Web Site

I do not know who the web designer is, but a site that I really like is givesmehope.com. This is a very optimistic website where people can share thoughts, moments, and short stories as to who or what gives them hope. The layout is a light blue color  and their logo is a cloud. People are allowed to post their thoughts and then users are allowed to vote on their favorites.

I think this is a very inspirational site and it succeeds in its goal. The layout is simple enough where all one has to do is scroll down and go to the next page to read more, and I think the point of this site is just to allow people to tell their stories about what gives them hope so that other people can read them and it can renew faith.  There are other sites that focus on different things that are in the same format, so it makes it easy to transition from one site to another. They are all linked on the site and I think whoever came up with this really did a great thing.

http://www.givesmehope.com/

VitoAcconci

1. I thought this was an interesting, yet logical paragraph; it reminds us that people used to see time more slowly, there was more of it around us, however as technology improves (like the watch), we are able to do things at a more 'convenient' time and place so that we can do more.

Beading Crochet Workshop

Susan Goldstine, one of St. Mary's math professors, had a session for learning how to bead crochet. This was an interactive workshop where we all learned how to do basic beading crochet. We started out with some crochet that had already been started. From there, Susan taught us how to continue beading and how to fix our mistakes if/when we made them. This was my finished product of the first beading I had done:

As you can see, the beads line up and spiral around. Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to follow!

After finishing the first one, we had the option to either undo our original work to practice some more or start a new strand of our own. I started my own strand and starting is a bit awkward and confusing. Susan was there to help though, and I eventually got it. You start out with about a foot of yarn for every 9 beads, so she told us to pick five colors and get ten of each color. Therefore, 5*10 = 50, so about 5 feet of yarn (more or less...more probably would have been better). As I mentioned before, starting a strand was a bit difficult, but after getting into the swing of things, I managed to make this:

This was a bit smaller than I expected, but it turned out fairly well! I needed more string, but otherwise I was very happy with it.

This was a very fun workshop and Susan even showed us some of her own work. One can make bracelets using this idea and smaller beads (much more difficult). It is a good pastime and I will hopefully continue it and learn more soon!

The Viewable Sphere: Mathematics Meets Photography

Dr. Bruce Torrence had a lecture about photography that incorporated math. He began by speaking about the "viewable sphere" . The viewable sphere is something very much like the picture above. The reason this came about is because a spherical photograph is difficult to print, so they have this concept which is similar to the concept of the panel photo app on the iPhone (sorry if that's not the right name for it). They call this concept the Equirectangular Projection. Using this concept is the easiest way to change images (it uses the same format as maps do--longitude and latitude).

There are four steps that need to be taken in order to do an equirectangular projection:
Step 1: Take an ordinary photo. (Later an application of mathematical transformation to the digital image will turn it into an equirectangular projection).
Step 2: Take another photo from exactly the same vantage point.
Step 3: Continue to shoot photos covering the entire viewable sphere.
Step 4: Stitch together to make a complete equirectangular panorama (The equirectangular panorama will be exactly twice as wide as tall).

A neat trick that Dr. Torrence suggested is if you are doing it handheld, use a string with a penny tied to the end and tie the other end to the camera to keep a mark on the ground in order to keep the distance the same. It is very important for all the photos to be the same height!

The horizon in the 3D scene corresponds to the equator of the viewable sphere while the sky (which is everything above the horizon on the sphere) lands outside the horizon circle.

It can be shown that any circle in the stereographic image plane corresponds to a circle on a viewable shpere. A line in the stereographic image plane corresponds to a circle through the North Pole in the viewable sphere. Any line in the original scene corresponds to a great circle on the viewable sphere corresponds to a line/circle in a stereographic image. Lines are helpful because it means you can tilt the sphere which allows us to emphasize certain features while keeping the horizon circular.

Other interesting tid-bits are if you tilt the sphere completely upside down, you get a tunnel wall. If you tilt the sphere 90 degrees, the horizon (equator) becomes a straight line.

I really enjoyed this talk, I thought the images were fascinating and I learned a lot! I had not seen pictures like these before and I learned that it takes a lot of sophistication. I would definitely encourage others to look some of these pictures up because they are really amazing!

Edited Chrome logo

Original

New

I decided to use the new Chrome logo, which is a 2-D image rather than the old 3-D image. When I saw it, I thought of elements and decided to go in that direction. It seems very simple, but that was my goal; because you have central colors, I didn't want to do too much.

For the red, I decided to do flames (which were harder than expected). Blending was especially hard, and as one can tell, I still hadn't successfully blended the reds together.

For the green, I thought of earthy things, like leaves! I purposefully chose a different green for the leaves because I wanted the leaves to be falling and I like the slight contrast.

For the yellow, I automatically thought of the sun and thus decided to to rays of light, and I'm pretty happy with it. (The side got cut off, but you can still understand).

I decided I had to do something for the middle, and since it was blue, I thought of the sea. So I did little waves, but just to make sure my point got across, I put a little boat in there. It didn't seem like it was enough, so I added some stars which led me to use the white as a crescent moon (which I was originally going to put in the blue, but I liked the idea of using the white better).

Thus, here is my elemental Chrome logo!

Tony Robbin

Tony Robbin is an author and an artist who works with painting, sculpture, and computer visualizations. He has done over 25 solo exhibitions and has been included in over 100 group exhibitions in 12 countries. He is known for his application of Quasicrystal geometry to architecture, and has even been able to implement this geometry for a large scale sculpture in two places, one at the Danish Technical University in Kongens, Lyngby, Denmark, and another for the city of Jacksonville, Florida. 

This is an example of a quasicrystal image:

                Robbin’s has been successful in combining such things as Cubism and contemporary physics that he has created two- and three-dimensional representations of four-dimensional space (Hertz 15). This caught my eye because I really liked the color scheme as well as the way the objects break through the frame of the picture. It almost has a linear sense to it, but having objects come out of the frame seems to break that a little. I also really like that he uses a color pallet that goes well together. One is able to pick out familiar shapes which is very interesting because you can see the framework of the objects.

                If I were to critique this at all, I wonder how he would be able to press through the paintings he does; that is, how could he make it even more intricate? If he were to apply non-geometric shapes along with geometric shapes, I think that would be very interesting. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Robbin

"Art, Code, and the Engine of Change" - Paul Hertz

Progress

So progress is coming along slowly but surely. The hard part is that I have already created lines and now I have to go back and make them connect to make actual shapes. It's a slow process, but I'm getting the hang of it.

Music Line Illustrator

These are six random portraits that I found online (Google images: Portraits)

Andreas Berner

Andreas Berner is an artist and director who founded the Permanent Eye Pictures, an independent film production company. Berner has done many commercials, but the project above, which is known as Moments, is a more personal piece for Berner. It consists of personal memories that hold a big significance to him. It is a project that tells stories that "reflect on the feeling of being alone, establishing a dichotomy between the notion of isolation and solitude that underlie the feeling that the memories are based on"; in particular, it talks about those in-between moments in life that have a huge affect on a person. These moments are more emotional than just observing the moment.

The interesting part about this piece is that it focuses on aspects of life that could be seen as either negative or positive, such as isolation (considered negative) and solitude (considered positive). This piece caught my eye because of the way it it set up; a viewer knows that this project consists of individual photo's but the overall layout is both connected and dispersed, which makes one stop and look. I wish a closer look was possible, because I am curious as to what the pictures are of.

