Sunday, September 28, 2014

Things i like/dislike


Things I like

Television in general                                                      

hot showers

Monk                                                                                   

coffee

Crime dramas                                                                   

pizza

Justified                                                                              

the Sopranos

Community                                                                       

Brooklyn 99

Breaking Bad                                                                     

my computing gaming classes

Game of Thrones                                                            

my computer                                                    

Hannibal                                                                             

my tv

Malcolm in the middle                                                  

Community

Movies in general                                                           

my PlayStation

Quentin Tarintino movies                                            

the internet

Super hero movies                                                         

my I-phone

Scarface                                                                              

Blade runner                                                                                     

Anime in general                                                             

the cold in winter

Cowboy Bebop                                                                

Christmas

Gurren Lagann                                                                 

my family                                                           

Death Note                                                                 

 My friends

Samurai Champloo                                                         

One Piece (anime)

Manga in general                                                      

Pandas

Naruto                                                                         

 Monkeys

Soul eater                                                                  

  Cats

Fullmetal alchemist                                                        

Dogs

Classic rock songs                                                    

  Persona

The Beatles                                                                  

Borderlands

The Rolling Stones                                                          

Chrono Trigger

The Who                                                                             

Weekends         

Roller Coasters                                                                 

Kingdom Hearts

Video Games in general                                                               

Assassin’s Creed

Things I dislike                                                                                                                 

Know-it-alls                                                                                                                       

Bad TV shows in general

Mean people                                                                                                                    

Black Box

Jerks                                                                                                                                     

Under the Dome

Onions                                                                                                                                 

Dads the TV show

Broccoli                                                                                                                               

Bad Anime in general

Fish                                                                                                                                       

Bad video games

Insects generally                                                                                                             

Neverdead

Bees                                                                                                                                     

Rambo the video game

Wasps                                                                                                                                  

Ride to Hell Retribution

Most movie based games                                                                                           

Games with microtransactions

Hornets                                                                                                                                               

Justin Bieber (who doesn’t)       

Mosquitos                                                                                                                         

Twilight

Homework                                                                                                                        

Getting stuck on an assignment

Especially discussion boards                                                                                       

Coming up with lists of 100

Things I like/dislike                         

Math                                                                                                                                    

Movie 43

Physics                                                                                                                                

Anything made by Uwe Boll

Getting up early

The heat in summer

Bad movies in general

Battlefield Earth

Batman and Robin

Jack and Jill

Ghost rider (one of my favorite characters ruined!)

The Last Airbender movie

Dragon Ball Evolution

Pompeii (the movie)

Resident Evil 1-5

Learning languages



Resident Evil 1-5



Friday, September 26, 2014


                I am not even going to pretend that I understood everything I read and heard this week, and it is very possible that I have missed the point completely.  But what a cool idea.  Art doesn’t have to part of the art industry or the art establishment.  Internet art can be a kind of outlaw art.  It can bounce around the internet, from person to person, changing as it goes.  Art in the computer age.

                I am part of the computer age.  I can’t remember a time without the computer really.  I have it on all the time.  I socialize on it, entertain myself on it, and even sometimes do my homework on it.  I love video games, not just to play, but how they look--how the world of the game looks.  They don’t call it video art for nothing. I do believe computer art can be unique, and use the medium to its advantage. 

                I can understand why some people would want to see art in person.  There is power in seeing a piece close up.  But some computer art is unique in that you cannot really see it in person.  Look at pixel art.  It’s actually better when you see it on the computer.  When you print it out, it just looks wrong.  And social media can also have a role in computer art.  Why not?  The internet changes all the time as people add things to it.

                Now, I’ll admit that computer art does not have its “Mona Lisa” moment yet.  But every day people are experimenting with this new art form.  Any day now, we could see something new and earth shattering.  And even if computer art never has its “Mona Lisa” moment, maybe that’s ok.  It is what it is.  It allows many people to see art, and maybe even participate in it.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Community project assessment



Project Critique Form                   


Sam Utiger


AVT 180-008


Critique


What ideas did you incorporate into the piece?


My collage conveys the idea of the earth as a community that has to live together, by showing pictures of all different creatures together in one environment.  I hope it creates a happy (but crowded) feeling, just like the earth.


My collage includes lots of color, some very bright, some with high contrast (white on a darker background).  I think that adds to the crowded effect, and makes it pop.  Also, the groups tend to be the same color, so that holds them together as a group. I like the curved path of humans, so that is kind of the backbone of the picture.


The orientation is straight forward, as you would see the pictures, and the creatures.  I didn’t want to manipulate the pictures as much as combine them, so that they are all inhabiting the same world.


Do you think the piece is successful?  Why or why not?


I think it is interesting to look at, so it is successful to me.  I also like how it’s a little bit magical, with all the creatures together.


Self-evaluation


What skills did you learn through working on this piece?  How did you employ these skills in your work?


