self assesment

Garrett Zopfi

Billy Frieble

Digital Studio

7 May 2012

Final Self Assement

The central theme for my final project was a combination of color and composition. My inspiration comes from long standing traditions in modernism set forth by Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. From the onset of the project I also wanted to embrace the mechanical process of digital art with its reliance on machinery and software.

My process started when I started looking at artists that had the aspects of color fields and grounded but energetic compositions. I started with a German artist named Katherina Fritsch. Katharina works with found forms and through mechanical processes she copies and colors the found forms. She then arranges the forms in clever compositions. I was drawn to her use to found forms and the appropriation of the forms to create her own compositions.

I originally intended to work in projection so I looked at Hong Kong based artist Paul Chan. I enjoyed the movement of his silhouette projection along with their instantaneous storytelling and use of color blocks to compliment the compositions. I was drawn to the compositions that had floating and vibrating elements that created a false sense of space.

With my research complete I began thinking of what I wanted to do in my exploration into color theory and composition. I began looking at Japanese Zen Rock Gardens for examples of thought-out compositions.

This led me to decided to project onto the vertical columns that hold up the skywalk that connects the two sides of Schaeffer Hall. This form offered a sculptural outlet for visual projections because a cylinder is the most sculptural form with a two-dimensional surface. This form also allowed me to work in vertical sequences that I could print out in the even of foul weather.

After I decided on my location and my intentions for the project were becoming more pronounced I began looking for images from art’s history that I could appropriate. When I was looking for images I deiced not to use commonly experienced pieces but more images that someone with a basic knowledge of art history would appreciate moving on to more niche pieces as the time periods progress. I also chose images that I was at least mildly familiar with so that I had some background knowledge on the pieces before I used them.

I wound up with all images of female-representational forms. The first image I knew I wanted to use was the Willendorf Venus. This is the form I deiced to use as a clue in to my process for individuals with a base knowledge in art history.

As the pieces go through time they get more niche in their intended audiences. The second oldest piece that I appropriated is an image of Venus with child from a wall fresco in Pompeii. After these two the next oldest image is a 16^th century German engraving of Justice. She is shown in full armor without her eyes blindfolded. This is an unusual image of Justice and it offers a unique insight into the values of the society that produces it. An 18^th century engraving of Venus at Troy is also used along with an academy painting of a bathing Venus from the same time period. The engraving of Venus at Troy is shown with a spear, which is unusual but not strikingly uncommon for 18^th century depictions of classical deities. The newest image I used in the composition was a mid 19^th century engraving of Persephone, or Proserpina. This engraving shows the ill-fated character in a rococo dress holding her iconic pomegranate. I chose this image because of its contrast to the hard lines of the other appropriated images and its thematic contrast. With exception to the fresco from Pompeii, all of the images except for Persephone have powerful emotions associated with them instead of the reminder of time and mortality.

My intent for the composition was to show a progression of representational ideals through time. I chose to use deities and devotional objects because societal expectations of women tended to be eclipsed when portrayed through the veil of Classicism.

My original plan was to present the images in such a way as to tell a story but after projection tests and playing with the compositions in the computer I decided to let the colors, forms and movements of the pieces create a contemplative environment for the viewer. I was also originally planning to make a slide-show type but this looked pretty weak on the computer and even weaker in the projection tests. Instead I began playing with GIF animations in Photoshop to make the forms of the image vibrate, flash and disappear.

The projection tests also allowed me to see how my colors were translating onto the columns. I was competing with this sickly yellow lighting of the breezeway and the cold white of the columns. As a result I used high-keyed colors and broad lines. It was also during the projection tests that I decided to use the appropriated images as abstract shapes instead of projecting them right-side-up in their entirety. Using pieces of the images allowed me greater flexibility and the resulting image is more successful because of it. Despite the high-keyed nature of the used colors the projector still wasn’t projecting the way I wanted it to. This combined with unpredictable and sporadic weather led to my decision to go with my back up plan of printing the image.

