to as the “name calling” technique used solely to create an unfavorable opinion towards another subject/person/mass of people. The cold war for example, though not technically a war, presented a situation in which both the Soviet Union and the United States of America were trying to gain the support of other countries to make themselves look better while making the other country look bad in the process. In 1952, “Communism”, produced by Coronet Instructional Films, an education film made was released to schools in America to make others think of communism as a bad form of government, throughout the film there are many points in which the narrator points out Russia specifically to gain more viewers support against the Russians because it was during the times of the Cold War. Nowadays we see propaganda mostly in the form of advertisement for shows or products, the media, and political campaigns using various amounts of propaganda techniques to deliver their message to the masses. It’s interesting observing how the intent for propaganda has progressed over the years, shape-shifting as the years pass becoming elusive as it becomes something that concerns the everyday.

Bibliography

Communism. Prod. Coronet Instructional Films. 1952. Educational Film.

"PropagandaAbout Our Definitions: All Forms of a Word (noun, Verb, Etc.) Are Now Displayed

on One Page." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, 2012. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/propaganda>.
"Propaganda Techniques." Http://mason.gmu.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://mason.gmu.edu/~amcdonal/Propaganda%20Techniques.html>.

"U.S. War Bonds." U.S. War Bonds. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2012. <http://www.u-s-

history.com/pages/h1682.html>.

Concept: My idea for my prosthesis project is to research famous propaganda, mostly within the guide lines of American propaganda, in which it’s been used to persuade people into either changing their opinion on a subject or telling a false truth to gain the support of the masses. I plan on portraying my findings through audio recordings found on the internet and projecting the sound through a “Television Helmet” as well as passing around fliers that pertain to what the audio is saying. Personally I think that a television came to be the perfect way to present the audio because of the fact that whoever watches TV endures commercials whether or not it affects the viewer is totally up to them and it’s basically the same thing with history; one can choose to learn it or just avoid it. So by using the television I hope to create this sort of portal into the past, kind of like a short documentary, of how propaganda has been used in history by comparing the past and the present. I also want to show how easily somebody can be a victim of propaganda by using the television as a simple means of showing how TVs easily spread information to the masses, making a connection with the past to the present as we are bombarded with politics, the media, and thousands of rerunning commercials convincing consumers to purchase items. I want to show how the subject of propaganda has changed shape over time through this presentation of audio, from war time propaganda aimed at gaining people’s support for their country to commercials that are aimed to for profit focusing less on important matters at hand.

Inspiration: 

Shirt Design

This is a piece that originally started off as a doodle in one of my sketchbooks early this year. I ended up making a screen print out of it and this is one of the first prints, which is why it's kind of faded at the bottom. But just to clarify, it says "HLB; MIND 5 PLEASE?" HLB= hye low brutha, which is my brand name; for those whom don't know I sell shirts!

1st Thursday

As I was walking past this piece I took one glance at it and had to come back and take a closer look. It was genius for them to use a wooden frame and incorporating wood gathering creatures in the background. It's almost as if it's a self portrait in a way because of the fact that they themselves got the wooden frame for the piece. The subject matter for this piece was quite interesting but I kind of wish that it had some figure ground relationship or rather an environment for the two beavers to live in. Though it does work without as well because of how the whole piece is entirely made of different tints of brown, so you get a sense of balance and completion through that. 

When I walked into the room with these big paintings that had a narrative in each piece I was astonished and inspired to work on a canvas as big as those, when I have the money I intend to do so! What really brought me in was how the figures were made and how it was all laid out, it really reminded me of my own pieces in how I play with where the focus is located. Your eye brings you into the middle of this piece because of the bright texture of the ground in front of the tree and the figure inside of it but at the same time there's such a busy background that you can't help but glance at each figure around it. It gives a sense of tension in a way that confuses the viewer making them think as to what possible narrative could have. Which then makes me think of Cable's pieces where he too makes narrative pieces. Personally I love pieces like this because it gives room for the viewer to create his/her own narrative to the piece making every individuals take on it different. 

Narrative Sound Project

This is a project we were assigned in my video studio x class, the assignment was to create a narrative story with only sound. The dialogue is from a poem I wrote my senior year in high school named "The Fork in the Road." I first started this by recording the piano and then adding in the dialogue afterwards to match up when the piano makes dramatic changes. I plan on adding animation to this once I get the skills to do so, check out my art on my facebook page if you're interested. This is the link to the video - The Fork in the Road

Kristen Tollefson

I really enjoyed Kristen talk about how she went about doing art and still raised a family while doing so, because to me family is the most important thing in this world that we have and assuring to hear that she was able to have her family and continue doing what she loved because I would like to one day do the same. In the beginning of her speech she mentioned having very strong experiences in her life from 5- 12 years of age that influenced her later on in life and I found that interesting because I personally started drawing when I was 5 years of age so I had a strong connection with that. Hearing about being aware of the world around us and our "developmental stages" of our lives and how she incorporated that in her pieces was awesome because I have also played with those concepts in my pieces, it's always good to see how other people use an idea in different way so you can broaden your horizon as to the possibilities of where you can go with that concept. It was very evident, even before she mentioned it, that her pieces had a strong connection to human made structures and natural structures, the strong contrast between the two is what really brought me into each piece. It was also very helpful knowing how she goes about going into her own persona when doing certain projects such as the one where she made her own outfit and contributed to a community project, it prepared my brainstorming for our prosthesis project.

