Research Blog - Yang Yongliang

Yang Yongliang is a Chinese artist specializing in painting, photography, and video. He was taught traditional painting, calligraphy and other art forms by a former professor at Hong Kong Chinese University. Yongliang continued to study art in the Shanghai Arts & Crafts Vocational College Visual Communication Department, then continuing his education at the China Fine Art Academy Institute. In 2005, Yongliang set up an art studio with his friends, taking on the role of Art Director. He currently works and lives in Shanghai, China.

Yongliang's work combines nature and cityscapes, similar to the already mentioned Lily & Honglei. I'm not sure if the art is about the rapid industrialization of China or finding the beauty in China's cities, but I suppose it could be taken either way.

I really enjoy his work. I actually found out about this artist through Roya during class, and I was enthralled with the detail in his work. The incredible amount of nuance in his videos was astounding, so I couldn't help but write a post about him. Upon further research, though, his work doesn't deviate from the urban sprawl/mountainous landscape. I wasn't able to find anything about his exhibitions, only interviews about his videos.

Sources:
http://www.yangyongliang.com/

Research Blog - Lily & Honglei

Lily & Honglei is an immigrant artist collective based in New York City composed of Xiying Yang, Honglei Li, and He Li. The trio creates "multimedia art utilizing traditional painting and new media such as digital animation, Virtual Reality, and Augmented reality." Their work focuses on how China is advancing both culturally and industrially. A recent piece of theirs, titled "Shadow Play: Tales of Urbanization of China," uses VR, AR, and the physical world in order to visualize the way China is changing, citing the country's attempt to convert the majority of their population to a urban-oriented lifestyle. The piece can be explored in the Virtual World program second life, the virtual reality portion while the Augmented Reality portion can be downloaded to the user's smartphone.

The artwork is obviously trying to keep China's culture alive if not preserving it. But the innovative use technology coupled with paintings evocative of China's history really sells their purpose. Their older work is a bit different, combining the real world with the surreal. All of their work seems to be based on what the physical world and how it's changing.

Their use of different realities to form a very expressive art form is what initially caught my attention. I'm not sure how I could critique it, nor am I sure how clearly the message is coming across: is the use of technology influencing art and culture and is this blending inevitable, or is their use of technology with their art the actual commentary? Is it a critique or a blending of the future?

Sources:
http://lilyhonglei.com/

http://turbulence.org/blog/2014/06/03/turbulence-commission-shadow-play-tales-of-urbanziation-of-china-by-lily-honglei/#more-14613

Research Blog - Jeff Thompson

Jeff Thompson received a BFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and his MFA from Rutgers. He currently serves as the Assistant Professor and Program Director of Visual Art & Technology at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. His work has been internationally at many venues and exhibitions. His art always incorporates technology, whether by creating his art with technology or exploring the art in technology. And though he uses technology to create his art, he "is interested in 'useless' and culturally derived data sets." We saw his artwork during our small field trip at the beginning of the semester.

I'm not sure what I see. If anything, I see how technology may be used to create art. His artwork isn't just a picture edited with Photoshop, it's a computer processing images to create something wholly unique, something besides a drawing or a painting. The top picture is meant to be every picture ever created, the same exhibit we saw during our trip. The photo on the left was created by blending 100 images, then importing a three-dimensional photogrammetry software. His work seems to involve having the computer create the images rather than using the computer to create images.

I enjoy his artwork. Seeing what images and sounds that will be produced from the computer is very interesting. His work might seem different compared to typical artwork, but the way he uses technology to create his work is astounding. If anything, his work can very difficult to comprehend without the right context.

Sources:
http://turbulence.org/blog/2014/06/10/turbulence-commission-interp-by-jeff-thompson/

http://www.jeffreythompson.org/index.php

Research Blog - Annette Barbier

Annette Barbier is an artist from Chicago, IL, who holds a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work focuses on using new technology to address issues relating to the environment, combining mediums to engage viewers. She has used new technology in order to highlight the direction our society is moving end its effects on the environment.  Her most recent work, "Casualties," explores how nature barely exists in in built environment, specifically through "plight of urban birds." The exhibit is not limited to a single medium as it allows its audience to view and interact with the piece.

As already mentioned, there is a very overt theme of how nature, has been affected by urban sprawl. The artist seems to want to challenge perceptions of nature, or that the art is making us think about  how urban growth and nature interact. The pieces seem to make liberal use of white space, perhaps to draw on some feeling of extinction or emptiness.

Her style seems almost like an examination, like we are looking at her work under a microscope. I enjoy how she has a distinct message in the work, that we really need to look at the world around us. Her work is prosaic, for better or for worse.

