:RE_PROJECT [initial idea – spoof website]:

I found a nice spoof government website that I liked. Might be an idea to take one of the pieces in this direction considering I a bit stuck with this project right now.

Check it out at www.preparingforemergencies.co.uk

:RE_PROJECT [initial design boards]:

So for our mid-term review i designed a board for each of the design proposals. click on the thumbnails below to see the full size boards.

Level 10



News Site



The feedback on the feedback on the boards went as such:

Level 10: too text heavy, needs tag line and short description, should visually explain the project, also should not refer to project in 1st person 'my' idea etc.

News Site: background paper looked off as it was on an angle, arrows & text didn't match the idea really & could have been better.

so i shall have another go for final presentation.

:RE-MIX_IDEA [level 10]:

So I have decided that the re-mix idea described in the previous post is to be one of my final 2 submissions for this project.

I have decided to call it 'Level 10'. This I thought was an apt title as it gives the impression of depth or substance which i think is one of the main objectives of the project. I want the re-mixed site to give the user a more immersive and interesting experience from an otherwise somewhat boring website.

I realise that functionality is the main concern for a sire such as this but why not have an alternative, after all choice is the essence of life so why not?

:RE-MIX_IDEA [format change cont.]:

So as a continuation from thinking along the lines of re-mixing the way something is presented I have begun to look at other pieces of multimedia that this could be applied to.

So my next idea is the re-mix a website, taking it from plain/static content to create something that incorporates footage taken by myself to give the impression of distance travelled to get the information. A digital space to explore whilst navigating the original site’s contents.

As an example I could take a property website with just basic house listings and whatnot and create a ‘re-mixed’ site that involves footage from around a house. Each room could represent a different area the estate agent deals with. The user would be presented initially with a room with links that when clicked would play a small clip of footage taken from one room to another. When the next room is reached the user can then choose from a list of links again etc.

I would keep the content of the site the same as the original but totally re-create the format/design.

:RE-MIX_IDEA [format change]:

I was thinking about how a newspaper presents it’s information on the front page and then how this could be presented in a new and original way.

My first thoughts were that it could be presented as something totally irrelevant such as a menu for a takeaway menu for instance. Keeping all the information the same but repackaging it into a different format. To re-mix the presentation.

I think this could be quite interesting.

:RETURN_IDEA [return to virtual space to re-mixing a medium]:

Thinking about this idea based upon returning to a virtual space I had another idea based upon it that I think has a much stronger concept. Instead of just one word taken from a headline, why not go so far as to represent each word in that headline as an individual image or even the entire article.

News sites are generally made in the same format, text heavy with one or two pictures per article. I would plan to re-mix the way this is presented by the use of image instead of text.

It would be interesting to see if the information held in the article can still be conveyed by the images that replace the text.

More on this to come...

:RETURN_IDEA [return to virtual space]:

My 1st idea that interpreted 'return' was based upon returning to a virtual space.

I thought that I could use PHP or something similar to obtain a random word taken from the headline of an article from that day on a news site, then use that word to search some sort of image database such as www.flickr.com and take the top 10 images that relate to that particular word.

I would then present these images as a graphical representation of that days news.

I could do this over a given time period, like a week, returning to the same news site each day and see what outcome it gives me.

I will talk to my code lecturer Spencer to see if this is a possibility and to see if he has any input.

:REWIND_RESEARCH [guiness advert]:

The current guiness advert can be used as a good example that can be refered to the theme of 'rewind'. First appearing in October 2005 the TV advert shows 3 men drinking guiness in a bar go backwards through evolution until they are nothing but primodial creatures. It features as part of the good things come to those who wait campaign.

The way it is shown is by appearing to rewind through time ie showing the walking backwards.

This is a screen shot taken from the advert at around half way through, when the 3 men are at primitive man stage of evolution...


image taken from http://media1.thomson-intermedia.com

This example uses rewind along a linear narrative.

:RETURN_RESEARCH [time lapse]:

Whilst thinking along the lines of the title return time lapse photography sprung into my head. Before I begin for anyone that isn't familar with time lapse the en.wikipedia.org definition can be found below....

Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby each film frame is captured at a rate much slower than it will be played back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing. Time-lapse photography can be considered to be the opposite of high speed photography.

Processes that would normally appear subtle to the human eye, such as motion in the sky, become very pronounced. Time-lapse is the extreme version of the cinematography technique of undercranking, and can be considered a borderline form of stop motion animation.

I found this interesting in relation to the term return because it involves essentially returning to the same place, exactely, and repeat a picture over time.

Here are a couple of examples of time lapse that i particulary enjoyed....

experiments with time lapse created and edited by Ollie Larkin

and...

