This is Jennifer's Log 1 of the Class ARS 393. Our mission to explore 4-D visuals in all their forms.

August 29, 2005: The class began with a discussion of the artists from the Scavenger Hunt Assignment. It was concluded by me that. "strange," yet interesting artists were the norm in the assignment. John Beuys and his coyote were of note, because his piece was well, very creative. You have a man living for 3 days with a canine, and fun ensues. The felt and the fat, missing in the piece, "I Like America and America Likes Me," were important elements of Beuys work. That whole strange story he had for coming up with using the two elements was a bit far fetched for me though. Yoko Ono was one brave woman. Takes a lot to put yourself out like that. "Cut Piece," was an intersting montog of cultural significance. Adding performance together with conceptural art is neat. Like clothing is only a disguise we wear to hide our true selves. Good clothes mask where in society you rank. They say "clothes make the man or the worman." Unfortunaly often times that is the case.

On to HTML: Wow, I get to use html for a site again, cool. Break tags are our friends. Yes they really, really are. If I could be inciteful about life, I would say it is like a webpage, not. Tables now their is something great in the world of the Web. By using tables, you can make everything on your site neat and organized. I even made a pic in photoshop to add to my sample page I made seeeee.

I love my horsey don't you. :>

This is Jennifer's Log 2 of the Class ARS 393. Our mission to explore 4-D visuals in all their forms.

August 31, 2005: The class session focused on 4-D visual presentations performed by several artists. The artist who did "Boomerang," was very interesting. She wanted to capture the effect of hearing your own voice being recorded and thrown back out at you. Many people think they sound different then what they think they speak or sing like when they hear their own recorded voice. This is the case with the artist in "Boomerang," she wanted to represent her feelings as she was bombarded by the sound she herself created. Nothing she said appeared to be rehearsed it all appeared to be on the spur of the moment. Everything the artist said was focused on discribing her thoughts and feelings at the moment she experienced the sounds of her own voice. The crew helping her made commits throughout the production and the whole thing was set up like an actual tv broadcast. While somewhat chessy, the ideas behind "Boomerang," were quite interesting and a good concept.

Another art performance piece we saw was, "Stamping in the Studio." The piece just showed a man stamping his feet in a regular pattern across the floor of a room. The performance went on for quite some time and was very repetitive. While interesting that the artist was trying to show you could make sound and "music" many ways, the piece was a bit to monotonous for me. I felt a little board by the end.

This is Jennifer's Log 3 of the Class ARS 393. Our mission to explore 4-D visuals in all their forms.

September 7, 2005: During the class session of September 7, the class was introduced to a new program called I-movie on the Macs in the Graphic Design lab. In the lab the class was showed how video from a cam corder can be manipulated to create a unique video presentation. Mrs. Johnson had her own video examples to pull from of former students, and used a strip of film to manipulate. She split several sections of the video and picked several of the splices to put together. She showed the class how to also use photo stills in Imovie to create a animated presentation. Sound effects, and fade in and out effects, were good ways she showed us of transitioning from one section of film, or animation, to another. The examples of other students work she presented were quite interesting. One of the most inventive was one in which the person had taken pictures of his or her drawings and then made a video presentation by changing the picture frame each time they wanted to show a new action. Music was one element many of the former students had used and seemed to work well for the video presentation persented. The class discussed the Imovie, One Minute Video assignment and was given a sheet with the details. After working with Imovie I have determined it is somewhat easier for some reason to cut and edit video than manipulating stills. However, to challenge one self can help you be a better artist and Imovie is a good program to learn for a Graphic Designer.

This is Jennifer's Log 4 of the Class ARS 393. Our mission to explore 4-D visuals in all their forms.

September 12, 2005: During the class today, we discussed the artists Paul and Marelene, Ann Hamilton, and Paul Pheiffer. Paul and Marelene created the performance piece "KOS Lightening." In the piece Marelene stairs off into the distance where lighting is flashing. She looks away before she sees the lighting and says that she is missing it. It is there but she never sees it, eluding to things in her own life or in our society in general. The lighting in the distance is a natural phenomenon, and human beings have ultimately no control over it. To get the shots they did Paul and Marelene must have had to do many takes.

Another artist covered in class, Ann Hamilton, is part of the PBS series of artists called ART 21. Hamilton is known for her use of cloth. She thinks sewing is like language. You can use cloth to showcase something about the society who created it. Many of her pieces focus on the female. She is known for her cloth sculptures of female bodies. She is also interested in looking at the world differently. She has her own set of pen hole cameras, which she sticks into her mouth and photograhps people with. The mouth open, looks like an eye. She looks at the mouth as another way to see other people. Body language says alot about a person. The artist, Paul Pheiffer, was interesting to me, because of his piece called "Morning After the Deluge." He has great symbolism in his piece, because of the allusion in the title to the story of Noah and the Ark in the Bible. He shows a sun rising and setting over the ocean. The piece is video and you have to set for a long time to see the whole piece play out. The "Dutch Interiors," piece he did of the Amityville Horror House, was neat because he created such an intricate designed doll house that matched the movie set and then had people look in and see the top and bottom of the staircase through a tiny hole. He seems to like to capture worlds. I do think that a lot of what we believe, is because of the images the media feeds us. We are in many ways created by the media, it influences our culture and reinforces already sterotyped aspects of Amercian society. New thoughts are often hard to be seen in a world full of media content.

This is Jennifer's Log 5 of the Class ARS 393.

September 14, 2005: The class focused on artist presentations and work time in the lab. I gave my speach on John Cage. He was an interesting man. Only wish I could have found some sound clips and more pics of his work. The piece "Williams Mix," was interesting, because it was a collage of 42 phonograph recordings on tape. The tapes were cut and then reassembled to Cage's liking. He was a composer of "prepared piano" music. Johnathan's presentation on the artist, Chris Burden, was interesting. The man was interested in pain, and was even willing to take pain himself for his art. He was gutsy, or just a tad on the strange side.

This is Jennifer's Log 6 of the Class ARS 393.

September 19, 2005: The One Minute Video assignment was due today. As was expected, the project I did took lots of time. I spent Wednesday night shooting footage at the bowling alley of my horrible gaming skills. I finally managed to show myself getting a spare though. Below is the resulting video, which I worked on all day Friday, and on Saturday, from 10:30 until around 4:00 in the afternoon. Please watch and enjoy. The piece is entitled, "An Evening at the Alley."