Definitely Trying this Out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttvMAvKW8IQ

Literal Curation

BLACK SWAN

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuwocgoWU7k 

Whats puzzling to me is how the transition was done from having no feathers to having a full pair of wings. I assume that the live video was tracked and matched up to a tracked animation of the growing feathers. Wikipedia (which is normally opinions and not always factual, lol) explains it best "Motion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision^[1] and robotics. In filmmaking it refers to recording actions of human actors, and using that information to animate digital character models in 2D or 3D computer animation. When it includes face and fingers or captures subtle expressions, it is often referred to as performance capture.

In motion capture sessions, movements of one or more actors are sampled many times per second, although with most techniques (recent developments fromWeta use images for 2D motion capture and project into 3D), motion capture records only the movements of the actor, not his/her visual appearance. Thisanimation data is mapped to a 3D model so that the model performs the same actions as the actor. This is comparable to the older technique of rotoscope, such as the 1978 The Lord of the Rings animated film where the visual appearance of the motion of an actor was filmed, then the film used as a guide for the frame-by-frame motion of a hand-drawn animated character.

Camera movements can also be motion captured so that a virtual camera in the scene will pan, tilt, or dolly around the stage driven by a camera operator while the actor is performing, and the motion capture system can capture the camera and props as well as the actor's performance. This allows the computer-generated characters, images and sets to have the same perspective as the video images from the camera. A computer processes the data and displays the movements of the actor, providing the desired camera positions in terms of objects in the set. Retroactively obtaining camera movement data from the captured footage is known as match moving or camera tracking."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMOzjoC1n7Y

Therese DePrez the Production Designer is an amazing artist in that there were things that I notice in this video that I had not seen before until it was mentioned. The designs worked so well to give off that emotional feeling that an artist like me did not even notice it. All the sets were made of black, white, silver and pink in the bedroom.




This movie seem to based on oxymorons which is expressed even in the name 'Black Swan'. I tend to agree with Mary Ann Johanson when she said "I am entirely sure that I love this about the film: that multiple viewings lead you to different conclusions about the psychological robustness of its central character, and about the truth of every event and every person encountered. And that perilous hold on reality is far from the only thing to love about this gorgeously horrific nightmare. Yes, Black Swan is a horror movie, magnificently brutal and dread-full, sophisticated in its slipperiness and elegant in its play on the “evil twin” trope. It’s absurdly campy and intensely bleak at the same time. It refuses to give in to the ridiculous notion that a story about a woman must be of interest only to women, as so many films do by avoiding acknowledging that the authorities and madnesses of women are human, instead of somehow indicative of a peculiar female malady... and so Black Swan becomes that rarity, a story about a woman that is -- or should be -- universal in appeal and power."

Unusual Media

Tom Deininger, Self Portrait

Fountain of Light

Ai Weiwei and Fake Studio

Working Progress (Fountain of Light) 2007

Mixed media light installation

© the artists

Outdated products, New Ideas

Digitalism

What’s on the other side of the digital art equation?

By Alis Cambol, Design Analyst, frog design New York

The creation of digital arts is a natural evolution of artistic craft, requisitioning new media and technologies in pursuit of philosophical questioning and emotional experience. As with any sub-set of art characterized by craft and content (i.e. painting, sculpture), this one is no exception: it contains various movements and sub-movements, each applying its tools in pursuit of a different end. But perhaps more than any other genre, digital art has been defined by its choice of medium.

There is no doubt that artists throughout time have been fascinated by technology – yet the digital arts have allowed this element to dominate to a new extent, at times overshadowing and even eliminating other parts of the process. The result is an image of an obsession, and not necessarily a concept. In some cases, technology itself has become the point.

A simple formulation of process can be used to trace recent trends in the digital arts:

Digital Art = Concept + Craft + Use of Technology

“Weave Mirror,” by Daniel Rozin demonstrates a very powerful combination of these three facets of art-making: concept, craft, and technology. Hundreds of rectangular pieces of wood are animated by underlying motors to reveal an opaque “reflection” of their spectator based on different value readings from photosensitive sensor technology. The unexpected and contradictory use of wood beautifully replicates an every-day object, the mirror, by combining a natural element in fragments with technology. The material and craft are as essential to the piece as the technology that makes it possible, coming together to support an artistic concept that speaks to much more than the simple irony of a wooden mirror.

Digital Art = Concept + Use of Technology

In some cases, materials-based craft is set aside to lend greater emphasis to the concept itself. This pattern has already been seen in the conceptual art movement, famous for its ready-mades, and has recently extended itself into the realm of the digital arts.

