Swartz,Jenny_AllisonParrish from Art 346 Digital Media UNR

Allison Parrish is an artist who works with computer programming to generate "bots" that create either poetry or ambiguous messages. She uses twitter as her domain for computer generated bots like "Everyword" and "The Ephemerides". Her work focuses on the complexities of words when combined with computers. She has also made and is in the process of making computer games.

Wolf Vostell & Nam June Paik - Selected works

Wolf Vostell:
Endogen Depression (1975-1984):

This was an interesting installation that mimicked many of Vostell's earlier pieces and installations. This one is unique because he makes television sets look like ancient artifacts. It makes me think about how a future generation would find television sets in their futuristic era. Vostell included turkeys in the installation, which are a tradition American symbol since the beginning of the pilgrimage. Turkeys were the "special guest" of Thanksgiving, making it seem like they are witnessing the beginning of something new in this installation.

E. d. H. R. (1968): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzGsVbSdD3k

This is one of Vostell's most famous pieces. It includes television sets and moving objects that are projected from the screen like mechanical arms and fake birds. It is somewhat haunting but makes us consider the differences between the outside world versus the projected reality we often overlook from our television sets.

Nam June Paik: 

Video Tape Study No. 3 (1967-1969): https://vimeo.com/155874396

This piece of images from a conference by President Lyndon Johnson is created to distort the appearance of commercialized TV and makes a media disturbance. It reminds me of the current presidential debates, and how after all, the TV is just pixelation on a screen.

Magnet TV (1965):

This piece of work challenges the idea of instant feedback. It also allows interactivity with the television, creating an image that is out of the ordinary. It demonstrates the beautiful destruction of a traditional home device that many Americans may take for granted. It also goes to show the multitude of ways in which the television can be distorted, again reasserting the idea that the TV is simply just pixelization on a screen.

Ludic Artifacts - Austin Clinton (MFA Thesis Exhibit)

Ludic Artifacts was one of the most unique galleries I have seen. The gallery pertained to games and ludology, which is the study of games. At first glance, the pieces of Austin's gallery seemed confusing and a bit esoteric. However, reading the captions and descriptions provided a more narrow perspective to his art pieces.

A majority of the pieces were created with paper and represent an aspect of gaming life. One of the most interesting parts about his gallery were the materials he chose to use. In one piece, he created a 3-dimensional scene using a black box and yellow paper figures. This was one of my favorite pieces. It was very aesthetically pleasing. Aesthetics was a theme in his gallery, and he really integrated aesthetics to his pieces, which is also an essential element in gaming.

The last part of his exhibit included a chess game created with 3D printed chess pieces. Austin and a few friends were playing chess, as well as speaking about the aspects of chess. It seemed as if some of the chess pieces had been renamed by Austin (right). Since chess is a somewhat slow game, it is always interesting to examine the ethical dilemmas that occur to the players.

It was a very interesting exhibit, and helped me understand the complexities of gaming a little bit more. Additionally, it excited me for the future advancements of 3D printing, and how it can be incorporated into daily life, such as this game of chess.

Two Questions Based on Reading of “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television”

1) Is there a benefit to producing largely viewed motion pictures from books or stories besides the production value?

2) For instance, can you recall your own characters from imagination for books like Harry Potter, or are these characters predetermined based off the movie series?

John Cage Presentation

Swartz,Jenny_JohnCage from Art 346 Digital Media UNR

Slide Share Presentation

Links:
4' 33": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYsx5Di3bso
Sonatas & Interludes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RAgthGA-9Q

John Cage is known as the pioneer of sound. His work focuses on how noise can be a perception and a valuable source of sound for music. His early works are compositions of music using found sounds or psyching his audience out into listening to ambience instead of actual music. Later works are things like Empty Words which is drawn from the works of Thoreau to create a tangle of meaningless letters.