blog for 3/1

Ryan Trecartin seemed like a pretty cool guy from reading his interviews and reading about him, however my opinion drastically changed when watching his videos alone at the library where I felt extremely uncomfortable, and then even more so when watching it in the class room with everyone. We discussed at the end of class how some of us are simply not going to like it/allow ourselves to understand it. I was trying to decide if I was allowing myself to understand it or not, but I think I am very much on the fence because I want to understand it and I think I sort of understand but I can't help but hate it. I've learned enough about contemporary art, especially performance video art, that I more often than not dislike it but I also understand that the artist is intentionally trying to offend me by being bizarre, so in this respect I can applaud him for being successful, but if a piece makes you hate it so much that you want to turn it off is this a good thing? I don't think it is a good thing, but here I am rambling on about this video for an entire huge paragraph which says something I suppose, seeing as I am putting a lot of thought into how I feel about it.

As far as the net art for this blog assignment, I really enjoyed the triptych piece. It seems to me that a piece like this could be considered similar to Trecartin's since it moves and makes sounds and has lots of contrasting colors and ideas, but I like the way this piece flows much more (of course there is no dialouge or acting which makes it different). I especially like how the soundtrack seems to fit accordingly to each of the videos, even though they all move at their own pace and are unrelated. I also find it effective how the pieces seem to flow into each other, for example the silloutte of the man with all of the animated colors flows nicely into the screensaver-esque colorful animation below it. Art like this makes more sense to me because it is pleasing to the eye. Because I liked what I saw at the top, I was encouraged to scroll down and view the entire thing. It is interesting how it is titled "Triptych" because only one section of the piece features three works side by side, but I think that this title means that all of the pieces within the whole thing work together and speak to one another.

Ryan Trecartin

James Franco Interview:

I thought this interview was really cool because I expected it to be about James Franco but it was actually about Ryan Trecartin who I have never heard of and learned a lot about. He seems to have some really interesting insights about film. When he said his favorite parts were when the actors stopped reading of the script and entered "real time" and said things like "I need to be drunk". The concept of real time is interesting, for in this real time people act how they are supposed to and act like themselves, but in front of a camera real time seems to go away and the actors can do whatever they want. I also liked how he said the era of reality tv stars have formed a new type of person who is less embarassed and therefore more free and "human". I have always sort of looked down on reality tv stars for humiliating themselves but Trecartin makes a good point, these people are confident and comfortable with themselves so it doesn't matter.

In the NY Times Article, I love Trecartin's enthusiasm for people born in the 90's (I was born in 1989 but close enough). Usually our generation is put down for being so internet savvy and addicted to our computers but Trecartin is applauding us and is excited for us to understand the work he produces because of this skill that we all mostly have. 

This "Wayne's World" video was very bizarre, I understand now what James Franco was talking about in the interview now and how the characters were known to make people feel icky. They are weird characters but obviously the artist was trying to get a reaction out of the audience and he was successful. The dialogues seem simplistic, like those on a child's tv show. The other video was hard to get through because of the squeaky voices and fast movements of the camera. After reading the interviews about Trecartin it definitely helps put things in context, like in "K-Corea" the characters are definitely not reading perfectly off a script because there are some studders, which helps make it creepier. To be honest the characters kind of scared me even though I know they aren't like that in real life.

Riverthe.net is very strange and I felt uncomfortable opening while writing this in the library. Trecartin definitely is doing something new and different, and he can easily make me feel nervous which I think is what he wants. However it will take some getting used to before I fully understand it.

Hans Hoogerbrugge

Hans Hoogerbrugge, the fabulous Dutch digital artist, is gracing the net with his unique style. Originally producing paintings and cartoons, Hoogerbrugge discovered the internet in 1996 and began channeling much of his work in an online setting. 

Some of Hoogerbrugge’s most exciting online works lay within his videos.

