Second Life Final

Although this avatar looks really creepy, I think it accurately represents my lack of sleep.  to create this avatar i modified the body shape to be anorexicly skinny so that it would not poke through  the clothing, since secondlife wound not let me wear multiple alpha layers at once.

"Realistic" self

  

Second Self

Creating the second self was the hardest part of the entire class in my opinion.  After learning maya, second life's user interface is extremely limited and difficult to work with.  For this avatar I recreated my favorite graffiti artist's character swampy. I made the entire avatar by using the build tool then attaching the various parts to each part of the avatar's body then repositioning them.  The hardest part was figuring out the values to cut, hollow, and cut the edge of the ribs.  It was also difficult to create the second horn on the head and make it look right as there is no reflect tool in second life.  Overall I am happy with how it came out, it was satisfying to create the whole avatar myself as at first I was just planning on doing the head.

Coarse Evaluation Extra Credit

3-D The Sequel 

For this rendition of my sculpture I used the program maya. After fiddleing around with sketchup for a bit I came to the conclusion that that program would not be capable of creating the sculpture as accurately as I had wanted. So I decided to learn maya and after spending more than half the allotted time for this project watching tutorial videos I can say that I know less than a third of the features that  maya is capable of.  The most difficult part of the sculpture was making the shards of glass.  It was difficult make them have defined faces with out having any hard square edges. This project has really inspired me to see what I can do with maya after seeing the enormous capabilities that it is capable of.

   

The Language of New Media -Manovich Reading Questions:

Do you agree with Manovich that virtual reality technologies will cause us to devolve to such a state that we will be communicating with each other by gestures, body movements and grimaces? Is our current virtual communication through email, and text messaging a step in this direction?

Do you really think that if the free external thinking space that Manovich describes actually comes to be that it will be regulated?  Could this eventually become the end of free thought?

Emily Rodgers –In search of

            In Emily Rodgers' mfa thesis exhibit She focuses on houses and their intiors , particularly in the Reno area west of wells.  All of her pictures in this exhibit do not contain any people, forcing the viewer to focus on the space, forms, and lines that the buildings create.  In her thesis presentation she explained how she likes to show hints that people have lived in these houses without actually showing the people.  She accomplishes this by including details such a dent in the wall, wear patterns in a carpet, and tire tracks in the snow in her photographs.  She is interested in finding a story but leaving some parts of it unanswered. 

            In here thesis presentation she talked about her method of finding homes to photograph.  She would look through old newspapers and look for events that happened in the particular neighborhood she was interested in.  She would take advantage of the fact that old newspapers used to print the addresses where things happened and she would revisit the houses.  She would explain to the owner what had happened there and often the owners of the houses would be intrigued and let her take pictures of their home. 

            My favorite work in this exhibit (Unknown name) is of a window sill that is painted white and the paint on the top has been worn away to expose the green and brown layers under the white.  There is a light ray and shadow being cast by an unknown source  that creates vertical lines in the scene and some interesting tonal gradients.  The only lines in this piece are horizontal and vertical lines giving the piece a Piet Mondriaan feel. 

            Another piece in this exhibit I found interesting is of a door with light shining through the edges.  This piece has many subtle details that suggest a story, yet like Rodgers wanted, the full story is left untold leaving the viewer searching through the photo for more.  There is a wearing in the carpet that suggests that this scene has been through a lot of repetitive foot traffic throughout the years.  The blinds in the window hang down crooked showing their age.  The dirt on the door hints that little kids live (or lived) in the house.  And the light creeping around the edges of the door suggest that outside of this old musty house it is a nice and sunny day.  These details definitely tell a story, although it may not be entirely clear, which serves to peak interest in the viewer. 

            Emily Rodgers exhibit “In search of” is an interesting and well-put together body of work.  All the images in this gallery fit together and compliment each other nicely.  Rodgers was very successful in accomplishing what she set out to do: to tell parts of a story, while leaving just enough out to make the viewer interested.

Persuasion by Priscilla Varner

The exhibit Persuasion by Priscilla Varner is a collection of photographs accompanied with six words next to each photograph.  In a short note in the gallery, Varner addresses the subtle forms of persuasion that we are bombarded with throughout our day by advertising that we usually don’t take notice to.  She explains that her goal in this photographic series was to show how the persuasive tactic of word choice can effect a viewer or reader.  By placing certain word along side her pictures, she is hoping that the words will “persuade” the viewer to interpret the image differently than they may have if they just looking at the image by itself. 