The image printed is a sequence of 4 vertical columns that correspond with the columns I was going to be projecting on. I was originally going to cut the panels apart but after putting them in a document to gang-print I decided to leave them as a whole image like they would have appeared in physical space. I also rearranged and panels in order to make a balanced two-dimensional image.

Upon printing the image I noticed an area where strange things were happening between two colors. The area in question is in third column where the salmon color and the teal color play off each other and cause a chromatic vibration.

Once I saw this I decided to experiment with the color interaction in another image. I used the Persephone image that caused the interaction in the first print and created another four-column composition to print. This print has the same movement quality that I was trying to present in the projection so it serves as a suitable partner to the first print.

I learned allot about color interactions from this project. I had a vague idea of chromatic optical phenomenon but never actually created one. This is an interesting occurrence that I hope to explore further. I would also like to eventually print another of my composition image on a larger scale.

The flexibility of using Photoshop allowed me to take my work home with me on my own computer and work on it when I was waiting for my work in other classes to dry. This constant attention over a long period of time allowed me to constantly re-evaluate my composition and make changes to it.

Overall I think both prints are very strong. The composition print is very meditative and holds a lot of visual interest. The Persephone print is equally interesting but from almost a singly color based point of view. This is the first artwork I have created that solely relies on color. It was beneficial for me to use images that I didn’t create in order to freely play with colors and compositions.

The composition print isn’t as enveloping as I would have liked it to be. This is partly because its not projected large in space but also the print could have been larger but I was working with the area that Tara said I had for one print on the DIL printer. The second image I payed for myself. This is why it’s slightly larger and the image feels more comfortable in its size because it was specifically designed for it.

I give myself a B+ for the project. It would have been more successful to print the composition image larger but I was too cheap to make the judgment call. I also think the grade reflects the learning that happened when I was playing with the images. I think what I learned is an A and the piece is a B. this is why I think I deserve a B+ for the project. 

art event

SMP 2

The second set of SMP exhibitions and lectures were by Jenny Metz, Sam Nickey and Koko.

Jenny’s work dealt with alternative views and abstract photographs taken of familiar objects and spaces. Jenny’s work employed almost the same depth of field technique that Elise employed in her work. Both of these artists’ works were exhibited in the same space and because of this gallery attendants drew parallels between the two sets of work. Formally the two works are very similar and because of the same exhibition location in the gallery Jenny’s work was read as unoriginal and reactionary.

Sam’s work was an investigation into moth-like forms and the implications of transformation and guiding lights that the iconic form is laden with. Sam employed the use of oil painting for her work.

Upon entering the gallery to view Sam’s work, the viewer is confronted with a large panel containing a lot of her preliminary work. This gave the viewer insight into the process of creation and created this persona of the artist that matched the work that was being presented, an enigmatic fluttering being.

Sam displayed her paintings in a series, which caused the paintings to be viewed as a whole object before they were read individually. This was beneficial to the viewing of her work. Her paintings were of a modest size and were heavily laden with details and surface textures. The arrangement of the paintings in a single broad line drew the viewer to the paintings and then the fine details of the work kept them interested. If the paintings were hung more spaced apart and isolated the work would not have been received the same way. The calculated displaying of the work greatly benefited the artist. At the gallery opening the work that garnered the most attention were Sam’s paintings.

Koko’s work dealt with idea of community, wall painting and visual representations and innate human visual communication. The way her work was displayed in the gallery was very confusing and disorganized. Her work was further affected by its exhibition by its remote location away from the gallery.

I think her work would have been more successful if she painted on large panels and hung them in the commons area outside of the gallery. This would have been a more populated location for the school community to interact with the piece and it would have made the disorganized clutter in the gallery less random. I found it peculiar that the piece she wanted to represent the school community and to bring members of the community together was located in a remote location in a building that is scheduled to be demolished. There are murals in the dorms that need to be repainted and this outlet would have been more effective than hiding the work away and associating the campus community with an eminent demolition. The piece itself is very captivating and because of its presence I am even more upset by its location.

