Final Project

Relax. Art Needs No Justification.

Environmentalist Statement 1.

Artistic Statement:

I will begin by discussing the first composition. In setting out to create my final originally based off of the concept of breath, I found it difficult to focus my ideas into a composition. To break through this stagnation I essentially took a deep breath and reminded myself that art doesn't need to be justified. It doesn't need and shouldn't be something. Working with modified concept in mind (breath and the idea that my art doesn't need to be anything specific) I wanted to use myself in the piece, getting over the awkward sensation of seeing yourself within the medium your creating with. I also wanted to depict a sense that taking a breath should help a person relax but wanted to complicated this traditional theory by adding in additional, non-relaxing components. I try to counter relaxation with randomized movement of scanned in tea bags, because tea is often used to relax. I also inserted a spinning brick background as apposed to the typically stationary bricks seen in reality and attempted to make the words breathe and relax aggravating by alternating their colors.

The second composition is based of off a different concept. The other day my friend and I picked up garbage from the street and threw it away in our apartment. While doing this we discussed the fact that removing debris from the street does little to solve the problem of pollution. Trash inevitably ends up in giant piles or in our oceans. Do to the relation that humans are consuming at an alarmingly, uncontrollable rate I wanted to make a composition that created awareness of this problem for the audience. To intensify the issue at hand, I inserted space or the universe into the background. This also attempts to comment on the magnitude of the problem.  I used scanned in plastic bags to create forms and a sense of movement and used striking pictures of pollution to stir the audience's emotion.

Project 9: Self-Imposed Concept GIF

PEOPLE BREAK UP (gif)

PEOPLE BREAK UP (gif plus audio in video format)

PEOPLE BREAK UP (original version- gif and audio)

ARTISTIC STATEMENT:

This assignment asked us to create a gif based upon our own concept. I choose to make as abstract of a piece as possible. I typically use forms and cartoonish figures in my art so I wanted to make something formless that utilized colors and shapes to create an emotion. Within my concept I also wanted to focus on human relationships, specifically romantic relationships. So my shape constantly breaks apart symbolizing a break up. At the same time that break ups are continuously occurring, simulating many of our loves lives, three other figues come into the composition and could be described as symbols of non-romantic relationships. In the end, even these symbols fade away. 

The colors coming together throughout the composition represent the birth of new relationships. So do the new colored shapes that appear behind the old.

Another component of this project was that I played with designing and adding audio to the gif. The goal was to make an audio track that at least minutely resembled the theme of the piece, creating a nice accompaniment. I couldn't figure out how to save a gif with audio files so I rendered the audio and gif compositions down to video.

PROJECT 8: GIF

Artist Statement:

 In constructing my gif I wanted to make a longer piece that had multiple shapes, images, and almost contain a visual narrative. The goal of the piece was to illustrate the minds process of forgetting childhood memories and how often we fight against this loss. Usually such resistance takes the form of an individual elaborating on stories their parents told them about their youth, stretching details they've been told into a pseudo-reality in the hopes of unknowingly substituting this for a lost memory.

Within the gif the profile of the older male  represents an older person losing a memory as the childhood (cowboys) try to ride away with his thoughts.  He resists the lose of his memory by using his tongue to pull back the memory from outside his head. 

I created a background of flashing squares in different patterns to simulate the memory games I played throughout elementary school. Specifically, I riffed on the memory game that involves flipping over cards in an attempt to make pairs. The squares and different patterns are designed to make you try to find a pattern (or pair) which is never satisfied within the composition. There are also various images of these squares that have a lag time or remain on screen longer then the others. This hopefully creates the experience of discomfort as the pattern doesn't stick to the same progression it did in the first several seconds of the gif. This should play a "trick" on the memory by not fulfilling expectations.

A reflection that I had after completing this gif is that i was to long. The longer form that I choose to use detracted from the effectiveness of the gif format. By placing in several different images that seem to take a literal meaning the intellect is engaged more then the emotions. I feel that my composition failed in its original purpose of creating a feeling in the observer. In my next gif I will make a  more abstract piece that has a less available meaning and can therefore provide longer observation and inquiry.

None-the-less, I do like the radioactive brain and the cowboy patterns.