In the mid 90's, Hoogerbrugge produced his "Modern Living Neurotica" series, 

 which very well may be his best known work. In each episode, Hoogerbrugge himself plays the main character, as he likes to refer to it as an "ongoing self portrait". The flat, black and white character bares a striking resemblance to the artist, and this character amongst others like it seems to pop up in all of Hoogerbrugge’s work. The earlier episodes of “Neurotica” consist of animated gifs, but eventually evolved into macromedia flash which allowed the viewer to interact with the piece. This was his first use of interactivity on the internet with his artwork and shows how Hoogerbrugge's art changed as technology became easier to work with. When clicking a thumbnail to the left, a short interactive video plays displaying themes of neuroticism. Simple and to the point, these videos leave the viewer satisfied and looking to see what will happen when clicking upon the next one. Hoogerbrugge’s early works with the animated gifs are not as exciting as the interactive flash video which start about half way through.

“Hotel”, another interactive flash based video series, differs from Neruotica because the viewer actually navigates through a storyline with different chapters. In this series, a crazy doctor conducts various experiments on volunteers, and the viewer is able to witness what happens to the patients as the doctor does various things to them. When clicking on different characters within the room, the viewer starts to feel mad as well from all of the awful sounds and strange dialogues and movements. Again, the familiar black and white themes with minimal movement and dialogue become the norm. It is easy to distinguish Hoogerbrugge’s trademark style after navigating through his website for only several minutes.

“Nails” features the same sort of characters featured in all of the other videos, where a self-portrait-esque character does various small tricks as the viewer chooses thumbnails from up above. On Hoogerbrugge’s personal website, “Nails” is described as: “a continuation of Hoogerbrugges Neurotica Series in his exploration of human emotion. The lack of visual backgrounds and borders of the NAILS animations however gives these works an even stronger feeling of an a internal struggle rather then an actual fysical battle.” 

Alongside of these videos, Hoogerbrugge has a seperate website, prostress, which

Hoogerbrugge calls “a daily comic about life” in which he discusses things he does or thinks about. Hoogerbrugge calls it prostress because people have so much going on in their lives it’s hard to focus. Each day he posts three interactive images with text, usually regarding pop culture or “fucking around with celebrities”. In an interview Hoogerbrugge commented on how “creativity is not a thing you think about, it’s something that happens”. He goes on to say that he has to come up with an idea every day for this website, and sometimes his ideas are bad ones. This shows that Hoogerbrugge is refreshingly human.

Hoogerbruge combines many disciplines within his work. He finds minimal differences between online animation or illustration because they all involve the same creative processes. He also does not believe that disciplines should be brought in with prejudgemnets of what they should do.

“I stopped making plans but I really would like to become really rich” says Hoogerbrugge in the interview, which tells us he is a very straight forward man who says what he thinks. This idea is very much reflected within his artwork. In an internet blog from basement.org, a viewer suggests that “what’s great about Hans’ work is that it doesn’t serve any other end other than to entertain you. It’s not navigation. It’s not informational. It’s a mildly interactive form of art that is both stylish and engaging”. Another blogger comments that “his art can be macabre, confusing, and yet always amusing”.

In the same interview, Hoogerbrugge mentioned that he never saw himself working for a band like the Pet Shop Boys, but they contacted him and he ended up directing their video “Love etc”. This video is awesome because it features Hoogerbrugge's usual characters yet the video still has roots to the original band. The characters and designs are set to a fun, bouncy beat in which his designs make perfect imagery. It is also a nice change to see more colors being intermixed with Hoogerbrugge's usual black and white. This tells us that Hoogerbrugge can take on the challenge of a full length music video, so who knows what he will do next. A blogger on globalsoul2soul commented on this video saying “Hoogerbrugge is humorous, innovative and refreshing”

Hoogerbrugge is an inspiring net artist whose work is exceptional and made possible because it is in fact on the internet. Work like this would not be the same held in a gallery. It's greatness can be shared by all because of it's availability via internet which makes it more fun for everyone. 

