CU Faculty Show

The CU faculty show on opening night was an exciting experience, mostly because of all the energy in the room from the proud artists and all of their supporters. I wasn't sure what to expect but I was extremely impressed by most of the pieces. My favorite had to be the throne with the wings, which I had the pleasure of sitting in. Unfortunately I don't recall the artist's name but they created a phenomenal project. I especially liked it because the tag said something along the lines of "everyone deserves to feel regal at some point or another" which made me happy. The show was cool because it had so many different mediums on display. I was lucky enough to see two of my teachers work on display, Mark Amerika and Sally Elliot, which was great because I don't always get to see my art teacher's artwork.

Digital Narratives

These digital narratives were all extremely different in concept and in execution. Jackson's "My Body" laid out a combination of drawings and text, which told bits and pieces of a story that lacked an overall narrative. It seemed impossible to read every excerpt because once a link was clicked, the links I didn't click were lost behind. Eventually I would recognize a viewed page because the links appeared purple from clicking. I would call this a remix hyper text narrative, because it had home-drawings along with original thought, which was set up in a hyper-text narrative format. "Six Sex Scenes" was more of a coming of age digital journal, in which anonymous confession after confession is on display for the viewer. Like Jackson's, it was hard to get a sense of thoroughly navigating through the whole thing as the pages seemed to grow exponentially.   Laporta's "Distance" was very different from the first two, as a clear path was present from start to finish. Only one link per page made it easy to read all of the information in the correct order. I would also consider this a hypertext narrative with a diary undertone since the narrator was confessing how they felt about online chatting and how humans are “artifacts in motion becoming pixels on the screen”. I liked this one because I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. The Redridinghood was just bizarre if you ask me, I didn’t understand the story line but I did like the level of interactivity. Certain scenes had roll over images which gave different options for chosing your own path. Also you could let Red sleep or wake her up and have her carry on. Options like this give the viewer the power to control the fate of the narrative. The redridinghood narrative was a remix of a traditional fairy tale but I’m not really sure what the final goal was supposed to be and I didn’t find it very effective.

It is easy to blur the lines between autobiography and fiction because we do not know these authors, even though we are given a name they still feel anonymous. It is unclear if the author is talking about their own thoughts or feelings or if they are using someone else’s. It is easy to say whatever you want on the internet because you are hiding behind a computer and no one can judge you to your face. Jackson’s article was more G-rated which may or may not cause the viewer to believe it was truthful, whereas the Six Sex Scenes was more risqué and left more room for fabrication. In the end we will never know what’s true and what is fiction, but does it matter?

The link strategies mostly stressed me out because I didn’t feel like I was getting the whole story, but perhaps some of the authors wanted the viewers to chose their own paths so each individual had an individual experience taking in the information. The Distance narrative was the only one with a clear path, which I personally liked, and the last one’s lack of path left me unsatisfied.

The only other digital narratives I’ve seen are the ones we made in Digital Art 2, and most of them had a pretty clear path from the beginning to the start. If there were several paths it was simple to go back and see the different outcomes, which seems like a personal choice of the author.

Jackson’s narrative didn’t seem like fantasy, but it did have an element of imagination and it seemed to ramble on, sort of like a little kid would in his/her mind. I thought Laporta’s narrative did not have a clear distinction of whether it was supposed to be her or not but obviously she has had some experience with online chatting or she would not write about it. Whether it was about her or about a made-up character, she still seemed to be portraying some anger or sadness about the whole situation. I don’t think it matters because the ending message is clear (humans are becoming artifacts….). I think Little Red Ridinghood is a story everyone knows so it is a safe parallel to use in a narrative, however even though I know the story of redridinghood I could not understand the modern story.

I don’t think these narratives need to necessarily fall into a literature or visual/performing arts category. They are their own new category and cannot fall into either or because they all have elements of both literature and art.

** for some reason when I copy and paste from Word it creates weird spaces within the text, sorry if this is distracting 

Benjamin and Busch articles

Benjamin's essay, “The work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, stresses how art goes through a change when it is reproduced. On page 3, Benjamin suggests 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”. This is interesting to consider, because an analog piece of art held in a museum is going to have a much greater affect on it’s audience than if it was mass produced online and found on google images with very little effort. Benjamin brings up the concept of aura, and explains how an artwork’s aura is removed once it is mechanically reproduced. He gives the example of viewing a landscape and feeling the shadow of a tree. If that moment was reproduced the aura would no longer be present and thus the experience would not be as special. Benjamin goes on to say that the authenticity of a work of art is based in ritual, the original process of art involved creating a unique piece. Now that everything is replicated each piece becomes less traditional and less authentic. In photography a copy of a print and the original look almost identical, and therefore the authentic image loses importance.

            In film, the actor and the audience have a completely different relationship than the audience would have with an actor on stage. On stage the actor can interact with the audience and feed off of their energy provided by their physical presence, where as a film actor only has a relationship with camera. All viewers will witness the exact presentation when watching the film, whereas watching a live play, every audience would enjoy a different, authentic acting experience. When watching a film the viewer may have difficulty grasp the intensity of each scene because things are changing so quickly, which differs from an analog piece of art. “The painting invites the spectator to contemplation; before it the spectator can abandon himself to his associations. Before the movie frame he cannot do so. No sooner has his eye grasped a scene than it is is already changed (Benjamin, 13).

            Published ten years later, Busch’s essay “As We May Think” suggests how humans may embrace technology over the years. While Benjamin compares old technology to new, Busch goes on to predict what may happen in the future. On page 2, Busch gives an example of how a normal man may go throughout his day and which technologies he may encounter: “As he moves about and observes, he photographs and comments. Time is automatically recorded to tie the two records together. If he goes into the field, he may be connected by radio to his recorder. As he ponders over his notes in the evening, he again talks his comments into the record. His typed record, as well as his photographs, may both be in miniature, so that he projects them for examination”. This quote is interesting because in today’s time all people are completely addicted to technology, possibly moreso than Busch could have predicted.

            When Busch describes a time where a memex could be used to store all of our information, it is funny because in 2011 we have so much advanced technology to help us store our music, photographs, documents, etc on our computers. “A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory” (Busch, 4). Today these ideas are so common we don’t even stop to realize how conveneient they are. It is also interesting how he predicts that there will be technological resources for finding out information such as the tides for each day. Now, using the internet, we can find out anything at the push of a button usually for free. If we want to check the weather online, we can have a ten day forecast in front of us in 15 seconds.

            Busch and Benjamin were very intelligent to predict so long ago how the future would be. I think that these articles are important for our class because it is helpful to know how people thought about technology throughout the years. Knowing how technology evolved will help us understand how it became what it is today and can help suggest where it may go in the future.