A Time-Lapse Lunar Eclipse
Credit & Copyright: Forrest J. Egan (Digital Astro)

I am quite interested in completing some sort of time lapse piece for this project so I will keep you posted when a concept begins to form...

:REWORK_IDEA [pixel manipulation]:

Just as an initial idea/musing I was thinking about reworking an image using the application processing in order to some how jumble the pixels of a particular image. I could do this to explore whther the reworked image conveyed the same emotion or meaning as the original.

Jason Savalon used code to create alot of his work which gave me the idea.

I was thinking what parameters I could dictate, perhaps I could ask processing to add some pixels of the same colour value to each pixel then resize the image back down to the orginal dimention creating a sort of out of focus blurred look.

Or shifting each pixels by removing them and putting them in an array then re-drawing them into a different pre-defined pattern.

I will talk to Spencer to see what options might be avaliable to me.

:REWORK_RESEARCH [jason salavon]:

One of Jason Salavon's work stuck out to me in particular in relation to reworking. The work is entitled 'Every Playboy Centerfold, The Decades' which was completed by Salavon in 2002.

The description found on www.salavon.com goes like this...

From a broader series begun in 1997, the photographs in this suite are the result of mean averaging every Playboy centerfold foldout for the four decades beginning Jan. 1960 through Dec. 1999. This tracks, en masse, the evolution of this form of portraiture.

Basically Salavon has created a collage of each playboy centerfold over a decade to create a vague impression of female form.

Examples are below...


The 1960s (image taken from www.salavon.com)


The 1970s (image taken from www.salavon.com)


The 1980s (image taken from www.salavon.com)


The 1990s (image taken from www.salavon.com)

I thought this was really nice because although all the source material he used is not his own he has interpreted it creatively to produce something with a very different intent.

:REWORK_RESEARCH [idris Khan]:

Another example of an artist that uses existing material in his work is a Birmingham born London based artist called Idris Khan. Again Khan could be argued in the copyright discussion but before you decide which side he falls under have a read of the below discription taken from www.victoria-miro.com….

‘Khan creates multi-layered photographs, often of appropriated art and books, in a way that both augments the aura of the original and reveals the idiosyncratic trace of his own hand. Khan's work explores the history of photography and literature, the beauty of repetition and the anxieties of authorship. "it's obviously not about re-photographing the photographs to make exact copies, but to intervene and bring a spectrum of feelings - warmth, humour, anxiety - to what might otherwise be considered cool aloof image. You can see the illusion of my hand in the layering. It looks like a drawing. It's not systematic or uniform. The opacity of every layer is a different fallible, human decision".’

Here are some examples of his work….


image taken from www.victoria-miro.com Copyright the artist


image taken from www.victoria-miro.com Copyright the artist


image taken from www.victoria-miro.com Copyright the artist

If a piece of work is different enough that the intended meaning is so far from the original does that deem copyright irrelevant? You decide…

:REWORK_RESEARCH [plagiarism and similarities]:

With the reworking of someone else’s copyrighted material I found that there seems to be a fine line to be drawn between similarities between a reworked piece and the original, as if the new work has taken inspiration from the original, and plagiarism, where by the new piece rips off the original. So where do similarities end and when does plagiarism begin?

I found a really nice example of this in relation to fine art photography. It come’s in the from of a discussion created by German photographer Jörg M Colberg of www.jmcolberg.com. Colberg writes a long piece focused on the photography’s by Peter Bialobrzeski and Horst and Daneil Zielske, a father and son team. Now Bialobrzeski took a series of photos in Shanghai to be included in his collection entitled “Neon Tigers”, they featured in his book along with a number of exhibitions he put on around the globe. The Zielske’s photos appear to be of not only the same content including angle, focus and distance from subject but also of same graphic quality.


image taken from www.jmcolberg.com

These were on show at Hamburg's Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (MKG) and appear to have been created for commercial purpose. The Zielske’s certainly knew of Bialobrzeski’s work before they completed their own as they even contacted Bialobrzeski before hand asking for advice between colleagues which he gave. Bialobrzeski seemed happy enough until the work was then published by the Zielske’s and then Bialobrzeski asked for the work to be taken off display.

View the full article by Jörg M Colberg at www.jmcolberg.com

This brought up an interesting idea that plagiarism refers not to the work it’s self but in it’s application, and only become s a problem if it is copied for profit.

A lot of artists publish their work under the one of the ‘Creative Commons Licenses’ which place work within the public domain and can be used by other artists dependant on the terms and conditions of the license, for instance provided it is not used for commercial purpose.

