DJ Spooky Lecture

I was impressed by the DJ Spooky Lecture. He was not spooky at all. He seemed fun and down to earth and I could picture myself hanging out with him and talking philosophy. I listened to him talk a little about history, the developments of media, the traffic light, the antarctic melting, his schooling, his philosophy knowledge, His film rebirth of America, and his latest film called the Terra Nova Project.

At the end of the lecture he passed out Cd's. He instructed everyone to take one. Each CD was different and choose the one with Muslim writing on it (really good tunes by the way!). He then encouraged us to trade Cd's with our friends. He called it a "something economy" basically it was about who has the writes to what. things these days are created by bits and pieces of other creations. D.J Spooky has not been sued yet. But he has made lots of music using other peoples beats and songs which he twists to create his own. I thing this is o.k.

When you think about this one can ponder "what really is original" and why look down on someone if they are creating. Shepard Fairy certainly doesn't do original things. However we like what he does and it is his work. Andre the giant may not be his drawing but the way he fits him into the composition with the OBEY text his his work. I say everything is up for grabs.. take what you like and create what you want. Who am I to judge. The great thing about art is that is opens up dialogs like this. It is important to know that the dialog is part of the process.

D.J. spooky told us about a African American man who invented the traffic light. It was nice to hear about something a black man invented as all my schooling had only been about white men. I do think D.J. spooky could enlighten us all in the future with something A WOMAN has invented. Anyhow the traffic light is like the city rhythm's of stopping and going and similar to turn table music and the loop which began in the late 80's with chuck d and others.

D.J. Spooking ended his lecture with a trailer for his film the TERRA NOVA project. He the music put against the shots of the antarctic was just sublime. I hope we can stop it from melting. He told us ice is in between a solid and a liquid. And he also gave us insight about how the black man was referred to as cool or ice. and the white man that is cool was vanilla ice. and other ice people like ice tee. It was great to hear his perspective and knowledge. He had a fun upbeat attitude and I will be following what he is up too in the future. As a student currently studying how to teach kids I am sure d.j. spooky will have to come into my lesson plan at one point or another.

Terranova

I enjoyed filming my portrait of my good friend Terranova. The film was mainly about her artwork as a photographer and her social anxiety. In the film we did some social anxiety experiements where i filmed her interacting with various strangers she took photos of. It was lots of fun and I am thinking of doing another terranova portrait in a month of two. This way it will b a sequence that follows terra through time. Maybe in a month or two she will have different thougts, look different, have more photos to share with me. It is exciting to think of what the future may bring.

Below are a few photos taken by the one and only terranova callymine:

What inspires you to create?

idenfity your "source". Is there a piece of writing, music, a person, an artist, a time in history, a current event. What inspires you to create?

My source comes from the unseeable energy in nature. You could say I have a source that is part native american and part buddist. I believe in the "turn it around" philosophy. I meditate when I wake up in the morning and try to focus my energy in a good way. I also feel that while I am making art I am also doing a form of meditation. I love when i am painting and i have many different people and voices in my head. after an hour painting half the people are in my head. Later its just me. Much later than that if I am still painting I leave too. That moment is great. However when you realize it happend it then usually stops happening. Another part of my source is being of service. Whenever I can, I take opportunity to help others, think of others, do anything which helps them.

sound in terra nova's portrait

So far i have not added any outside sound. However I have leaned to take out sound I don't like by lowering the decibles in final cut express with the pen tool. When you lower this sound it leaves what I can only describe as a "void sound" which is very evident when watching the film. So what i did was take extra sound I had (sound with no one talking but just the waterfall and birds and other sounds) and put it in place of the "sound void" . if listened to closely you can here something like a churning or pumping. All in all is was improved greatly.

Now I have lots of film of terra talking about her experience and I am thinking what sound would go well with it? Maybe i can ask her about music she has been listening to latley?

RUN LOLA RUN!