Personally I am very interested in how humans communicate visually and it was enlightening to see both Koko's interpretation and the coagulation of different views that resulted in the final mural as a result of its process. 

art event

SMP 1

The first SMP exhibition and lectures contained the work of Remina Greenfield, Elise Keilik and Laura Hausheer.

Remina’s work focused on the digital personas that, as individuals of the digital generation, we are constantly presenting to the outside world. She expressed this through digital video projections of peers that she took and processed so that their faces were made up of moving images of their browsing history and online profiles.

Remina’s work includes both the modern idea of cyber stalking with older ideas of personas and the faces we present to the outside world.

He work was isolated in a cubic area with projectors mounted on the ceiling projecting on the 4 walls of her space. This created a really interesting environment in which the viewer was enveloped by her projections. This sucked the viewer into the cyber space that she was exploring and heightened the sense of voyeurism that is present in many peoples interaction with the Internet.

Her work was interesting to me in that it created a unique and familiar but unfamiliar environment. I am interested in how people interact with space and how environmental factors like light and movement can affect a person’s interaction and experience with the space.

Elise’s work explored the everyday life of the miniature universe that she created. In the first semester we were introduced to her dollhouse of horrors. In the second semester we were given small glimpses into other aspects of her doll house and the greater outside universe that it inhabits.

She created her environment using found objects and creatively assembled them in purposes not befitting their nature to replicate familiar views. She then captured her space using a camera with a very particular depth of field.

The work itself wasn’t very original in that it reminded me of ISPY picture books that were prevalent when I was a child. In the books, the author team creates miniature environments using repurposed objects and through word play the read is guided through the space while looking for specific objects.

Laura created a children’s’ book for her smp. She also designed this whimsical reading area where people could come into the gallery and read her book.

He work had both a performative aspect when she read it to a group of children and formal aspect of environmental design and illustration.

Laura’s story dealt with a young girl who is forming her identity. The main character leaves home for the big city and tries on many hats until she finds the one that fits her best.

Laura used paper cuts for her illustrations. The quality of the paper cuts translates well to children’s illustrations and provides enough visual interest to keep the person reading the book to children interested. 

Intention Statement

Human's communicate in many languages with many symbols and gestures. In these symbols, sounds and gestures lie innate concepts of description that define the human condition. It is the goal of my work to explore these innate means of communication through pairing iconic images with colors and text. By utilizing innate human communication, my work speaks to a broader audience and sense of being. My work is not a social commentary, but an investigation into modern human culture and the innate human characteristics that foster it.

oliver laric

http://oliverlaric.com/

Artist Research

Katharina Fritsch is a German Sculptor and university professor. Katharina has work on display in the MoMA sculpture garden this summer.

Her work focuses on the multiple and the produced. She creates detailed models of her sculptures and ships them out to be fabricated according to her specific instructions. When she has received the factory fabricated objects she then casts and paints them using common production materials.

The final products are then arranged in a narrative fashion in real space. The objects do not move, they are not accompanied by anything except the occasional title, yet they still have a quality of innate human story telling mostly grounded in western mythologies.

In her work “Figurengruppe” she explores theory concepts like color, composition and thematic elements to create a unique environment that feels as grounded in a surreal realm of the arcane as any karesansui.

In her other work “Rat King” she explores how monumental scale, repetition and multiplication can be combined together to create an environment. In this Rattenfänger-channeling piece, Katharina makes use of prior knowledge of children’s tales as a clue for deciphering the narrative of her piece.

            Studying Katharina’s work will be influential in my art making for the final project because it instills in me a great desire for compositional perfection and a greater appreciation for the balance of thematic and formal juxtapositions within a composition

Paul Chan is a Hong Kong artist that has been working with light and projection and their impact on viewed environments. He showed he projection “Sade for Sade’s Sake” at the Venice Biennial, 10 years after Katharina. His work comments on social issues and mankind’s reaction with itself and with the environment where it exists.

His projections have a surreal voyeuristic quality that fulfills the visual needs of the viewer. From the videos I have seen of his projections I get a sense that the space where he is projecting becomes all encompassing. I also really appreciate the non-standard aspect ratio of his work; this lends the work a more substantial and well thought-out mystique.