New media artist Cory Arcangel proves that deconstructing an ordinary pop culture reference can stimulate a sense of nostalgia and loss with his “Super Mario Clouds”, which float on the familiar screen with beautiful isolation: Campbell’s soup, meet digitization! The use of technology is so seamlessly integrated with this simple idea that it’s impossible to separate the two. The experience is not mirrored or mediated by technology; rather, the interaction between self and technology is its very point, and the viewer comes away having learned something about him/herself on a visceral level.

Digital Art = Use of Technology

When material craft is pushed nearly out of the picture, and concept takes a back seat, all that remains is technology itself, a series of zeros and ones: the machine. The impact of such work is limited by the absence of any material or emotional context. Simon Heijdens’ “Light Weeds” is a good example of this phenomenon, when technology is valued before concept and craft. In the piece, high-contrast, silhouetted images of common weeds are projected onto the walls surrounding the viewer. At seemingly random moments, the weeds sway back and forth, and over long periods of time, one may even witness them growing. Often, viewers wave and touch the projection with high hopes of eliciting a response – and it is only later on, as the viewer approaches the title card, that we learn these movements are connected to weather readings and motion sensors outside the building.

The work’s reliance upon written explanation to help the viewer understand the projected images indicates a problematic underlying situation: the message obscured by, or foc-used upon, the technology itself. Without the help of a booklet, a title-card, or a “listen-and-learn” headphone set, the project becomes meaningless.

Its misleading choice of subject matter only makes matters worse, as the ostensibly “organic” visualization of weeds becomes dependent on its information tab. Faced with a representation of nature mediated by technology, mediated by language, the viewer is left with a sense of the system, but not the sign. The subject becomes an excuse to bring together some arbitrary capabilities of information-parsing technology.

Here, the technology becomes more than essential to the piece; the technology is the piece. As technology replaces the very heart of our art-making, the medium becomes a mirror into our unprecedented obsession with techno-logy, not so newly found, but unchallenged in its completion. As they say in sociology, but rarely in art: the medium is the message.

First Rough Idea (Museum)

Message in A Bottle

A bottle with a message washed up on the beach in Barbados and it seem to be dated from the 1700's. It talks about a voyage of a Caucasian man, his confused, secret feelings about slavery and his love for a young Negro slave girl. I plan to get a huge bottle and stage the scene in the form of an installation. A tree will some how be growing from the cork that will display information and the message in the bottle will be partially visible. Artwork will also be on the bottle. 

Art, Feminism or Something to Degrade Men? I say Art

Barbados Ambassador for Youth gives S&M lesson in her new video

We haven’t published much about Rihanna lately because we are a tad disappointed in the road she chose.

Isn’t it about time that, ever so quietly, Rihanna resigns as our Ambassador for Culture and Youth?

“Rihanna’s video for her new single “S&M” is naughty, sexy, crazy and sometimes outright weird!

Oddly enough, the video features celebrity blogger Perez Hilton on a leash acting as Rihanna’s “slave dog”. All the while, the singer has a group of reporters bound and gagged as she looks on completely covered in saran wrap!

The Barbados superstar even gets a little sexual with some fruit, namely a banana.”

What is your opinion on this? It is definitely becoming an incredulously controversial topic.

Barbados Museum

This was a new experience for me and it was exciting to see the amount of artifacts that were made available for viewing. I admire Barbados for its pride the emanates through this collection, however better methods of preservation would be a plus. It almost seem as if the short term benefits gained from the museum is more important than its preservation. That is proven by some important information gained during the visit that pertain to this anchor below. It is said that every morning the rust chips are swept so that visitors are not aware of its deterioration. What can be done to preserve a history that is physically proven and not read? How can we improve or give more care?

This is a fascinating piece below is truly Barbadian. Using resources that come from the land to ones advantage, in this case it is the limestone, is ingenious. 

I really enjoyed the two rooms that one has to look in from outside; it almost felt as if I just stepped out of a time machine and I was waiting for that moment when someone would leave another room to enter into this room. I would be the person invading his or her privacy but it would happen unknown to them.

Wall-painted animation by BLU

This animation is different and interesting.

Create gif animation using puppet warp in Photoshop CS5

Im interested in doing some animation for my project, its not concrete as yet though.

One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

Its amazing how this profession is the only one that a variety of materials can be used; bought from the most expensive store to garbage dump shopping.