I learned Photoshop skills, like cut and paste, and sizing.


What challenges did you face?


It was hard to fit all the pictures together in the way I wanted them to fit.


Did you find a suitable resolution—if yes, what?  If no, what would you change?


Eventually, I did fit them—but the penguins are walking on water.  That turned out to be fun though, and filled a hole in the picture, so I didn’t want to change that.


What revisions would you make if you were to do the work a second time?
I would use more pictures from different sources—I think it has too many birds, and not enough other animals.               

Community


Wednesday, September 10, 2014


Everybody steals from everybody, including artists.  That is the main point of “The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism” by Jonathan Lethem.  This happens in music, in fine arts, in literature--in all forms of art.  Sometimes the artist steals without meaning to.  Sometime the artist makes something totally different out of what he has stolen.  Some forms of art, like blues and jazz, are based on stealing.  But the product is always somehow different.

                Sometimes, the context changes (like Koons said).  That is true with collages, and that is why collage has been called “the art form of the 20th Century,” as the author notes. Surrealists are expert at using something in a different way.  But even just framing something in a particular way can change it.  An artist should be able to use the world.  We are taught not to plagiarize, pirate music, or violate copyrights, but the community loses a potential source for art, when this is enforced too strictly. 

And you can’t take art back.  An audience can’t control its imagination, and why would an artist want to?  Most artists are influenced raher than totally unique.  Why should they be hypocrites about that?  Art is a gift, it’s something that happens to you.  It’s not just a commodity (although it can exist within a market system where you do get paid for art).  Art is like the public commons, something that belongs to everyone and no one.  We should feel free to use it for the public good.

Don’t worry about originality.  You are putting it all together in your own way, even if you did not make it all.  You couldn’t separate out what is not yours anyway, because art becomes part of the culture.  Really, everything we think and say we picked up somewhere else.  Art is no different.

Of course, I may have just plagiarized the author’s article.  But he certainly can’t complain.   

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

National Geographics


Sam Utiger

                                                                                                                        9/9/14

                                                                                                                        AVT 103

Picture 1

 

I tried to use Ben Franklin to represent technology as I think he was a great innovator.

I think that the pros are that it accurately depicts Ben Franklin.

I think the cons are that for some reason the background behind him does not seem to look like a lake (as I intended). I also wanted to put in some of his inventions, but I could not find any in picture of that in the article--they focused on his politics, not his inventions.

Picture 2


For this piece, I tried to represent chaos. I used a new backdrop as a setting to this confrontation between these wooden animals.

Pros-I think this is the best picture I did and I like the new background--the old one did not look so good. I got rid of the mountains these pieces of the statue were connected to in order to make it look a little more lifelike.

Cons--The animals in some areas seem to blend in to the background.

Picture 3



For this piece I took a picture of a swan from part of the magazine, and combined it with this picture of a huge flock of birds to represent beauty.

Pros--I think I captured both the swan and the flock of birds well.

Cons--I could not get rid of the white line from when I scanned the swan.

Picture 4

 





For this piece, I put a house on top of the water. I tried to use it to represent humor but now that I think of it, it might not be so funny.

Pros--I captured the house very well I think

Cons--I still can’t capture that river very well.

 Picture 5



For this picture, I used a picture of people walking to a church in Scotland against the backdrop of the flock of birds. I used this to represent community, as both the birds and the people gathered together for a migration of sorts.

Pros--I think I captured the birds and the people walking to church very well.

Cons--I couldn’t use all of the picture of the people because it would not fit into the format I was supposed to use and I did not want to squish them.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Beauty is embarassing assignment


Opening to a Wayne White exhibit.

Mr. White: Hello Sam.

Me: Hello Mr. White. I love your set work and art style.

Mr. White: Thank you. What do you think art is? How do you know if it is successful or not? Does it fit in with what I consider art?

Me: I think that art can be anything. I think it can be anything from a painting of a lush forest to a great song. It can be anything from something in a museum to something spray painted onto the side of a building. It can just be material stuff or it can be someone putting on a mask (like you) and gaging people’s reactions. It can be designing sets or videos, as you have done before.  It can be completely your own creation or, like you did with your painting, take existing art and adding something on it like words—like painting “FAILED ABSTRACT PAINTING OF THE SEVENTIES” over a typical picture of the seventies (which made me laugh). Now how do I define if a piece of art is successful or not? Well, while I do think that art that makes you think is amazing, I think that the only thing that makes art successful or not is whether or not it makes people react to it--whether people were touched by the painting deeply, whether they laughed at the joke (or not), or whether they just stood there looking at the painting thinking “What did I just look at?” Some people will probably say “That’s not art, only this is art” but I say it’s left to the interpretation of the viewer. There are no set guidelines for what art is.

Mr. White: You and I agree.  Well thank you for your time.

Me: My pleasure.