What I can gain in my work from Chan is his use of color fields and non-figurative shapes to heighten the environmental sense of his work. His inclusion of these non-figurative shapes grounds the image in a reality and causes tension with pictorial semiotics, which cause the viewer to engage more in the artwork. 

final sketch

Projection Footage

projection reflection

Garrett Zopfi

Billy Frieble

Digital Studio

28 March 2012

Projection Project

The central theme of my work is an interplay on light and dark and how the most concrete forms of communication deal with a reading of the relationship between positive and negative.

I have previously been interested with ideas of positive-negative interplay and the semiotics of the relationship. I explored this relationship in a previous class in a book assignment. In the book I personified a shadow; the result of light reacting with the relationship between positive and negative forms.

In the book, the shadow was personified in such a way as to foster self-projection onto the character in part by the viewer. It sought to create an archetypal exploration into interpersonal relationships and dependant relationships.

The book contains illustrations that are reminiscent of shadow theatre and shadow animations from the 1930s. The illustrations worked well conceptually and ultimately worked well with the projection project.

Early on in the process I knew that I wanted to play around with shadow puppet imagery again. I wanted to use the technology of the projector to create an organic environment threw witch to tell a story. Originally I planned on translating the book I did in a previous class into an animation.  I abandoned this idea because I wasn’t really feeling it and I encountered a few roadblocks while I was teaching myself the animation program. I now feel more comfortable using the program but I would still like to find a better method to execute the task.

The roadblocks I encountered while learning flash and experimenting with the digital tool set available in the program ate up allot of animation time. By the time I felt comfortable with using the program I was running out of time in which to animate. I knew I wouldn’t have had enough time to do a good animation of the whole story so instead I opted to change what I was projecting to something that was more reasonable to create and still left me with enough time incase something went horribly wrong.

I then moved onto an idea of exploring people’s relationship between language and images. In my psychology class we just learned about written language acquisition and how people interpret the image of words with experiences with the abstract or physical concept that relates to the word. This then led me to think about how written language started in the simple process of incising lines into clay or wax tablets. This then led to surface based written languages where pigment was applied to a surface but it still, in form, resembles the original process of incision. This was a relationship between the positive and negative.

This thought process then merged with my learning about language acquisition through flash cards and how language acquisition has become a very visual practice. This translated into my projection in my take on an animal alphabet code.

I already had an academic interest in codes and encryptions in art from my previous study of sculptor Jim Sanborn’s work. This background knowledge partnered with an interest in semantics and visual language proved to create the perfect launching point from which to extrapolate my projection.

I decided to code the word “breathe” into my projection because there would have already been clues to the word in my classmate’s projection that was happening a few feet from my own. I consulted various teaching websites to come up with my animal alphabet; taking bits and pieces from many sources.

The idea of coding a message through a visual and pseudo-written form also worked conceptually with my projection space, a library.

I enjoy starting digital work physically. There is a creative block for me when I try to work on something purely digitally. I created the figure shadow puppet out of cut paper and the animals were drawn physically and then manipulated digitally to mimic shadow puppets. I like this merger of traditional and new media and think it lends more of an organic quality to digital work that can sometimes feel cold and sterile. This cold sterility is something I sought to avoid because I was directly channeling a nostalgic animation form in my projection in order to tap into more innate and visceral experiences.

I also had to think about my work and how it was relating to the person’s work who I was sharing the projection space with. I had been interested in working collaboratively for a while and this project wound up accidentally becoming a sort of partnership.

The first task that my space partner and I tackled was coming up with a surface to project on that worked conceptually with both of our works. The solution came by happenstance. I recently received a parking citation on a rainy day. I had an uncommon reaction to getting a ticket. I was excited! I had been thinking about a way to attach paper to the windows in the library that would be quick and easy to throw up and take down and it was sitting in front of my eyes stuck to my windshield with water. The way the water affects the bond paper that we wound up using makes it look like rice paper, a traditional shadow-screen material, and used the environment of my partner’s projection, water, to adhere it to the windows. It was a match made in the heavens.