Mind Map for Final project

Response to "The Five Obstruction"

At first it was obvious that Jorgen was not content with the obstructions he was given but you must make do with what you were given sometimes and he did quite well with it considering the limitations. The shots themselves were good in that they captured their subject matter very well but I enjoy this piece mostly for its conceptual point of view. It’s clear that the point of the video is to portray “The Perfect Human” but I thought it was really interesting to see because the perfect human has so many different forms to every individual. I liked that he chose to go about “The Perfect Human” not only physically but mentally as well, though I feel he could have touched on a more metal state rather than physical. It’s obvious that the time we live in is more focused on physical attributes rather than what’s inside (I mean just look at commercials and how much sex is incorporated to try and get consumers to buy their product) but I believe the perfect human would not be someone who is on another state of mind rather than perfect physically. I say that because I feel that we are on top of the food chain because of our self-aware consciousness not because of our physical attributes, there are plenty of things in this world that could easily fuck us over but it’s thanks to our thought process that have been passed down through our genes, generation after generation, that we avoid those situations.

 The repetition of the shots really emphasized the significance the shots which I find to be something that I will be using to make the viewer think deeper into what is being viewed rather than simply just watching. I also liked how he decided not to use a background to make the subject matter stand out more rather than blending with its environment, though there would be cases where that wouldn’t have been the smartest thing to do. In the end I personally think it’s just a matter of having reason for what you’re doing if you’re trying to get your point across clearly rather than inferring it. 

Space/ Object project

The idea behind this piece was to create tension for the viewer both from inside the room and outside the building because of where the piece was positioned. Though it ended up not being very noticeable from outside the building. Though I felt that it did indeed have the potential to freak out at least some people if they happened to be day dreaming and glancing up while walking on the street below. Unfortunately, it ended up being more as if he was just chilling on the window glancing outside rather than trying to get out (at least it seemed that way to me from the perspective from inside the room) due to technical difficulties such as figuring out how to make him stay in that position. As I was working on this piece, the head in particular, I noticed I wasn't going to be able to make it resemble an actual person with the time frame given so I improvised and created the head you see here above. Originally my intent was to create Jesus about to jump out of the window to bring back the concept of how Jesus died to save us all. Though it would have been a completely different take on it because of how he would have been positioned, because he would have been sitting like how the piece is it would have created a inferred narrative that he was debating whether or not to jump, but, again, because of the time frame I decided not to dwell too far into a project that deserved more time than given. So, instead the idea of Jesus lead me to think of creation and how we question who we are and why we are. The intent of creating the piece with clearly noticeable raw materials and having its head slightly turned to the right aimed at his hands was to have the piece question itself as to why it was created. The fact that it was basically chained to the inside forbid him from jumping so he was then stuck in an eternity of interrogating perplexity as to why he exists. If the face of the piece was more noticeable and the viewer could trace where the eyes where pointing at easier I think I could have achieved my intent easier, but now I know for the future; nothing better than learning from mistakes.

Proposal Statement- Sound/Audio Documentary

In doing this assignment I plan on portraying a narrative story solely through the sounds of the environment and short narration of my poem. My main goal is to create music that matches the mood of what is being said by the narrator. As well as creating an environment with the mixture of sounds and music so I could later introduce animation to it. But as for now my intention through the narrative story is to tell a story of a lost man who makes the wrong decision and pays for it in the end and concluding it with statement that leaves the viewer/listener thinking rather than simply just ending a story.

October 18, 2012: Louis Watts & Cable Griffith

I enjoyed Louis' talk because I really got a sense of who he was by hearing about how he goes about making his pieces along with the meaning behind it. One thing that really grabbed my attention was when he spoke about the "hadal zone" and how he had done research to learn more about it because I could totally relate to that process of just getting more into depth with a topic to back up the credibility of your piece.
I found it very interesting to see Cable's work mostly because I could relate to it somewhat. I also make narrative pieces and it was awesome seeing a different take on that concept. We both also have a tendency to focus on some reoccurring themes or methods to our pieces.

Screen Print

Mono Prints

The night before I started this project I had a dream that I had a child of my own, not to say I birthed it myself just to make that clear, so I wanted to portray my dream through my plaster mold. Its hands are in that position so I can place a baby in its arms. I really wanted to show how important family is through this piece. 

space object: tension/camouflage

Tension

Camouflage

Camouflage

Camouflage

Tension

Tension

Space/Object Relationship

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