:REWORK_RESEARCH [vuk cosic]:

Obviously there are hundreds of pieces of work that have been ‘reworked’ for one reason or another but one artist that came straight to mind was Vuk Cosic. Cosic is primarily a net artist with an interest in all things ASCII. He has created several scenes taken from popular films such as ‘Psycho’ and ‘Deep Throat’ and produced them completely in ASCII which although I find a little hard to watch an interesting concept. I will touch upon net artists more under the re-invent heading as I feel that net art re-invents the form and purpose of traditional art which creates something new and unique. Cosic does do this here but I’d thought I’d give him a mention as in this particular series he exploits existing material in order to create.


image taken from www.manovich.net/

or you can check out the full videos at www.ljudmila.org

:RE-THINK_IDEA [re-thinking perception]:

I was thinking about how the meaning can be changed by re-thinking the perception of something and I realised that in order to re-think the perception, something needs to be changed. As in Reservoir Dogs where Tarantino replaces conventional music in favour of light-hearted music for the torture scene.

I was thinking how the perception of an image can be changed and I thought it would be quite interesting to explore how the perception of an image could be changed by the addition to another image along side it.

This is something that I will try to experiment with to see if anything arises.

:RE-THINK_RESEARCH [re-thinking perception]:

Off the back of the research I completed on the Open Systems exhibition I began to think about re-thinking perceptions. That how the meaning of something can be changed through re-thinking the way the audience are to perceive it.

A good example of this is Tarantino’s use of music in the 1992 cult movie ‘Reservoir Dogs’. One scene in particular illustrates this perfectly. It is the scene in which the character Mr Blonde is torturing a kidnapped policeman and whilst he proceeds to mutilate the officer with a cutthroat razor he sets the radio to his favourite station. The station features 70’s classics and ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’ by Stealers Wheel begins and continues to play as Mr Blonde proceeds to cut the officers ear off. This outrageous contrast instead of serving to make the scene less disturbing makes it even more so. Traditionally evil music would have been played here to match the content but because Tarantino re-thought how the scene could be perceived by the audience and replaced sinister music with playful music the result is far more disturbing.


image taken from splinder.com

This challenges traditional conventions by re-thinking perception. I think this has probably been used for still image as well maybe in advertising, which I will have a look about for. Maybe I could create something using images that appear innocent in content but carry especially malevolent undertones.

:RE-THINK_RESEARCH [open sources]:

Open Systems: Rethinking Art c.1970 was a exhibition in the Tate gallery that brought together the work of international artists who radically rethought the object of art in the late 1960s and 1970s. The featured artists sought to connect with the increasingly urgent political developments of the decade and make their work more responsive to the world around them. Building on the structures of Minimalism and Conceptualism, they reacted against art's traditional focus on the object by adopting experimental aesthetic 'systems' across a variety of media including photography, dance, performance, painting, installation, video and film.

The exhibition ran from 1 June – 18 September 2005 and featured key installations from the period and works by influential artists including Andy Warhol.

Made up of divergent viewpoints that remind us that art history is made up of multiply stories.

“The old art was an object, the new art is a system”
Willoughby Sharp 1967


Hans Haacke
Condensation Cube 1963
Museu d'Art Contemporaini, Barcelona, Spain.
Gift of the National Comittee and Board of Trustees Whitney Museum of American Art © DACS 2005
(image taken from www.tate.org.uk)

I believe re-thinking is the backbone of any creative endeavour. I don’t believe any thought can be truly original but instead is made up of the past experiences of the individual that has it. Without these experiences the idea could never be realised.

What I have taken from looking at the Open Systems exhibition is that no matter what the current perception of something it can be changed or bent and twisted into something else.

:REMIND_RESEARCH [memento mori]:

Memento Mori is a Latin phrase meaning remember you must die. A memento mori painting or sculpture is one designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the brevity and fragility of human life in the face of God and nature. A basic memento mori painting would be a portrait with a skull but other symbols commonly found are hourglasses or clocks, extinguished or guttering candles, fruit, and flowers. In addition to the symbols of mortality these may include other symbols such as musical instruments, wine and books to remind us explicitly of the vanity (in the sense of worthlessness) of worldly pleasures and goods.

Below are some examples given on www.tate.org.uk of memento mori paintings…


Edward Collier, Still Life with a Volume of Wither's `Emblemes', 1696


Pablo Picasso
Goat's Skull, Bottle and Candle
1952


Sarah Lucas
Self Portrait with Skull
1997

Here are some images taken from www.flickr.com that interpret Memento Mori, most of those I found were pretty gothic and depressing….