This is a great movie which tells of a bank robbery gone wrong. It is also a love story and unfolds in a non-linear way. From watching it what immediately struck me was the sound track. Of course Lola is running to get to her destination in time and so the repetitive and steady techno music fits perfect. I like how they keep the techno sound track going over the characters while they speak their lines and then at other times stop the techno so we focus just on the characters lines. At times they vary the music to be low in volume with small techno booms and as the story unfolds and plot increases the volume rises with the booms. At one point in the film they have possession of the money and begin running with it. The sound changes to a slow jazz song with a woman's voice. The characters are seen running in slow motion. The parrellels of the various music in the film creates a wonderful mood. And boy can that Lola run!

Portrait of a person

The story I am trying to tell is about a woman who uses photagraphy to desensitize her social anxiety. My subject will be asked to speak about whatever she feel and will eventually get prompted with questions for more detail. The final result of this film is unknown as I am letting it unfold in a more organic process.

During the editing the greatest challange is using final cut express. It is very hard to remember all the steps and features. If I didn't have a job I would spend more time practicing it however I do have to feed myself. I wish the software was more intuitive. However I am happy to be learning it as it is a real professional tool and a good skill to have.

A technical question is: Why can't the text show up over my film?

communicating the passage of time

In this project I will take photo's that communicate the passage of time. I may do one series about my early morning meditation practice. Also I may follow a person around. I would like to incorporate it into a book. A great web site I saw showed a picture of a fan moving in a book as you quickly flipped the pages. Suddenly the hair of the woman flipping the pages began to blow. It was cool!

childhood memory

I am going to take 20 - 25 images that relates or serves as a visual time capsle. This will be to try to convey the essence of that memory. I am not sure what memory I will do. I am thinking of doing these possible memories: uncle bo bo's camp, getting lost the night of the 4th of july celebration with my mom and gram.

Light Study: A few notes

When doing these drawings I did my best to draw the light. I did 3 views out of 3 different windows from my apartment for a total of 9 views. One window shows a vie of a big white house across the street. It has a large yard and just beyond it are some condominiums. It was interesting drawing the light on this house at 8 a.m. in the morning. I was alert and refreshed from a nice sleep. The light in my opinion was most bright at this time. All the house and snow in the yard blended together. I enjoyed drawing the light at this time the most.

The nighttime drawings were the most difficult as I began to have to draw the outside and the inside at the same time. The reason for this has to do with the reflection from the artificial light from inside my apartment.

Literally the light was hitting the snow and the light made the place look fun and woodsy. The trees had nice shadows casting down in the snow.

The midday drawing at 4:00 made me become more aware of the shadows. The shadows at this point were very dark.

frame, Vantage Point, and Perspective

The book I choose is called Cross-town. It has photos of photographer Helen Levitt. The photo I am going to write about can be viewed below. In this photo one can see an older woman standing by a taxi. The frame is a single static image. The frame in this photo is medium in size and is perfect as it gives us information and leaves out other information to create mystery and intrigue. Through the frame it shows a fleeting moment in time. Levitt had to take this photo and had little time to think about it. I think this goes to show that sometimes art is done best when you don't think about what your doing.

The woman is wearing a checkered suit that matches the taxi's strip of checks. This frame tells me how much the taxi cost. The image was taken from a behind perspective and goes well this way as the woman is about to leave us in the taxi. The window half rolled down as the woman leans in to speak to someone we can't see. This type of perspective allows us to be more in the experience of the woman. She may be asking him if he can drive her the the lower east side? The box is shown clearly and you can even feel how the twine wraps around and holds the box. The frame communicates action and movement, as it is a fleeting moment in time.

What Is The Light Doing?

Jason Teraoka did a painting of a woman's portrait with a fly on her face called Venus (2008). This was done in oil paints and was 8x13. The first thing that caught my interest was the glitter embedded into the varnish. It was silver glitter and it contrased well with the yellow gold color he had for a background. The portrait depicted a woman with lots of make up on and also make me think she may have just come from a festive event. When I walked past the painting I could see the glitter sparkle as the LIGHT hit it. Below is a painting by him but not the one I saw. However this painting is similar in the way he rendered the skin. Jason pays close attention to how the light changes the color of the skin. He does this in a simple way by placing blocks of color together. The painting Venus evoked a troubled mood. A mood of something not being right. Also in this painting the woman has a fly on her face. This aspect reminded me of humanity.

James Turell is another artist who pays close attention to what the light is doing. An image of one of his works can be seen in the pink light above.