            “Visiteurs Musee”  appears to be a photograph of a group of people in an art gallery.  The black and white print has black vignetteing  around the border drawing the viewers eyes to the silhouetted figures towards the middle of the picture.  The lines on the ceiling and floor create leading lines that draw the viewers eye to the silhouetted people as well.  Most of these figures appear to be in motion because their feet are frozen mid-step.  The figures closest to the photographer, being significantly shorter than everyone else in the room and wearing a baseball hat, appear to be kids.  One of these kids is crouching with his arm out stretched towards the other kid as if they are playing tag.  When simply looking at the image the viewer gets the impression that the image is about a group of people moving through an art gallery with their kids playing, but after reading the words that Varner has placed next to the image the viewer gets a dramatically different idea of what is going on in the picture.  The words “darkness, distress, evacuation, exit, swift, trepidation” printed to the right of the picture instantly change the mood in the picture.  All of the people that once seemed to be taking normal relaxed steps now seem to be walking quickly to the door.  The kid that once appeared to be playing tag with his friend now seems to be grabbing the other kid, pulling him towards the exit.  The room that at first seemed to just be a naturally lit art gallery has now turned into a dark, panic filled room.  The effect that these six words have on the way the image is interpreted is dramatic; completely changing the mood from relaxed to chaotic.  It is fascinating how a few descriptive words can impact the atmosphere of an image in such a severe way, persuading you to interpret the image in a completely different way from how you had previously imagined it.  All of Varner’s images in this exhibit are accompanied by words of persuasion, but this image in particular really struck me with much you can be persuaded by a few words.  These words more so than any others in the set completely changed how I interpreted the photograph. 

            The pictures by themselves do not seem to relate to each other at all but their accompanying words serve a dual purpose by tying the exhibit together.  These words in a way turn the gallery into an internal psychological experiment for the viewer, allowing them to watch their thoughts to be persuaded one way and another by the words and images. 

Two by Land: Katherine Sandoz and Nicole Donnelly

        Nicole Donnelly’s painting style is very abstract and surreal.  She uses very organic shapes and textures to suggest unusual surreal landscapes.  In some of her paintings it appears that she begins painting the canvas upside down, and flips it at some point during her painting process to finish painting the image.  This is made apparent by drips of paint that appear to be dripping up.  This subtle feature provides an interesting effect to the physics of the painting almost making it seem like she could have been in outer space, painting landscapes that actually exhibit. 

            “The Floating World” is one of her larger paintings and definitely the most visually interesting piece in my opinion.  Donnelly depicts floating dark green bush/cloud like objects that are held down with orange nets.  These nets are tied down by a white rope that descends and disappears into the light blue water below.  The artist gives subtle hints that the blue bottom third of the painting is water by including dark lines that mirror the white lines that hold down the nets.  She also depicts distorted green masses directly under the floating green clouds creating a reflection effect.  There are also two pinkish hieroglyphic-resembling bodys that serve to add interest to the negative space behind the white lines.  These strange symbols add a mysterious element to the painting because it is unclear what they are and, they don’t have reflections in the water making them seem almost like ghosts.  These symbols do an excellent job of guiding the viewer’s gaze around the landscape from floating cloud to floating cloud, to the water and back again.  Another element that I think is interesting about this piece is the space between the top of the green cloud and the orange net.  The space between the two makes it seem as if there is an invisible form on top of the cloud that is holding up the net.

            Katherine Sandoz’s style is much more abstract, painting semi transparent wedges of color on wood panels.  Her paintings appear to be landscapes as well although with content this abstract, there is a lot open for interpretation.  Most of her paintings are extremely similar looking due to their simplicity.  The transparency of the color wedges creates an interesting effect resembling wet paper cutouts that are stacked on top of each other. 

            In her “Overpass Series” she features 9 square paintings arranged in a 3 by 3 square.  These 9 pieces exhibit differently placed and colored wedges with varying degrees of transparency.  Individually these paintings are interesting because of their watery textures and subtle depth created by the layered wedges and some sort of resin.  When you step back and look at these paintings collectively as a series, new interesting things start to emerge.  The 3 by 3 square of smaller paintings takes on a windowpane effect and it appears as if each window is a view to a different world.  At this distance only the general shapes are visible and a lot of the watery textures seem to disappear. 

            Together, I think each artists’ work compliments each other nicely. There somewhat similar abstract style ties the exhibit together while their displaying the two artist’s work side by side highlights distinct stylistic differences.  By displaying their work together it becomes second nature to the viewer to compare them, encouraging them to notice the details that make each work unique.