Final Project: Glitch

Course Essay Presentation

CLICK HERE for my slideshow about artists Katie Torn and Lauren McCarthy.

Final Project Ideas

I want to create a piece that shows how reality and technology are merging. I don't have any official ideas but I might re-create the background of the photo in Blender.

I could also use my Nexus 7 as a window into a digital recreation of the background, showing part of my leg and the table leg on the screen. I could possibly use the screenshot as a holographic display, but considering that there isn't really much interesting going on behind the Nexus, I'm not sure if I want to go with this idea.

My favorite idea is to replace my hand with a very geometrical 3D model of a hand. This could be interesting, because then the Nexus, a piece of technology, would be more real than the human hand. The only issue is that I can potentially see this message working better if I also model my leg in Blender, but I don't think I'd be able to sculpt my shoe...

3D Model

Original Graphic:

3D Model

The New Aesthetic: Robot Friends?

Link to The New Aesthetic Post

Looks like alien wildlife

This post on The New Aesthetic Blog shows Darpa's robotic pack mules being showcased in a calendar. It shows the attachment these people have with their work, and how they've been "elevated to pets or robots". I find this interesting because I've always enjoyed the topic of humanizing robots. Since I'm into sci-fi, I enjoy the subject of consciousness in robots, and what is it that makes something "alive" or "human", and can it be something that can exist in a machine? 

These kinds of questions are becoming less and less fantasy, and more of a reality as robotics continues to develop. What I find remarkable is that people seem to very easily attach personalities to inanimate objects, or cartoon characters, just anything that isn't human that we still identify as human in their own right. There's even this experiment that shows the interesting dynamic between technology and humans, which shows random pedestrians actually help a little, lost robot find its way home. It's just a a few boxes on wheels, but put a simple smiley face on it, and people begin to get emotionally attached. Darpa's pack mule robots don't even have faces and yet people still seem to like them. It makes me think about the issue of civil rights and robots... If people can act this way toward robots that aren't even meant to be conscious, maybe in the far future when we cross that bridge it won't even be an issue.

Overall, this is a fun topic in my opinion, and examples like this New Aesthetic post show a compassionate side of humanity that a cynic like me hardly believes exists. But it's these sort of things that restores some of my faith in humanity. Some of it.

My YouTube Video Mixer Project

Dreamweaver was being a wanker so I had to put this here.

Burn a Miracle

This relates to Banksy's video here in the sense that I see it as a big middle finger to the music industry.
Song: "Burn a Miracle" Artist: Say Anything Album: "Anarchy, My Dear"

Stop the Invasion!

Exposing the truth about the aliens coming in 2015. Don't believe to SETI's lies. A peaceful first encounter is liberal crap! Go to stoptheinvasion.org.
--
Video Transcript:
Last week SETI showed this message from these extra-trestrialuls:
[Video footage]

Them subtitles is fake. This here would be a less bad translation:

[Video footage]

Just look at that menacin' face:

[Photo]

E’ryone knows that aliens wanna kill us. Earth is ours and we aint lettin none of these ugly-ass spiders come in an’ take our ‘Merica. Join the fight at stoptheinvasion.org.

Walter Benjamin Questions

1. In Section II, Benjamin states that "Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be." Is this a valid argument? Doesn't a reproduction of a work of art become unique in existence at its own time and place? Does the reproduction of something become something new that can be considered unique in this regard?

2. In section IV, Benjamin says "The instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics." Benjamin is painting contemporary art, especially reproduction, as a removal of authenticity in art here. How does authenticity get taken away from this method? Is something really inauthentic when it's a reproduction? In what ways can this argument be countered; how can, for example, a digital reproduction actually become authentic?

First Contact

I love jumping spiders, and I also love sci-fi. So I decided to combine both for these three images. What I like about jumping spiders, besides being cute, is that they have so much personality in those four big eyes of theirs. So I decided to further humanize them by treating them as an alien species. They already look very alien to begin with! Perhaps the theory that life on Earth did begin in space when an asteroid impact brought life here, possibly explaining why these aliens look like Earth-creatures. Or we can pretend that jumping spiders never existed on Earth for the sake of this project.

Either way, I pretended to be a graphic designer for the SETI Institute (the Search for Extraterrestrial Life) after contact with these aliens became public news. SETI would be the most important organization in dealing with extraterrestrial life, after all. The third poster depicts a one of the possible ways some people could react to such an event.

Photoshop Download Links:

Poster 1

Poster 2

Poster 3

Humans/Primates

This was the first "project" we did in class, just for practice. The image speaks for itself.

Overview of my Work

I do hand-drawn animation, character design, graphic design, photography and writing. My cartoon "The Bunnyful Bunnies - 'No Harm, No Howl'" won a gold key at the Scholastic Art Awards in 2012. My most recent animated project is an animated short film titled "Dr. Spatula - 'For the Grater Good'", which can be watched here. It hasn't been currently released yet because I'm still looking for film festivals to send it to. I'm currently working on a novel and a 10 - 20 minute animated short film, both sci-fi projects.

More Examples of My Work: