Reading Twelve: New Media from Borges to HTML

The final reading twelve was on an article called "New Media from Borges to HTML" By Lev Manovich. This was a long paper written on the first appearance of new media and how historic it is to technology. This article was very long but HTML as a language is a major innovation to computer code/ code writing.

http://manovich.net/DOCS/manovich_new_media.doc\

Reading Twelve: New Media from Borges to HTML

The final reading twelve was on an article called "New Media from Borges to HTML" By Lev Manovich. This was a long paper written on the first appearance of new media and how historic it is to technology. This article was very long but HTML as a language is a major innovation to computer code/ code writing.

http://manovich.net/DOCS/manovich_new_media.doc

Some Music; Pogo

Pogo is an extremely amazing artist who creates his music ONLY by taking small noises in popular movies also known as samples and puts them together to make a beat and a song. He then DJs the music using very advanced touchpad DJ equipment. Here is DJ Pogo's newest song, Using noises from Monsters Inc., Boo Bass

Hackintosh

A "Hackintosh" is a Mac created by any builder at home. You can buy all normal computer parts that might run better with Mac and install the OSX os over top of it. They are an underground phenomena and very interesting to learn about.

Reading Eleven: Risa Horowitz

Risa Horowitz was a really fun speaker to have into the class! Risa really made some people in the class look up and say "did she just say that?". Risa was very open about her work and let us know that she made a calendar that showed which days she had sex, had an orgasm, etc. This made the whole presentation very fun and interesting to listen to. Risa is a very creative person and all of her art work is very deep and meaningful to her. Risa seems to have n infatuation with wasting her time because every project she takes on seems to take more than a year of constant everyday work from 9-5. Risa drove across Canada, Risa said every word in the dictionary and then compiled them. Her website is very professional and up to date, It would be the perfect reference if she ever was looking for a job.

http://www.risahorowitz.com/

Reading Ten: Ex Machina

In this weeks reading we looked at the Ex Machina website. The site was alright to navigate but nothing special. I really dont have much to say about the class or the reading because I found that the material I read about just entered one ear and went right out the other ear. I have no interest in theater. It seems that the closest link I can make from theatre to creative arts studies is how the lights are controlled and mixed along with the audio of a bigger room.

http://lacaserne.net/index2.php/exmachina/

Nyan

Nyan cat is a cool mix of art done on the computer that was turned into a .gif image and put to some annoying yet oddly catchy music, most likely made on a computer as well!

Reading Nine: Max/MSP Basics w/ David Gerhard & Why Computer Music Sucks

David Gerhard was our speaker this week and he is by far the best lecturer we had this semester. David spoke to us about Gadgets and Devices. His speech was about mostly how to use a program called Max/MSP and how we can basically get it to do whatever we want. Davids example was creating a noise feedback program were he could change the pitch and tone of the noise he recorded in the mic. This really took me back to the lecture with Ian Campbell and VJing because he changed the visual aspect of his performance and David built the program that would do that.

http://tinyurl.com/6vz249c

The Article "Computer Music Sucks" By Bob Ostertag (link below) is annoying, to put it nicely. I wont even overview the plot of this article because it is pure nonsense. Basically Mr Ostertag things he is the deciding person in whether music is good or not. He needs to realize that at one point his music and instruments/ tools, at some point, were considered to be quite futuristic and technical. The same way Bob thinks of "computer music" to be a fad I'm sure back when he was using Synth's people thought his music wouldn't be very good or have much longevity. Mr Ostertag is an old hypocrite who need to open his eyes and realize everything is being done on computers and its only a matter of time music fully exists on/ through computers.

http://bobostertag.com/writings-articles-computer-music-sucks.htm

Daft Punk: Most successful Creative Artists of all time?

Daft Punk is a electronic band that uses synth's, mixers, computers to make their music. They use samples and MPC to create their unique sound. Their innovative techniques using computers and computer generated sounds have put them at God status among the Electronic genre. Daft Punks shows are no slouch either. Their stage is littered with lights, LEDs, smoke machines, light structures, and their amazing costumes are also a work of creative art. If I had to think of ONE band that summed up everything we learned this year it would be DAFT PUNK.

Reading Eight: IMP Labs & Owen Chapman

This is the week I had really been looking forward to. We were finally going down to the IMP Labs (link below). The cool part about the IMP Labs is that they have tons of Midi controllers, turn tables and other cool audio gadgets that you can play around with every Tuesday and Thursday after 6pm. Unfortunately the lecture was painfully boring. I thought the class was going to be on DJing and it ended up being about Charity Marsh's work with inner-city kids using the IMP labs. It didnt really give me any insight into what the IMP labs are all about just information on something the IMP labs is involved in. I was pretty disappointed, as a person who always wanted to check out the IMP labs.

Owen Chapman was the guest lecturer who came to the second class in the IMP labs. Owen chatted with the class about his project that used every days sounds and extracted them to a site for people to listen to all over the world using their site and its interface. I thought the idea was really cool if thats what you're into.

http://www.interactivemediaandperformance.com/
http://coms.concordia.ca/faculty/chapman.html

Reading Seven: Rough Music and Audio Digital Interaction Lab & Instructables

Reading Seven took us to an article about the aRMADILo lab here at the University (link below). This lab is tied to the work of David Gerhard. David was probably one of the top three speakers that we had all semester. David's example of the 3D printer was a perfect example the ever expanding field of Creative Studies. Its for devices like this that make me feel that Creative Studies is all about innovation. The components that are used in the 3D printer weren't around when the first printers or even colour printers. When those components did become available a smart mind put them together and innovated the way a printer can work.

http://armadilo.cs.uregina.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=60

Creative Technology

The meaning of Creative Technology is innovation. Using new technology and old technology separate, or together to make a new and interesting creative activity. That could be visual, technological. Its all about Innovation.



The Gorillaz were the first break through band to combine music and visual characters together. They were in the Guinness book of world records for the best selling (10million copies) band to use music and visual components

Reading Six: Devices of wonder

The Devices of Wonder site really freaked me out. The half human half robot looking right at me really made me feel uncomfortable. These two sites really tie into what we talk about in class because the innovation that's going on not only with the technology used on the site but the flash based interactive site its-self are steps in the right direction. The yellow background on the site gave me a headache and although I did appreciate the flash site it wasn't very straight forward or easy to use.

http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/devices/choice.html
http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/020124/devices.shtml

And now... CATS!

Who doesn't love CATS?! They are the poster child of funny YouTube videos which therefore associates them directly to technological creativity!





Meow!

Reading Five: Sarah Abbott & Ian Campbell

This week we had special guest Ian Campbell come in and talk to the class about VJ'ing and Video mixing, I added an example of VJing in the video below. This was a really neat lecture because I felt like Ian brought a refreshing perspective on his art form. During these lectures I found that a lot of the speakers, especially those who work with technology, had a tough time keeping our attention and keeping the class understanding of what's going on and what they are trying to do. Ian did a good job really explaining the basics instead of just jumping right into how he makes his huge creative masterpieces on the fly.
Reading material this week consisted of Sarah Abbott's work. Sarah's website (link below) was really easy and cool to navigate and I always appreciate a clean layout. Sarah Abbott is a Canadian film maker who's work primarily focus' on human rights, ethics and the environment. I never have had any thought about film as being very interesting for me personally. Film is such a diverse and such a different creative mindset as oppose to something like painting or sketching. Its using things that are already here and making them interesting and painting is creating something from nothing using your imagination. This site had me thinking about the difference between film as a art form compared to painting as an art form.

http://www.sarahabbott.ca/
http://www.iancampbell.org/

Outside In: The Story of Art in the Streets

A really really cool, and short, documentary about my favourite type of gorilla street art and that is Graffiti. Outside in is a 30 min long documentary following some of today's top street artists. This is blog worthy material! And what is a better definition of Creative Technology than a documentary about artist painting on walls put on a social video networking site and spread across blogs all over the world!

OUTSIDE IN: The Story of Art in the Streets from Patrick Simpson on Vimeo.

Art + Technology = The Future?

A really cool article I found talking about the future of Art and Technology! Its a short read but worth it!

http://bigthink.com/ideas/39060

iPhone vs Galaxy Nexus

The Apple iPhone is the juggernaut of the phone industry right now and every other company is playing catch up. Is the Galaxy Nexus the phone to de-throne the top contender in today's phone market?

Which is better?

Reading Four: Danah Boyd

Reading Four was “Social Network Sites as Networked Publics: Affordances, Dynamics, and Implications” by Danah Boyd. Danah writes a small .pdf paper talking about Social Media and its broad effects on its users. This paper mostly refers to the current Social Network of choice; Facebook. In this paper (linked below) Danah goes from explaining just what a current day Social Network looks like touching on Features and Profile pages and also Friends lists. This was the first time in the class I could relate to the presentations we had--had up to this date. Facebook and Social Media as a whole are something that 95% of today's population under 60 would have some experience with. Rebecca did a great job in getting us to understand that Social Media is the biggest creative technology project our generation will know. Facebook collects so much data on its users and in my opinion that is the biggest part of creative technology; the users. Danah talks about this in the paper saying:
"Knowing one’s audience matters when trying to determine what is socially Knowing one’s audience matters when trying to determine what is socially appropriate to say or what will be understood by those listening."

http://www.danah.org/papers/2010/SNSasNetworkedPublics.pdf

Swedish House Mafia LIVE @ Creamfields 2010

Nothing impresses me more than Electronic music! There is not a sound or song in the world that cant be recreated using todays technology.. Now isn't that mesmerising?

Hopefully this will add some fun & personality to the blog and should add some enjoyment to browsing the posts! SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA LIVE @ CREAMFIELDS 2010!

Reading Three: Sheila Petty

Sheila Petty was the next artist to present to the class. During this class I caught myself detracted by small things and keeping attention was difficult for me. I appreciate Sheila's FLASH designed website (link below) as its rare to see artists with fun/ easy to use FLASH websites. Sheila's site gives us information on a variety of things such as her current and past works, her education, her related work and her teaching work experience as well. I had no interest in this lecture, no offence to Sheila Petty, but I have no passion or interest in African screen media.

http://uregina.ca/~pettyss/

Here are the three YouTube videos I've selected that use creative technology:

Is Apples tunderbolt port worth upgrading for?

Apple fans have been questioning themselves about the new and shiny Thunderbolt port that is included in most of Apples new and upcoming computers and accessories. The speeds of the Thunderbolt port look promising but is it really worth upgrading for? And how "future-proof" is it?

You decide!

Facebook Profile

For one of our projects working with Social Media our group decided to create a false Facebook identity to understand the process of creating a Facebook profile but also to see the reaction of people when they received a friend invite from someone they didnt know.
The group decided on creating a real life Dora the Explorer profile (link below), We found pictures of small girls who looked like the fictional cartoon character and found some basic information about the Dora character from Wikipedia. Overall I had fun with this activity because I never find myself on Facebook to goof around like I did during this project and I found that refreshing.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003510660623

In the Future...

This is a short video showing us 10 FUTURE technologies that are in the process of being mastered as we speak. Some of these ideas are really amazing and innovative!

The future of technology....is now.

Reading Two: Rachelle Viader Knowles

Rachelle Viader Knowles is a site specific video installation artist. This was the first artist presentation to the class and I found it to be very interesting but not my type of art form. Rachelle has a vast array of videos on her Vimeo profile and her website, most of which I watched on my own time. Her site has loads of information on current project, reviews she's done and links to other sites she posts on. I found her work to be very interesting and personal but personally I prefer to stick to canvas and a brush.

http://uregina.ca/rvk/index.html

Poem and Bedspin (2008) from Rachelle Viader Knowles on Vimeo.

