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Back home for the Holidays. The snow is a big transition from the sandy beaches. But it fits the season :)I am lucky to be with family.

new site

Well just giving my link to my new website! I hope you like it, and I plan to build it up more with time. It is a good start though.

Click HERE

Watch video on full screen!

This film ended up being personal. Using two characters I wanted to question tall and short, and how height can alter your everyday life. A look at self image. The film is of two roommates who are very different in size and personality. To stay away from a narrative feel I did re-ordering of scenes. More of a collage of images from everyday life that zoomed in on the height gap, questioning what is normal. There is very little sound added to this piece and it is also done in black and white. All the attention was put into the footage taken and the movement of the camera. My goal was for the audience to only focus their attention on the two girls. This being my first video I realize I need more practice on filming and editing. I did like the concept of portraying self-images, and if our height effects our personality. What makes us who we are. Overall there are scenes of daily activities and how they are different for the girls. There are also scenes zoomed in on their faces so the audience can pick up their personalities. And finally a couple images where the girls are looking at themselves in the mirror (examining their self image).

Nam June Paik

Nam June Paik was born in Korea, but passed away as an American artist in 2006. He made a significant impact on introducing video as a medium into the art world. He was also a composer and performer. After knowing these facts you can better understand his work, and see themes of Korea, music, and video in a majority of his work.

In his early life he studied music, which leads to inspire Paik with his future in art. He moved to Germany after college where he got involved with the Neo-Dada movement (working with contemporary materials, popular images, and contrast. He did this along other artist in a group known as Fluxus. This group questioned and challenged what constituted as art at the time. This is when Paik begun to experiment and the use TVs. He worked with video installations using various amounts and sizes of monitors in his work.

In the early 1960’s he moved to the United States and started working with Charlotte Moorman, a classical cellist, to combine his video art with her music. One of the earliest examples is “TV Cello” where he forms multiple monitors to take the shape of a cello. She sits and plays as images of her playing appear on the screens. Next portable video/recorders were invented and the creativeness of his work took off. becomes a more risqué in the late 60’s. One example is the “TV Bra for Living Sculpture,” where Charlotte is only wearing a bra made from TVs.

Another theme Paik was known for was his ability to make robots out of TVs, using various objects to put them together like metal, wire, and radios. My favorite is “Beuys Voice,” a robot/man in a top hat done in 1990. The next major theme is his ability to show his love for his home, and other places he has lived. He made them appear in his monitors or dedicated work to specific places. In 1988 he showed great appreciation for Korea in “The More The Better,” which is a giant tower of 1,003 monitors for the Olympic Games in Seoul.

Overall I like Paik’s work and being innovative. He was not just artistic but very smart. He realized music was the center of art movements in the 60’s and used it in his art. He was also first on the trend of video art. Being one of the first his art has a chop shop/ garage feel with wires and use of heavy metal, but this could be on purpose. In his robots this look is most apparent. Paik took advantage of changing times and had fun with media art.

In Paik’s career he experimented with combining performance, music, video, and forming objects. He wanted to make the audience question the nature of television. Although he worked with various media, he is well known as one of the first to work with video art. To quote Paik "Skin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality. Technology has become the body's new membrane of existence." This holds more true with every day that passes.

Visual Reference:

Nam June Paik: Fluxus/ Video

Paik's website: www.paikstudios.com

Photo-montages

These are also from another assignment in class dealing with Photoshop. We had to create two separate digital photo-montages created from multiple photographic sources. One being “believable” and the other “fantastic.” The goal is to make viewers questions what is real and what is fake. To question the truth about photographs. (Sorry they are so large, but it was before I knew how to upload images for the web).

Here is the first assignment we had in class that dealt with Photoshop. We had to do a a collage. I chose to do one on my new roommates and myself. There is four to our apartment, but only one does not play volleyball. So the title "It's volleyball with a kick" fit perfect. There are other underlying meanings with the images selected, but it was fun to make.

Here is a site I found interesting to easily answers some questions about DM.
http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/

At 21 I am still figuring out "what I want to be when I grow up"

So where can my art take me? Is a good question, and I am sure I am not the only one asking. Combining art with technology brings opportunity and the ability to evolve with vastly changing times. At the moment a career in Digital Art/ Design would be grand! The following link is a good way to explore possibilities!

http://www.digitalmediajobs.com/

Starting Up!

At this point I am an alien to the DM world. But am eager to learn considering it is changing the way humans do things. Digital media is a big change from previous media.

According to Florida's digital media industry association, Digital Media Alliance Florida, defines digital media as "the creative convergence of digital arts, science, technology and business for human expression, communication, social interaction and education".