The second task that we worked on together was coming up with transitions between our works so that they felt like a continuous work when looped. The transition from my work to her work is blue fire consuming my shadow-screen and revealing her oceanic scene below. The transition from her last frame to my first frame is a very slow fade to white that is pretty unnoticeable until my character walks across the windows. Ultimately the two pieces were seamlessly merged together to create a smooth and beautiful loop.

The finished product is particularly strange. I never would have seen myself come to this point from early on in the game. I like my projection in its conceptual and physical nature. I combined an exploration into human language and semantics with the projection space of the library; in this I channeled pre-historic cave works like the hall of bulls, Eastern shadow-puppetry, a tie in with shadow-animator Lotte Reiniger, a clever art historical reference to da Vinci and an exploration into the visual nature of language acquisition and universal symbolism.

The projection from a holistic visual standpoint makes great use of the window space in its composition.

However, without inside knowledge into the projection, the projection was pretty obscure and hard to read. I debated including a textual element in the end of my projection but decided not to, fearing that it would take away from the visual nature of the projection. Instead I decided on a type of encore of my alphabet animals. While the projection was taking place I had the idea that it would have been great to make my own alphabet animal chart and distribute it on site. This would have fostered viewer interaction and would have clued people into the projection without being overt.

Overall I think the projection project went really well. I had a great experience sharing the space with a classmate, I think conceptually the project worked really well and I was really excited about working on it. I also gave myself enough time when I changed my idea to do both the physical animation work but also give myself enough time to work out the intelligent aspects of the work. I might have given myself too much time because there were a lot of layers but ultimately my experience with creating the work is what matters most and I think it was a very positive experience.

I give myself an a- for this project. I think I adapted well to the new software even though it took forever for me to get the hang of it. I think I worked excellently with the person I was sharing my projection space with. I think I creatively solved the problem of creating a projection surface. I backlit a surface instead of projecting onto it which I thought was really innovative. My projection made good use of the space it was projected in and used the architectural elements present in the surface. Ultimately I created a work that is uniquely mine that I had a lot of fun making and experiencing.

Projection Project sketch

here is the link of a story/book i made in another class. i will be using the same characters but adapting the story to a digital projection.
SHADOWMAN LINK
i posted it to the wiki which took forever.
i want to project a living story onto the interior of the library windows so it will look like a shadow puppet. i want to include text in the story instead of a narration. this will allow the viewer to project themselves into the story by using their own voice and it will also nix the need to compete with the concerts audio. the library reaffirms this conceptual basis for storytelling both in truths and for entertainment. i will be using the animation technique seen in a link posted thursday to execute my project. with the animation style and backlight type projecting it should tap into the type of folklore/mythological vein of shadow puppetry that i wish to access.
the images in the original document are the same as the sketch images below. the pdf was inverted to make it smaller but i think the inverted projection might work better for space. i will have to do a test once i am further along. i dont think it will be too difficult to invert the animation once i am finished in post processing.

link for inverse kinetics

http://www.flashperfection.com/tutorials/Flash-CS4-Animating-Puppets-37718.html

Scherenschnitte

Kara Walker

I was first introduced to Kara Walker in a Post-Modern Art History class I took with Joe Lucchesi. Kara got her MFA from RISD, which is where she started working with paper silhouettes. The medium is perfectly suited for her work, which is normally very large and environmental. The Scherenschnitte allows for large scale work to be completed quickly with clean vector-like lines. This can best be seen in “Slavery! Slavery! Presenting a GRAND and LIFELIKE PanoramicJourney into Picturesque Southern Slavery or "Life at 'Ol' Virginny'sHole' (sketches from Plantation Life)" See the Peculiar Institution asnever before! All cut from black paper by the able hand of Kara ElizabethWalker, an Emancipated Negress and leader in her Cause.” Here Kara is using the Scherenschnitte to immerse the viewer in the polar cyclorama. Kara’s work addresses racial and sexual problems that are often presented and processed in extremes, in that the poles of the issues are what receive attention and not the realistic grey area that exists in the middle. This work resounds with me because it is environmental and I have a great interest in creating environments. The work also addresses the cultural groups and ethnic heritages that Kara ascribes to. In the projection piece im working on now, I would like to include a comment on human sexuality, the sex trade and societal perceptions of the polarity of socially relevant issues.