Speculations on the future of laptops

I really love these types of videos. This video makes some speculations on the future of laptops! Imagine a world where your laptop weighed nearly nothing and was very easy to carry EVERYWHERE! Who would have guessed 10 years ago that we would be where we are technologically.. Wow. I'm sure in 10 years time we will be leaps and bounds from where we are now!

Project Plan

Over the past few weeks we have listened to many different artists of visual who use various tools to display their work from projection, to display and even installation. One thing all of these visionaries have in common is the fact that they all are using technology of some sort to help the audience interact with their work. The message of their art is so important to them that they had to figure out a way to immerse the viewer with more than just a glace. Take for example a recent speaker we had to the class Mr. Ian Campbell. Ian is a Video Mixer, or VJ for short. Ian's view on both visual media and music is that they should coexist and they should compliment each other, that can only be done by using his VJ'ing tools to express the message he is trying to portray.

Its artists such as Ian Campbell that have me questioning what kind of art I would like to create. I would obviously want my art to be visually pleasing but what kind of inspiration could I find to really take the whole viewing experience as a whole to the next level. My inspiration really came from what I feel the most connection with when it comes to not only visual art but also audio entertainment as well. I began thinking of a topic that would capture peoples attention, something that would touch people emotionally to not only have a visual presentation but also an emotional connection so the viewer would feel that much closer to the art presentation.

For my project plan I wanted to have two large beams of light, preferably at or near ground zero of the 9/11 attacks for the first presentation, and then all across the United States and eventually most of the major locations across North America. The beams of light would have to be very tall and be visual for as high as possible to have the most amount of people see it. These two beams of light not only symbolize what was lost during the 9/11 attacks but what the attacks changed in the world. The messages would be from those who had loved ones in or directly effected by the attacks, these messages could be letters to the dead, memories of their lost loved ones or just their name and birth day. Any kind of personal information or messages could pass through the beams. While thinking of this fairly simple idea I thought that there was a way to make this project a lot more personal to the individuals looking at it. I wanted to use some type of projection large enough to display messages in the beams of light. I remembered back to seeing a video of some Graffiti artists who had hired a small airplane to use smoke signals in the air display their Graffiti names in the air so they looked like clouds and I remember thinking that this was an ingenious idea for getting your art out there. I also remembered back to seeing a video of an amazing piece of technology in China where there would be flowing water, and using a program displaying words and symbols in the falling water. I thought both of these ideas would work very well in a visual art presentation. It would be best that for this presentation there could be a clearly marked "best view" angle of the messages slowly passing through the beams of light. This would not only allow for people to all come together to remember and commemorate the losses and morn the dead but also as a place to present the second part of the project.

During the messages passing through the beams of light I would want some type of performance to be happening simultaneously. I find that music is a language that all people from every walk of life can relate to. I believe there is no one person one this planet that cant relate to music in an emotional way. This aspect of the presentation would not only set the tone for the whole performance but it would also be an interesting experiment to see which kinds of music make the viewer feel sad and which music made the viewer feel optimistic about the future.

The purpose of this project was to use creative technology to symbolically represent one of the worst terrorist attacks in the past 20 years. The emotionally connection that North Americans have with this event is unprecedented. This is the perfect canvas for a social experiment into the connection between the human mind/ emotions and art/ performing arts. The words being displayed on the beams of light tied to the music during the presentation could almost be related to Ian Campbell's with work Vj'ing. The ethical or culture questions that would be raised during this experiment are quite obvious. The fact that this art exhibit is related to such a historic event in the United States' history it would most certainly raise a fair amount of discussion and rehash some issues or conversations that people had once or possibly still have about this topic/ issue.

As "for out" as this idea may seem I think it would be a very fun and touching topic to look back on and use some technology to try and see the reactions we get from these new research methods. Using this idea as my project plan has the potential to turn into a world wide phenomenon; With the power of You Tube and other social networking sites the view of my creative technology project would be seen across whole cities by viewers in person and possibly millions more online by anyone who chooses to record any of the messages or the whole presentation and put it on You Tube. At the core this idea has such an emotional tie to it that it could not simply be dismissed.

Graffiti artists use amazing new technology!