I think it is very intriguing that these are personal memories to Berner; by having a piece that is closely associated with you, I think it can be very powerful. I think Berner is trying to simply express what many people prefer to hide; those life changing moments that can be very personal and not the happiest to reminisce about. A piece like this I think would be very powerful in person, and it seems they are all in black and white which doesn't necessarily give it a positive or negative tone overall, and I really like that. Based on the photo given, it seems as though some pictures are repeated; my critique would be that I think it would make the eyes wander and connect more if there was more of a variety of photos.

http://eyebeam.org/projects/moments
http://eyebeam.org/people/andreas-berner 

Cary Peppermint

Cary Peppermint is a co-founder of ecoarttech collaborative (2005) which explores environmental issues, convergent media, as well as technologies. His works consist of "the convergence of ecological, cultural, and digital networks, through a post-disciplinary practice with strong ties to internet and performance art". The particular piece of work that I will be discussing is in his "Untitled Landscapes for Portable Media Players" series.
 I chose this particular piece because for my first project, I will be using electronics to frame other electronics. In this work series, Peppermint uses portable media players to show landscapes that are ever changing. While I will not be using landscapes per se, I will still be adding an element of realism to my picture that will show technology.
 Peppermint is showing the connection between technology and culture through these pieces; he is asking, "is there a way to imagine the natural environment that is neither romanticized nor a source of exploitable resources to drive an ongoing modernization?" My piece will be similar in the idea of the fact that we live in a world where today it is hard to imagine life without technology; we rely on it so much, it's a part of our everyday lives.
I really enjoyed that Peppermint has the landscape changing and made it a video; it reminds us that time is constantly going, and by showing a landscape, it leads us away from the idea that technology is overtaking our lives. By having it shown on a form of a portable media player however, it reminds us that we are surrounded by technology (literally). Within the work, however, I believe that he could have made a big impression by having a still shot of some landscape and could make the connection between technology and nature and still ask the same question as before. I think that by doing so, there could be very interesting answers.

http://rhizome.org/artbase/artwork/48134/   <--page I found that led me to the Untitled Landscape series
http://rhizome.org/profiles/cpeppermint/       <--Cary Peppermints profile as well as his other works
http://ecoarttech.net/untitledlandscapes/       <--the Untitled Landscape series

We did Celebrity Mashups! I used Amy McAdams and Leonardo DiCaprio

Original:

Put them together and you get.....

Before and After

I went to a Taylor Swift concert with great seats and a good camera. Here is one picture that isn't terrible, but could have been better.

Before....

After!

Alice (Collage)

Assortment of JPEG Images

String Bracelet

Cotton Balls

 Fencing Medal

 Key Cover

Umbrella

Glasses Case

Glove

Athletic Band (used to stretch)

Napkin

Necklace

Dieter Huber

                Dieter Huber is an artist born in Schladming, Austria in 1962. Huber went to Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Austria in 1980 to study stage-design, costume design, and theater art painting. The picture of which I am most interested in is Klone #117. Huber had “technologically transformed plants, humans, and landscapes”. This particular image was created between 1998 and 1999. This piece of work interests me because I love sceneries. I appreciate what was done with the lighting of this picture; the background is very bright which draws the eyes in towards the center of the picture. Once the eyes leave the center they are able to explore the rest of the picture; this is what makes it strong.

                What was the message that Huber was trying to convey? I like to think that by doing digitally morphed photos, he is trying to show a wider world; there are so many possibilities and every person has a different view of the world. Huber is expressing one of those options. The human mind is full of possibilities and by using digital art, but the way Huber does it is very realistic and smooth.

                My critique is that while I appreciate the realism of the picture, perhaps it is too real; within Huber’s other works of Klone, there is a tone that shows the plants, for example, are not real. In the scenery picture, it looked more like a photograph and if one had shown me the picture, I would have believed that the photo was not edited; that is a complement in itself, however, if that was Huber’s goal.

https://blackboard.smcm.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-40060-dt-content-rid-251721_1/courses/12FA-ART214.01/ChristianePaul.pdf

You can see Huber's works and learn more about him through this website
http://www.dieter-huber.com/biography.html