Kara also works in projection and video. In her projection piece she applies the Scherenschnitte images to the wall and projects colors on them via a projector on the floor. The projectors are on the floor. This involves the viewer in the piece because the viewer’s shadow joins the silhouettes on the wall. I would like to involve the viewer in my work in some way. I was thinking about having the video file I will be projecting move or rock slightly so that the viewer will become disoriented or sea-sick after prolonged exposure.

In her video Kara explores the mythology black culture as it is seen through the mass cultural eye. It also comments on how historical atrocities can be distanced culturally from the people that committed them.

This concept in reference to the Holocaust in relation to the videos Scherenschnitte animated style ties Kara to Lotte Reiniger, a shadow-puppet animator.

Shadow puppets have been used to tell mythological and cultural stories by many different civilizations and connects Kara’s work to an innate system of universal semiotics.

Lotte Reiniger

A good friend of mine is working on an SMP that focuses on Scherenschnitte and I came across Lotte when I was looking into the technique myself. Lotte started her film career as a special effects animator. She then created the oldest animated film to survive till the present “The Adventures of PrinceAchmed.” After this she made several short films set to classical operas. She then moved on to animate Grimm’s fairy tales. This adaptation of the old stories into an animated medium exposed a new generation that was obsessed with picture shows and talkies to the tales that inspired their grandparents. This type of cultural re-introduction is pretty fascinating and it came at a crucial time. When Lotte was making the Grimm’s shorts at a time where Germany was struggling to regain its cultural pride and identity post WWII. Lotte’s animation style and process are also proving to be influential. A video was produced showing how Lotte made her masterworks. I wish to update this animation technique using new media in the same way that Lotte updated the Grimm tales using the new media available in her time.

Lotte also invented new machines to complete her work. This type of innovation resounds with me. Through her creation of a multiplane camera, Lotte was able to create lush environments for her Scherenschnitte characters to inhabit. In the projection project I will be creating my own environment in an existing environment. This is similar but different from Lotte’s work in that Lotte’s work would have been originally screened in a cinema and would have visually enveloped the viewer. My work will be publicly displayed in a semi-outdoor setting and only be visually enveloping if the viewer wants to be enveloped.

Lotte’s work took a traditional German medium of Scherenschnitte and adapted it to her generations New Media of film and animation. This helped reaffirm a young generation of their rich cultural heritage while establishing a bond with the past. 

Project 1 Evaluation

The central theme of the final work for Project 1 was formed by the usage of appropriated and found visual information. The central theme wound up being a comment on global commerce and the perception of national identity.

 The inspiration for this project came from my personal lack of a tie to a specific identity. In my life I have never felt a distinct connection with anything in the same way that I perceive others do. Instead I recognize a type of fluid. Fleeting identity that has changed throughout my life. In most cases this sense of temporary identity focuses around objects, stories and characters that have piqued my interest.

In this assignment I explored the 8-bit identity of the Nintendo Pokémon trainer and how my generation borrowed many of the Japanese cultural nuances present in the game universe. There exists a culture of people that strongly relate with this commercialized Japanese identity and through this assignment I was exploring the factors that contribute to this culture borrowing and the amount of control that the consumers of foreign markets have in respect to identity formation.

All of these ideas were expressed in a fictional international marketing campaign for bunnies. I chose to use bunnies because of their innate reproductive prowess.

My productive process started very early. During the first week of the semester my housemate showed me this Japanese music video that her brother had been obsessed with over the winter break. The video was of Japanese performer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.

Kyary is from the Harajuku area of Tokyo and her environment has had a great impact on her music and fashion.