Spirit Surfing

I think that this article has a really interesting perspective on how people view the internet. The website stumbleupon comes to mind, because it is a website that is all about the art of the journey. On stumbleupon, the website shuffles different websites according to the viewer's personal preference and each site brings you to new sites. Usually when I do this it will give me a website, but then I will go off onto my own unknown journey by clicking things within the site which then bring me to new places.  While searching for the boon, the wake forms around us and creates a complely new path. Rather than searching for a book directly on amazon.com, maybe if you search the title in google and see where the results lead you, you may end up finding out details about things you never even intended on learning or searching for. Similar to hypertext narratives or other means of interactivity regarding netart, each viewer is going to have their own unique and individual experience when web surfing. This can be applicable to simply visiting various website or utilizing websites like facebook. On facebook, when looking at a friend’s profile, other friends are all over their wall, and from each wall you can click on other people’s walls, which will infinitely continue bringing you to different people’s walls, and everyone’s path on this site is different. Although the internet has become a thing to make life fast and easy, taking the time to navigate through this vast realm is an art within itself. While the infoBRATS take the easy way to navigate through the internet, the infoMONKS are discovering amazing things because the internet holds so many different amazing elements but it takes a little investigating to find them.

Even in this assignment, after reading the article I searched around on the links provided on the assignment website, I ended up back at google which surpringly is decorated like a submarine with animated windows inside and it's the best google has ever looked and I got there entirely by accident because I hit back too many times.  

Fluidities and Oppositions among Curators, Filter Feeders, and Future Artists

The concept of "artists of the future may not know that they are artists" is a very interesting one. It seems as though a common thought in topics related to this class is that there is no contemporary working definition of what qualifies as art. In this digital day and age, there are so many new ways to be creative, that many people can find a way to be artsy.

Future Artist Scenario X reminds me a bit of myself, because though I do not spend 99.9% of my waking hours glued to my computer, I do spend probably around 50% (weird!). There is always an email to check or a facebook notification to check, or assignments such as this one to do. Everyone is on their computers all the time, and the more time we spend on them, the more savvy we become and thus more likely to become creative.

In Future Artist Scenario Y, it says he received no formal artist training, but he studied computer science. Therefore he may possibly be able to create computer games or make designs on programs like photoshop. Without knowing anything about art, it is very possible to do either of those things.  Long ago, artists, especially painters, had serious training and were viewed almost like celebrities. Now, not to say people are necessarily less talented than they once were, but there are so many different ways to create art its almost as if any one can do it.

One of the most popular art forms (I would argue that it is an art form, maybe it isn't)  in Boulder lives within all of the students in this town who consider themselves djs, who create sounds "remixing" and mashing up other songs and noises. This is a good example of being able to create art with no art training, but with advanced computer knowledge and access to technology.

net art

I found this article a little challenging because it is a list and I’m having a hard time undenrstanding it, but I think the point overall is that using the internet/technology to create art opens up so many new doors. Creating art for the web allows artists to get their work out there so that anybody and everybody can see it, which is so different that people coming to see work in a gallery. The article says you can basically make any type of art with any theme and put it anywhere you want which kind of reminds me of when we discussed the concept of “ubiquitous”.

In “adaweb” I found the opening piece (title?) to be very similar to the hypertext narrative. Each page had one image and one blurb and the linear path made it easy to navigate from page to page. I think that back in the day creating something like this would be the ultimate modern creation because it is a piece of work that also incorporates technical skills that people were just starting to understand.

In “Digital Studies: Being in cyberspace, I found myself clicking on about 5 links that no longer worked, which shows how old fashioned they must have been. One that did work for me was “Shifting” my Tina Laporta, but then only the home page worked. This is actually pretty frustrating because I can’t seem to find anything that is working to analyze for this blog. In Beyond Interface I found a piece called “Light on the Net” which seemed cool because I was told I could turn the light on and off, however this no longer works either. I would think though, that when this did work it would have been an early example of interactivity which brings a whole new meaning to net art. Unlike analog art, when a piece has interactivity the viewer can actually use what they are given to manipulate a piece, and this gives the viewer power, which people generally like.

In the “Introduction to Net Art” I think the most applicable aspect of the list is the word temporality because as I just explained many of these works were only temporary in the long run because the no longer work in the present.

The piece “cyber babes” is interesting because it has an image that looks like an early version of a photo-shop program in which two photographs are combined to create a new, provocative image. These “cyber babes” seem to consist of both male and female elements, and perhaps they started on the web because the artist thought there was no where else for them to go since it was a completely new way of creating art.