© All rights reserved by maccio (www.flickr.com)


© All rights reserved by wakalani ( www.flickr.com)


© All rights reserved by ultra.mega~ok (www.flickr.com)

I liked this idea that a piece of art or something created has the ability to remind an individual or a group of people of something. It would be interesting to create some sort of series of images that conjure a particular memory in myself for instance and then see if they have a similar effect on others.

Some text and image included taken from www.tate.org.uk

:RECYCLE_RESEARCH [found object art part 2]:

I had a look through some other artists work who use found objects.

Bruce Gray is a metalwork sculptor from Los Angeles. He uses found materials as well as self created metal shapes or structures for his pieces.


Motorcycle #1 by Bruce Gray (taken from www.brucegray.com)

Environmental art, recycled art, abstract paintings, installation art and public art, form the multidisciplined art of John Dahlsen. As a contemporary artist, based in Byron Bay, this Australian artist has won numerous awards as an environmental artist and for his installation art, abstract drawings, abstract paintings and found object art.


ABSOLUT DAHLSEN by John Dahlsen at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney 2004 (image taken from www.corriere.it)

Rene Hinds is a New York based artist that dabbles with found object art. Example below…

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image taken from rhindsarts.com


Info taken from www.johndahlsen.com, rhindsarts.com

:RECYCLE_RESEARCH [found object art]:

Found art
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term found art—more commonly found object (French: objet trouvé) or readymade—describes art created from the undisguised, but often modified, use of objects that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a mundane, utilitarian function. Marcel Duchamp was the originator of this in the early 20th-century.


Photograph of Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain". A paradigmatic example of found-art. (image taken from www.wikipedia.org)

Found art derives significance from the designation placed upon it by the artist. The context into which it is placed (e.g. a gallery or museum) is usually also a highly relevant factor. The idea of dignifying commonplace objects in this way was originally a shocking challenge to the accepted distinction between what was considered art as opposed to not art. Although it is now widely accepted in the art world as a viable practice, it continues to arouse media and public hostility, as with the Tate Gallery's Turner Prize exhibition of Tracey Emin's My Bed, which consisted literally of her unmade and dishevelled bed.


Tracey Emin’s – My Bed (image taken from www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk)

Found art, however, has to have the artist's input, at the very least an idea about it, i.e. the artist's designation of the object as art, which is nearly always reinforced with a title. There is mostly also some degree of modification of the object, although not to the extent that it cannot be recognised. The modification may lead to it being designated a "modified", "interpreted" or "adapted" found object.

:RECYCLE_RESEARCH [found magazine]:

I started research for recycle by thinking how recycled items are used by people whther that be artists or the public.

I came across I website called www.foundmagazine.com. Created by American pair Davy Rothbart and Jason Bitner this magazine and website is based on found items.

I thought this tied nicely in with recycled materials as each item is something discarded or lost by someone that has been found and recycled into entertainment for Found Magazine’s readership.

It started with a note left on Rothbart’s windscreen that was meant for someone else (see below) and continued from there gaining a now large following.


note that started it all, found on Davy, the co-creators, windscreen

Each day a new found item is featured on the site. Most are notes or personal ephemera that create some sort of intrigue as to where it came from or what it is.


item posted for 06.11.06, found atop a recycling bin just before xmas

I really like what they are doing at found magazine, it’s an interesting concept to use something discarded by an individual to entertain others. I think it’s maybe something to do with human instinct to be curious of others that promotes interest in things found items.

:IDEAS GENERATION:

So to begin with in order to focus my efforts and take ownership of the project I have decided to initially take 6 words that use the extension ‘re’ and work on an idea for each of them. I will then choose 2 of the most promising ideas and carry them through to final piece. That’s not to say that they may warp and change along the way, this is purely an exercise to get me started on the project. So the 6 words I have chosen are as follow….

• Recycle
• Remind
• Return
• Rethink
• Rework
• Reinvent

I w:ill cover some research for each of the words and then see what ideas arise from them beginning with recycle.

:RE_PROJECT_BRIEF:

For this years studio project we have been given the title 'RE'. To be used as an extension to a word, ie Remix, we are to create 2 pieces of multimedia that interpret this theme.

We are to select appropriate media technologies to realise our ideas. The work should reflect our personal interests and engage in our own area of specialism. The aim of the assignment is to 'play' with ideas and produce distinctive studio work by mixing critical theory with innovative and digital technologies.

Studio time will be used to contextualise the brief through a series of screenings, disscussions and tutorial sessions.

Submission components include sketchbooks and notebooks for which I will be using this blog for my digital reseach and to explain ideas and also a paper based sketchbook to initial ideas and scribbles. A body of computer based experiments showing the development of ideas over time is also required along with design boards/storyboards and 2 finished pieces as mentioned above.

So stay tuned....