Saturday, March 24, 2012

Desktop Views (2012) by Adam Cruces RESPONSE



Whenever I sit with a friend to work on a project or something that requires both of to use our computers, I marvel at how different our uses and preferences with out computers are. This week's entry shows that almost everyone will have a different preference regarding their desktop and other aspects of their computers. I like to keep my desktop as clean as possible, with the minimum number possible of icons and as soon as I am done with some document, video or file, I put it into organized folders.

I think it's interesting that even something as simple as the desktop can be "art-fied". All these desktops are from new media artists, who probably spend a lot of time working with their computers and probably looking at the desktop. Customization for them must not only be for comfort, but also an expression of their artistry, it's like looking at the studios of traditional painters.

These are some of the desktops that surprised me the most, not only because of the background, but because they are able to merge both the interface, (Icons and other elements) with the background.
I would hate working on a desktop that has that many pictures on it. I just could not work like that.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Project 4: Still Animation Video


For this project I decided to play with a bunch of objects, but out of all the things that I used, my wallet seemed to acquire an interesting personality. I tried to keep it simple but I am actually happy with the result. Taking the shots was difficult when I was trying to hold the wallet in the air... that didn't work. It was a lot easier to put it on the table.

The music is Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 2
Somehow I think it goes well with the music.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Project 3: Face Morphing



This project was a actually a lot of fun. I guess it's because I was so glad to be done with the previous project, that I welcomed any change. Joke aside, it was fun to make fun of people that I admire so much. All of these faces are extremely respected and admired in the world of Modern Dance. You can't really go that much higher, and yes, although there are many other important faces, These are the ones that have influenced me the most in my college career. I would have liked to use David Parsons as well but it was hard to find a nice simple clean head shot of him. As I'm looking at these pictures I realized that all the composites have Lar's haircut except for one.

 This is Lar Lubovitch. Artistic director of the Lar Lubovitch dance Company.
This man is Mark Morris, one of the most influential choreographers in George Mason University. Most of the faculty at the school of dance have danced for him in the past. He is the artistic director of the Mark Morris Dance roup
This lady will be refereed as lady T. She is the most amazing person I have met and I admire her so much. She is the most influential teacher I've had ever. I hope she never finds out that I used her face for this project.
These two pictures are the combination of Lar and Mark. I like the first picture although the nose seems to be completely attached, and yet  you can clearly see what parts of the face belong to whom, on the other hand the background of Mark's head shot made it difficult to truly blend them together. Mark does look better with more hair on his head.



 The second picture looks strange with the combined hair cuts,  it has a somewhat sad undertone to it, that I have no idea how I created.
This is the one that gave me most trouble. Because lady T's picture is of lower quality than that of Lar. so whenever I blended these faces, Lar would seems to be wearing a weird make up. I tried giving him the female hair, but it never worked. I liked this one in the end because it ended up looking like a really strange cross dresses.

it's interesting to me as well, because the main dance company that Lady T worked for was Lar's



This man is the combination of all 3 pictures. I'm really proud of this picture because it does look like a real person. The main model is Lar's facial structure but with the outer lines of Mark. The rest of the body (neck) is that of Mark as well. I finally decided to put very few traces of Lady T to make it look strange, but I decided to just include some shadows that I think are caused by the difference in the quality of the pictures.
This picture is the one I like the most. I could only image what kind of genius would be if all the creativity of these 3 choreographers were to be combined as well.




"Your sFace or Mine?" (2004) by Reginald Brooks RESPONSE

I found this work be browsing in the archive of Rhizome and I was immediately caught be the fact that it seemed to be what we are working for our third project. In this project, the artist is placing the higher value on symmetry. I have heard before that the more symmetric our faces are, the more attractive we are. I guess I can't really argue that because to don't know how to prove that it's not.

I really like this concept because the artist has divided the human face into 30 different sections that are interchangeable with many images of the same body part, but with different colors or different textures. so that the user can create their own unique face. What I wish was different is the way the user selects the sections of the face. To change a part of the face, the user has to scroll a really nice and clever poem. every time the user rolls over a letter of the poem, the face changes.

I think that the poem really represents the concept of the work and lets us play god for a while. If god is trying to create the perfect human being, and the rules by which he can create such human are as confusing as the selection process in Brook's work, then no wonder the world is so messed up.

http://rhizome.org/artbase/artwork/26910/