NMA 2050

My inspiration comes from anime. Although I enjoy the quality of anime, what really draws my attention more precisely are the action scenes. The action scenes are filled with vibrant colors that eventually mix together and form a flash of white until the scenery is completely destroyed. This is what draws me to create my work. Artists like Akria Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, and Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden, create beautiful landscapes in their work which later get destroyed by colorful attacks between two fighters. Anime enriches the viewer with a vibrant pictorial of a storyline. I am interested in the idea of blending real life photography with anime. I try to make the two intertwine and seem as if they are one. I want to explore the differences between having more real life in anime and more anime in real life. Through the manipulation and blending of anime and the real world I present the question of what is real and what is fake to viewers of my work.

“By the end of the twentieth century, the problem was no longer how to create a new media object such as an image; the new problem was how to find an object that already exists somewhere. If you want a particular image, chances are it already exists-but it may be easier to create on from scratch than to find an existing one.” This quote is taken from Lev Manovich’s five principles. This one is found under principle number three, automation. Automation allows users to create or modify media objects using templates or algorithms. This is important in new media because it allows media to be created quickly and easily. Principle number three allows people to be removed from the creative process of new media. This makes art a form of collaboration. Automation is important because it allows users to cut on time when they are trying to create new media. I find automation very important because it allows users to have more time to focus on more challenging aspects of creating new media. Automation is very important to this class because it is used in the Photoshop that we use. For example automation is found in the filters and special effects that we use in class. “Along with “low-level” and “high-level” automation of media creation, another area of media use subjected to increasing automation is media access.” This means that automation has stored previous types of media art and allows us to use previous images in order to advance our new media. Without automation it would be much harder for people to create new media because everything would have to be made from scratch. Automation it makes it easier and much more simpler to create new media because people just have to use images that already exist to create their art.

The project I chose to write about was Robert Adrian’s The World in 24 Hours. The project was done in 1982. The main goal of the project was to keep mass communication around the world going on continuously for a full 24 hours. Adrian’s project was to keep people connected throughout the world through the use of telecommunications such as fax, computers, and videophones. He was using telecommunications as an art form, but in reality the human factor also played a role. However, during the project, there were many problems that occurred. The sound recording equipment broke down. Therefore, some things were not recorded and others were not photographed. The camera man even went home with the camera! During the project, they also ran out of video tape in the middle of the night. Also, one of the telephones died. Even though there were so many problems, Robert Adrian said that his art project was a success. He was able to demonstrate the emerging use of telecommunications as an art form. Today there are many art projects that deal with digital art through connectivity. In fact there are so many that we can overlook them as a part of our everyday life. I am talking of course about social networks and the devices we use to access them. The videophones Adrian was using has evolved into the video chat we use today. Also social networks such as Facebook and Twitter keep us connected to people around the world 24 hours a day. Even when we are not on the sites, they are still connecting to people around the world. Robert Adrian’s idea of being connected for 24 hours has turned into a reality. Our cellphones are never turned off, we get notifications and status up dates around the clock. All of these things are like the modern day version of Robert Adrian’s The World in 24 Hours and that is what I truly find interesting. That in some way, his art project has continued far past 24 hours.

I found the project we did on thursday to be very interesting. I knew about the harmfulness of the materials we use everyday but I was not as aware of how much we are truly surrounded by the stuff! Before discussing the project we were allowed to go get food that was set out for us. It was a real eye opener to me when we were asked if anyone noticed that we were using plastic silverware to eat off of. I had not even noticed that I was using plastic! We then discussed how plastic is everywhere and that it is harmful. It is harmful because plastic is not biodegradable so when it is dumped in the ocean is does not break apart but rather breaks into smaller pieces. Fish can mistake these small pieces of plastic for krill and eat them. Then the plastic’s toxins are in the fish, then it is possible for a human to eat that fish. Thus getting the plastic’s toxins into their body. For the project I had to bring in an item made out of plastic. I brought an Aquafina water bottle. I was then given a tag for the water bottle with a bunch of stuff on it that I had to fill out. I had to give a physical description of the water bottle. I also had to specify how long I usually tend to keep a water bottle and what I do with it when I was done. I usually keep water bottles for about a couple hours and when I am done drinking them I like to put them in recycling bins. On the tag I also had to specify what materials the water bottle was made out of. I found out that the water bottle was made out of PET plastics. The whole project was really cool and I enjoyed doing it very much. I learned about the materials that go into making plastic water bottles and how something so simple that we use everyday has harmful long lasting effects on our environment and on us.

I find it fascinating that humans are becoming more and more link together. The  article also makes it clear that this is a scary thing. Thanks to technology we all have access to the same amount of information. This means that humans generally know the same exact things. This means that no one person knows more than another person. Learning stops at a certain point because there is no one that can further enrich the human mind. Because of technology, humans are connected to one another. There is no safe space, no place where you can be alone. There is no privacy. However, there is unity between humans, no matter where they may be.

Test post 1 for NMA 2050.