Sources:
http://www.furtherfield.org/features/reviews/broken-annette-barbiers-casualties

http://annette-barbier.squarespace.com/

Research Post - Anna Pinkas

Anna Pinkas is an artist born in Geneva, Switzerland and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and a Master's from New York University's Interactive Telecommunication Program. According to her website, Anna uses art to express the art of collecting and how the act can seem mundane, such as in her most recent project " Condition: Used." This project uses bits and pieces of intimate spaces" to create scenes reminiscent of rooms in a home. Her project "Conditions," different from the previously mentioned "Conditions," uses simple programming conditions as part of its show. According to the description, " the piece constantly shifts between these different realms and meanings," again touching on the simplicity hiding behind seemingly mundane subjects. 

Like I mentioned, I think the artist is trying to find something in the mundane. She created two videos showing scenes from a dance studio; they feature different scenes of typical objects one might find in a dance studio. Her site makes mention of her technique of exploring themes through "series, collections, accumulation." I can't quite see it, but it might be her taking this technique to compose the final project rather than being an overt theme in her work.

If I had a criticism, it's that while she uses these scenes with a technique in mind, according to her website, I had trouble pinpointing a theme. Maybe it's my tendency to always create a solid message in the art I have created that's affecting my judgement. Ignoring that, her composition is what really caught my attention. "Conditions" was an interesting treat, if only a modest three minutes. If anything, I was interested to see if she would take these conditions and apply them to some aspect of human life. Her work has at least taught me to think outside of my usual strict themes.

Sources:
http://turbulence.org/blog/2014/09/14/turbulence-commission-conditionused-by-anna-pinkas/

http://www.annapinkas.com/

Project 5 Critique

PROJECT CRITIQUE FORM
Name: Scott Farrell
Class Section: 008
Critique

- What ideas did you incorporate into the piece?
I noticed that my average involves a lot of water. For example, I often wake up, wash my face, and have a cup of coffee, so I decided to run with this theme of water. At the time of the project, I felt like I had too many things to do and not enough time to do them, so I had an idea of drowning or trying to hold one's breath. There's a heavy sigh in the beginning and one at the very end, so there's a feeling of holding one's breath, as though we need to hold our breath to get through our work day.

- Do you think the piece is successful? Why or why not?
For the most part. There's only so much you express with sound alone and I feel like the sounds of water are distinct enough to drive the point home, but the idea stands enough that someone might pick up on it.

Self-Evaluation
- What skills did you learn through working on this piece? How did you employ these
skills in your work?
Learning to use Audacity for the first time. This is the first program we've used this semester that I wasn't already familiar with, so while I had no trouble learning it, I had to make time to actually figure out what I was doing.

- What challenges did you face?
I attempted to keep other people talking out of the recordings as much as possible. While there is background chatter, no distinct language can be heard.

- Did you find a suitable resolution—if yes, what? If no, what would you change?
Yes, I would say so. The background chatter indicates a public area, but there is no real conversation heard.

- What revisions would your make if you were to do the work a second time?
I'm not sure how to revise a project in order to make water sound more like water, but that's what I would do if I could.

Project 5

Project 4 Critique

PROJECT CRITIQUE FORM
Name: Scott Farrell
Class Section: 008
Critique

- What ideas did you incorporate into the piece?
I tried to incorporate some sense of paranoia into the shots; the mask emphasized the point more than anything. There was also a very limited view of the room, while shots involving doors and windows were saved until the end, giving little sense of the outside world. The focus on the person instead of the media was to illustrate how people have reacted to news media, rather than the news media itself.

- Do you think the piece is successful? Why or why not?
To an extent. The mask sells the point, but the small anxious hand movements also give a feeling of unease. The contrasting voice-overs were an interesting idea, but trying to get both the shots and the narration perfect was incredibly difficult.

Self-Evaluation
- What skills did you learn through working on this piece? How did you employ these
skills in your work?
Image sequencing in my editor was the main skill used, which, besides timing, isn't difficult. Trying to create dynamic shots that work in stop motion was also difficult, and sometimes the camera would be uncooperative.

- What challenges did you face?
Attempting to sound as something other than an angry teenage boy was the most difficult aspect of the project. Other than that, trying to get the right shot to convey the right mood was also  a challenge.

- Did you find a suitable resolution—if yes, what? If no, what would you change?
As much as I could. If anything, I would have taken far more shots but used more nuanced facial expressions.

- What revisions would your make if you were to do the work a second time?
Really, just the nuances between each shot. Some worked and some didn't.

Project 4 - The Ebola Scare

You will need to turn the sound on for the full effect.