And So the End Shall Be the Beginning

Before I took this class I was in a serious art slump. I hadn't done anything creatively since Winter Break and it was killing me. But then I got into this class and suddenly something opened back up. Within the first two weeks I was starting to get ideas and even execute them. For Pete's Sake I doodled! I drew something on paper with my hands. And it was pitiful and lacked finesse, but it was there and I had a creative thought or two while doing it.
And the the class went on and I found other ways to tap into my creativity, many of which were to just buckle down and do it. In short, I found I could art again. And it was such a relief because having gone six months producing nearly nothing was down right depressing.
I really enjoyed the Egg assignment (sadly my update remains at that fact that my roommate had no reaction to her alien egg) because it forced me to look at an assignment with "no" rules and to still do something with it. I liked the Bliss assignment as well because it purposely carved out time that could be spent in happiness. That to me spoke volumes because even though I get a lot of time to myself to do what I want, I rarely spend it doing what I want. I normally just squander it on internet fodder and although that can be entertaining, in the end I come away from it feeling empty. With the Bliss assignment I took the time to really examine what I wanted to do and then spent the time actually doing it. I came away from that feeling fulfilled.
It was the book assignment, though, that really stayed with me. I loved the therapeutic nature of taking something so negative and transforming it into something positive. Cutting and folding and tapping and sewing fishing line through JavaScript shit to turn it into a sculpture was extremely satisfying. And the fact that the sculpture took on a mind of its own with its sliding cubes and swinging strings told me that that project needed to be done. I took something so static and boring and difficult and made it into this carefree, kinetic, easy-going, aesthetically pleasing thing. It made me happy, which is a complete 180 from where I started with it.
So overall the course taught me to go with the flow and to buckle down and do what I come up with, that not everything has to be perfect as long as I like how it turns out, and that sometimes some "me time" can be very, very productive.
Signing off for the last time; may one tear be shed.

"Altared" book of the self

What is your opinion of combining technology and the human body as she did in the video?
I think tech and the human body can be combined to do good, such as artificial limbs or hearing aids. But I also think there's a limit; there comes a point where technology becomes invasive into the human body (like the swallowed perfume). We are organic and too much tech can rob us of that. For example, we feel pain so we take man-made pain killers. But then those medicines start messing with our bodies. Tylenol hurts your liver, Advil is hard on your stomach, and Excedrin is bad for your nervous system. So I think it's how you use technology in combination with the human body that gives it its purpose.  

What is your opinion of combining a media arts and science project with your own body?
I had talked about this in an earlier post, but one MAS project I'd like to try involving the body is painting in the cave (cave paintings?). It could be as simple as using the gyro mouse to get long, sweeping motions of large screens to create very wide and fluid images. Or it could get more complicated and involve sensors on different parts of the body and the individual could dance, leaving pixel-paint on the walls that mimicked the motions of the dancer. That would be awesome. 

What is identity of self in the digital world? 
 Identity of self is such a hard thing to accomplish in the digital world because you can be anybody you want to be. And that means you can lie to not only everyone online, but also to yourself. But it also means that your identity could reflect what you want it to be. If you believe in the ID you have online, doesn't that make it part of yourself? And isn't that technically your identity? So the digital world can allow you to explore who you want to be before you chose to become it. And that is power.

How will you change this book?
I will transform it from something straight-forward and logical to something organic and cyclical whist representing raster data. Plus circles are cool. 


How will this book change you?  
I think this book will change me by showing me that something aesthetically pleasing can come from something so negative. It will help me to look at the silver lining of things and to trudge on when it gets tough.

 

Don't Get All Up in My Bliss-ness

My altered book's first impression is"Whoa, that's not a book anymore." You would be correct. My book is no longer in cover-to-cover format and that has a purpose. I didn't want it to be a typical book when I was done with it because I'm not a typical person. As my aunt says, "Normal is just a setting on the dryer," and she, along with most else of my family, follow that like it's the eleventh commandment. So I'm not normal, I don't have normal roots, and I wanted to reflect that in my project.

Post-Bliss, though, it hit me just what I wanted to with that "non-book-ness."
My art teacher in high school said to me once that all of my art has a pattern: circles. Now, personally I blame that on the fact that my name begins with an O and I've had to make that shape over and over again throughout the years. But it has become so much a part of me that apparently all my artwork shows it. So a circle it shall be.    