The video struck me as very odd but what I found to be even more peculiar was the number of views that the video had on YouTube. The upload I saw was from a western fan of Japanese music and not the record label that is marketing the music in Japan.

Upon noticing that a westerner uploaded the video, I immediately thought of the kind of person that had sought out this video and saw enough value in it to share it with the western world. This caused a chain of thoughts that jumped from giant anime conventions to people dressing up like characters from video games and then to Pokémon costumes and subsequently my experience with Pokémon.

I then began to think of how many people in my generation were affected by the Pokémon craze. When you ask people of my generation to list things that they liked when they were children, Pokémon inevitably comes up. It was a cultural phenomenon that many people claim as part of their childhood, and in some cases part of their current life.

A few other cultural imports like Teletubbies and Ironchef came to mind and I began to become interested in how those products were exposed to other cultures and how they were modified so that the target culture would respond positively to the products. Infomercials became something that I wound up drawing allot of my colors from. Internet and print ads became something that I sought to emulate in order to understand how they grab and sustain people’s attention.

In Ironchef, the entire show was reshot using western participants and western ingredients that western audiences could relate to, while Teletubbies was virtually untouched in its airing. In Pokémon, the episodes were re-dubbed in English and the characters were given different names that matched the mouth movements of the Japanese animation. Ultimately it was the idea of cultural adaptations that became the focus of my product. I wanted to make people want to own and have the product displayed.

Something else that influenced my project was my seeing the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo movie. I liked the American adaptation much better than the Swedish version. I was then surprised to see that the movie did better internationally than it did domestically and that despite bad domestic revenue the studio that produced the movie is moving on with the sequels. I then came to the conclusion that there is a central human element that is something like “universal taste” or “universal appeal” and that the idea, whatever it is, has been influenced by western culture and cultural imperialism.

I then applied the principle of cultural imperialism to my product and created a path that showed the spread of the product by arbitrarily drawing a line on a map with Japan being the vertex. The randomness of the line drawing illustrates the coincidence that plays a part in marketing and trade.

The path of the cultural empire’s expansion was documented in an artists book, something that served as both an illustration of the ads in print form but also as a type of cultural scrap book where some fictional character collected the posters and assembled them into a book.

Conceptually I think I grew allot with this assignment. Conceptualizing my work and giving myself a purpose for working is something that I have struggled with. Recently a professor asked me how I am connected to the world and how my art shows my connection. Unfortunately she asked me this after I had completed Project 1 but the question clicked everything into place nonetheless.

Technically I learned a lot of stuff by accident in Photoshop.   I accidently learned how to quickly select what I want using the quick-select tool and then refining the edges. Before, I would meticulously drop down the magnetic lasso tool. I also learned that there is this thing called a “color library” in Photoshop. It contributed to greater experimentation with color in my later ads.

I normally have pretty good work habits. I tend to work steadily on projects over a long period of time instead of working on something erratically in a short amount of time. This was particularly helpful in this project because of the amount of images I was creating. It allowed me to do extensive research into finding just the right open-source images of the bunnies, double check my translations on languages that I am familiar with and get things translated into languages that I am not, and it allowed me to step back and look at my project and realize that it felt unfinished. If I hadn’t worked steadily on the project I would never have had the time to put the GIF animations together and thus tie up the whole endeavor.

Overall I think my project was successful. When I show the images to people, a common reaction is “Aww how cute! I want one!” The first time I heard that I knew that I had met my goal of using visual language to create a sense of desire for an object, even if the object doesn’t exist.

The messages about global commercial culture and cultural imperialism are only noticeable when the images are viewed together. If I were to show the project in a gallery I would show multiple images and not just one.

The colors of my ads really affect how they are digested. I spent a lot of time on the typographical and chromatic elements of each poster and how they interacted with each other and with the whole image. The later ads are more successful because they use a more distilled visual language and utilize color and form much better than the earlier ads, which were busy and relatively bland.