These California based graffiti artists use amazing new technology to take their names to the skys. The idea was based came from the fact that the artists were sick and tired of having their street art taken down in the streets so they put their art somewhere that the police and government couldn't take it down. Some of these artists names are: Saber, Auger, AWR, and the 7th Letter crew

Artist Profile: Kina Grannis

Over the past weeks we have learned so much about so many different kinds of creative technology and creative means of expression. From seeing the African screen media presented by Sheila Petty to the creative technology used in Visual art and new media with Rachelle Viader Knowles; we really have seen such a vast amount of creative tech being used in art. For my artist profile I have chosen to focus on an artist by the name of Kina Grannis. Kina is a 26 year old singer/ songwriter who found massive success with the online community using YouTube and through social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Kina won the "MTV O Music Awards Best Web-Born Artist" in 2011. What makes Kina such an influential artist in the category of visual art is the fact that Kina dedicated nearly 2 years of her life on filming a stop motion music video done entirely in jelly-beans. Kina's cleaver use of YouTube to make her music distribution so easy that she doesn't need a major record label really reminded me of the work we discussed in the "Working with online video" class as well as some of the subjects we discussed with Rachelle Vider Knowles and the immensity and influential capacity of online videos in our day and age.
Kina Grannis grew up in Mission Viejo, California and that's where her love for music began. Kina began her musical career as a piano player but soon made the transition to the violin, an instrument she would play throughout high school. By the age of 15 Kina had taught herself how to play the guitar and this was the instrument with which she fell in love. In 2007 Kina was asked by staff members of the University's Thornton School of Music to produce an album with their music industry department and later that year Kina came out with her first album: Sincerely, Me. On November 14th 2007 Kina created her YouTube account and began posting some of her original songs online. With her first video "Message From Your Heart", Kina entered into Doritos Crash the Super Bowl contest. After winning the contest, Kina's video was played to ten's of millions of viewers watching the Super Bowl. Shortly after Kina signed a contract with Interscope Records. Kina's YouTube videos have reached more than 77 million views and have made Kina one of the most watched personalities on all of YouTube to this day. In January 2009 Kina announced that she would be leaving her label and would be working as an independent artist. On February 8th. 2010 Kina released a video directed by Ross Ching called "Valentine". The loving song struck a chord with 11,600,343 people online with 83,786 likes and 14,397 comments. The video is also an interesting look into the artistic viewpoint of Kina Grannis as she walks through a line of falling blocks each with a small picture on it and as they fall they create a small moving video for us to see. Kina expresses her main themes through her gift of song, with which she writes about many life experiences and situations that many people go through. What makes Kina special is the fact she is so amazing with her use of YouTube that her music can reach any number of people.

On February 23rd/ 2010 Kina released her current album, Stairwells. Many of the songs on this album were featured on Kina's now infamous YouTube channel. On November 3rd/ 2011 Kina finally unveiled the long awaited stop-motion music video for the single "In Your Arms". This viral music video used 288,000 Jelly Beans and the video took nearly 2 years to complete. The video for "In Your Arms" spread like wildfire; accumulating nearly 1 million views within the first three days. Today the video has nearly 5 million views, 67,286 likes and 13,837 comments. "In Your Arms" took 22 months, 1,357 hours, 30 people, 2 ladders, 1 still camera, and 288,000 jelly-beans to make. Kina Grannis is not only a true talent but also a very smart entrepreneur who understand the ins-and-outs of the YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Social media community as a whole. Kina's easy going attitude matched with her contagious smile makes her an enjoyable internet King pin of music and entertainment.

Sources:

http://aarising.com/aprofiler/kinagrannis.htm

http://www.beatweek.com/music/musicianinterviews/3175-kina-grannis-interview/

http://www.kinagrannis.com/?page=bio

Other Links:

Kina Grannis - In Your Arms (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOu0DuxFAT0)

Kina Grannis - Valentine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=840NbiFF1zM)

Kina Grannis' Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/kinagrannis)

Kina Grannis' Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/kinagrannis)