So did Bliss help me have creative thoughts. A little bit, but it more or less left me in tears because I chose to read issue 19 of the best comic series ever and it was really sad. Thank God I had ice cream to help comfort me. But it did leave me feeling a bit pampered and that was nice. And I did reach my word goal on my story, so, okay, I'll count it as having helped creatively.

Part the Third

I really enjoyed Tiffany's project. She had a great concept and I think failure is something that every artist has to face. The idea that she didn't think her project was "good enough" or "didn't meet the criteria enough" only goes to show that other people have the same train of though as I do: is this going to suffice? Is this good enough?
I like that she had us write down what were were afraid of failing on her poster because it helped show that everyone has something they are afraid of failing. As well as that failure (and the fear of if) is a very real, constant thing in many people's lives.
I connected strongly to her project because I have a very strong sense of fear of failure. I always second guess my work and ask "is it good enough." In some ways that can be helpful. For example I might go back and put more shading on an object in a painting because I found that it didn't have enough. But it can also be a hindrance because if I'm always asking, "is this good enough?" then I'm not focusing on the bigger question: "do I enjoy this?"
That's the part of this that impacts my creative self. Focusing on "am I failing this" isn't nearly as productive as asking "am I having fun with this?" Because when one is having fun then the really creative ideas start to come out.
So thank you Tiffany for helping me face my fear of failure and for letting me know I'm not alone in it. I shall try to use it to my advantage.

Part the Second

First off, mad shout-out to the class for being so supportive and helpful! I took into consideration your suggestions and as an update the roommate thing is working out okay.

My original hypothesis was that the class would agree with statement of taking a stand and not allowing myself to fall back into the role of "victim." And people did agree with that, but it went further with suggestions of actually interacting and engaging with my roommates.

So that's how I'm adjusting my experiment. Instead of just participating in a group dinner, I'm going to do other activities with said group. For example, go to the movies - and in case you're wondering, yes, Guardians of the Galaxy really is that good - or just hang out in the apartment with for an hour or two. In doing so, I will get more information about my roommates and also about myself. This will allow me to make a better decision about how much interaction I have with them as well as to find things we have in common. So that's my main adjustment.

And lastly, this assignment was tough, but thanks to my classmates, I'm getting through it just fine.  

What'd'ya Think'll Happen?

I dunno

But if I had to guess:
I think they will agree.

Class Take-Away 8

Let's talk about time.
There's a quote that has gone around the inter-webs that says: "Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can't. You know the year, the month, and the day of the week. There's a clock on your phone, your wall, and in your computer. You have a schedule, a calendar, and a time for dinner. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. The birds outside are never late. A dog does not care for time nor a cat check his watch. Man alone measures time. And because of this, Man alone suffers a fear no other creature endures. A fear of time running out."
That has always stuck with me. Time is something humans came up with and yet it governs our entire lives. We have schedules and time zones and clocks everywhere so that we know the value of something that isn't real. It's like imaginary numbers. One by itself doesn't exist, but if you multiply two together, suddenly they do. One person could believe in time, but until someone else does too, it has only an imaginary value. Creepy, huh?
Now the class seemed to have a mutual complaint about our previous assignment: that it was too short of a timeline to do something really creative in. But as we demonstrated, that wasn't necessarily the case. There were a lot of neat ideas that floated around and they were upped only by the fact that we came up with them on such a short timeline. So what's this say about time and creativity? I'll get back to that but first I'd like to add that it was a noticeable trend in high school that during the time of the annual musical, many performers' grades would actually go up. This seems strange considering that we were putting in a lot of time and effort into the production, leaving homework to take a backseat. But what it really did was force us to buckle down and get our assignments done since our timetable was much shorter. We didn't dilly dally or putz around online or watch four more episodes of the Simpsons on Netflix.
So where is this going?
Perhaps one of the reasons we all did so well creatively was because we did have a shorter timeline. We were forced to come up with something quickly so our minds were constantly spinning the project around in our grey matter(s?). The point is this: because we had very little time the idea stayed fresh and we profited from that creatively. Quality may have been in issue, though. There were some grumbles about not being able to MAKE what was thought up and that's understandable. But the assignment, I felt, more or less dealt with the idea verses the thing.
So how will this help in my creative future?
Well I now have evidence to suggest that a shorter timeline to conceptualize can produce some highly creative thoughts. This may suggest that I should try thinking about what I want to do less and actually doing it more. It would be a fun experiment to try.
Time may not actually be real, but the rest of the world seems to think so, and therefore, I have to go. Breakfast awaits.