I would give myself a B+ for the project. Although the project was successful I stayed in my two-dimensional comfort zone. I did add a time based element at the end, which tied the project together, but unlike my other classmates who used programs and technology that were completely new to them, I used software that I was familiar with.

final posters

Bunny ad 2 (click me!)

bunny ad

russian add for duet ice cream

cute advertisement...it says see the banana-think strawberry. the ad is for a russian frozen novelty that has banana flavored ice cream on the outside and strawberry ice cream on the inside. the russian word for strawberry is a sexual innuendo. clever?

ikea SPÖKA

Takashi Murikami

Takashi Murikami was one of the first artists to promote the idea of creating a unique cultural identity in Japan after the US occupation. This and many other ideas present in my current project are a direct reaction to Murikami-san's ideas presented in The Inevitable Japanese Experience , which I picked up at the SMCM library. Murikami presents the idea of a uniquely Japanese appreciation of things that western viewers might consider childish and pedantic. Murikami explains that "growing up" in Japan has a completely different meaning than what it does in the united states. This translates well into Takashi's work in which he both applauds Japanese ideologies and critiques western cultural influences. Like Warhol, Takashi is also interested in commercial and material consumption but unlike Warhol, Takashi is also concerned with ideas of cultural imperialism and how the export of material and cultural goods out of japan both increases the awareness of a unique japanese identity abroad while at the same time putting the culture at risk of outside influence. an example of the cultural disemination that murikami references would be Poke'mon cards/toys and the new western obsession of anime and manga. To make the connection between cultural imperialism and commerce even more obvious Murikami designed two helium balloons for the macy's thanksgiving day parade.

Headlines

I had the fortunate experience to see HEADLINES at the national gallery over winter break. The exhibition features work by Andy Warhol that captures a unique american identity in a visual form and comments on the view of the world through mass media. This correlates with my current project in which i am exploring the western view of commercial and cultural identity in post-occupation japan. In the piece featured above, Andy is collaborating with another artist to broaden the spectrum of view of the subject depicted. By collaborating with another artist the piece is able to exemplify two unique perspectives of the same image; in the same way that binoculars would provide a more detailed experience than a pirate's spyglass. In my project i am only using my lens of experience but am applying it to an international idea of cross-cultural material consumption; similar to Warhol's piece featuring Mao in the Headlines series.

joylicious!

Bunny pt 2

this is an update with english text translating the japanese. i found this to be a common element in japanese advertising.

BUNNY

This is one of the concept sketches for my mash up project. through the study of the japanese music videos i was initially going to mash up in a video i began to notice a lack of product placement. it is very common in western music to experience product placement in television shows, movies and music videos.  while watching the japanese music videos i noticed that only one of the artists had product placement in her videos....and she was signed to a western record label (waner music). this realization made me think of a way that i could include an overemphasis on product placement in my mashup. the idea came to me to make a type of catalogue of the uniquely japanese aspects of the music videos while i was in a lecture sue johnson gave about her work. i now am isolating uniquely japanese aspects of the music videos by comparing what i am accustomed to in everyday western experience to what i find to be strange and non-western. this image came to fruition by my watching an interview with a japanese music performer with a kawaii fashion designer. throughout the entire video there were these remote controlled rabbits zooming around the floor. the rabbits were made of a stuffed rabbit mounted to an RC car. i decided a good way to set the precedent of my new shift in undertaking would be to make a catalogue page/ advertisement for live remote controlled rabbits. i have used layouts i have picked up from japanese advertisements and magazine coverts. at first i was drawn to their unique emphasis on the right hand plane of the image surface. i then remembered that japanese bound documents are often bound in the analogue of western binding because the written language is traditionally experienced right to left and not left to right, the western norm.

MASHUP

I will be using this as the prime source for my mashup project. Im going to play with the idea of western ideas of a global culture and cultural imperialism and juxtapose them with kawaii, a uniquely Japanese cultural phenomenon of obscenely cute things, and the creation of other unique cultural identities in post-occupation Japan. I will use the video of this clip partnered with different acquired audio. If this is successful I hope to ferment the idea more in Project 1.