Multimediale

On Friday, April 20, 2007 I had the pleasure of attending the Multimediale; “Capturing the Capital” art exhibit at the Provisions Library in Dupont Circle of the nation’s capital. This multimedia exhibit showcased the work of artists who thrive in the political realm that is Washington, DC. On this particular night of the festival, which was three days long, a video screening of various works by these politically charged artists gave the audience a myriad of political expressions to choose from.
The reach and scope of the artists’ political beliefs was presented in varied contextual schemes. One film played on the inherent value in paying attention to the things around us. The film used the annoyance of pop-up windows and the games they contain to illustrate the new face of violence in America. Astonishingly, most in the audience didn’t receive the violence well; that is, until they found out who the victim was. After a slight pan, the behavior of the audience changes. When members of the audience were able to notice that the victim was non other than international terrorist, Osama bin Laden, many responded with casual laughter and unconcerned countenances. This change from the original demeanor illustrates the power of media on a broad and varied consumer market.
The most noticeable affect of this piece is more than likely to be the use of violence. Perhaps the most important detail, however, lies in the fact that these games are contained within a pop-up window, many of which often go unnoticed. These pop-up windows are designed to lure naïve consumers into ill-fated scams that have them believe that playing a game will somehow win them a particular prize. Full aware of the consequences of playing, many simply close the pesky pop-up up window, never taking the time to read the content of the message; these messages often reach consumers subliminally.
As stated before, many topics were explored and many were presented in interesting ways. This piece, however, indicates the inherent power of media in and over our world, a point the artist did a great job at portraying. The controversy presented in this particular piece, as explained earlier, completely caused the audience to change their viewpoint. Media in our world today has a unique ability to transform the thoughts of people almost instantaneously.


Another piece to be noted is U.S. REP by Brian Judy. The video game, which allows the user to undertake the roll of any member of congress. The interactive game allows the user to gain political influence and use the legislative body to push his personal political regime in hopes of changing America.

Art as Mediation

In this new day and age, limited communication by cultures has been emphasized by the fact that mediators and buffers like religion have lost their influence. Today, the United Nations and activists worldwide have replaced a meeting of priests to talk about the state of world affairs.
Perhaps the most prominent of the mediators has gone overlooked, however. Art, in its most basic form is the sharing of creative works by various people. At times these works are created for personal leisure, but most of the time to impart on an audience an interpretation of the world around them. In this expression political regimes can be questioned, terrorists can be defeated, and all people can exist as equals. Expressing these controversial topics in art reminds the audience that certain problems exist in the world, but also allows the audience to interpret the controversy at their own discretion. Dialogue may or may not be exchanged regarding the piece on display, but the audience at the very least, leaves thinking about the topic that the artist has presented. Currently, artist use their memory of war as their visual platform and mediation to reflect on politics and power.
This unspoken dialogue is the mediation that art now serves in our world. Although a panel may never be formed to discuss the genocide that is Darfur, certainly an art show on behalf of the cause will encourage people to identify it as a severe problem when they leave. Beral Madra, a curator from Istanbul, Turkey talked about this phenomenon in depth in a lecture to an American University audience on April 19, 2007. Madra attests that the new cultural climate of the 21st century has allowed artists to be the new intermediaries between world peace and world conflict. A shift from religious absolutism to individualism has allowed many artists the freedom and space to challenge conflict with the expectation that understanding might result and that people might be challenged to do something on their own to change the way of the world.
This freedom to express oneself is not always as easy as it seems. Journalists in the Middle East for instance, face persecution and risk their lives each time they write a piece about the state of their government’s affairs. Artists all around the world have had to devise elaborate schemes to get their art to the world. Today, many artists use symbols and varied imagery to portray their point of view. In design for instance, artists can interchange between image and sound to create a work that can affect many. The use of moving images has allowed for many artists to question the world around them and give the rest of the world a notice about the current state of affairs.
An example of this is in the documented footage of the use of children in the Civil Rights Movement. Without these horrendous images, perhaps this blatant problem in American culture and politics might have gone unnoticed. This footage, however, gave racism a face and brought it right into the homes of all Americans. With this, Americans had to question themselves on the political spectrum of this issue and soon mediation was able to result when many realized that what was institutionalized at the moment should not have been the case. Only after these images were shown were artists able to capitalize on shock value and change the way the world around them considered this specific issue.
In the end, artists will probably always be shunned for the causes they choose to interpret in their art. The challenge is to devise new and innovative ways to speak the truth regardless of whom around you believes otherwise. It is important to remember that the creative force behind a great work is the artist himself; without the artist, something that may need to be said could never be said and the crucial role of mediation can never be revealed.

Near The End Of The Road

Midterm season has arrived once again, and in my experience, for one last time. Being a mulitmedia student allows me to explore diverse forms of media. So I guess the main question here is what have I learned in Composing with Media thus far? Well lets start with the concept of real time media. Real Time Media allows limitless possibilities within interaction, exploration, gestural, manipulation, and distortion activities. Real time is pretty exciting to work with also because altarations can be made instantly without the hassle of rendering; allowing a non-linear pattern of images and information to form. A click of the mouse or push of a button on the keyboard changes the path of an image. While the concept of experimenting with real time is a great opportunity, MAX/Jitter has proven to be the most confusing program I've ever encountered. However, Max/Jitter transforms real time media into an intermedial art form, creating endless effects without any boundaries or restrictions.

Some of the overall work by which we've been analysing includes:

North Pitney: C74 Perspective
(where North builds giant mazes and tracks movement through them digitally, which consequently pushes the computer's capabilities and extends the relationship between computers and humans)

The Messa di Voce: Fluid

(where Max/Jitter program visualizes vocal sounds and transforms into a fluid motion graphic)

Lynn Hershman: The Fantasy Beyond Control

(where interaction within the artwork introduces the influence of how the concept of interaction responds to people; making art active instead of passive)

These works have one general idea in common: Fluxus
Intermedia allows the artist to incorporate several media forms and reveal an interaction or relationship with one another. This medium is not governed by rules or regulations, therefore intermedia includes the notion of "Fluxus." Fluxus pushes the medium to an innovative artistic experience with the intersection of different medias. Fluxus interacts with art and technology, allowing the viewer to interact with the pieces instead of being static. The combination with art and technology is somewhat never ending, in which art will expand with the growth technology. Max/Jitter is the program we use in class to create our own Fluxus performance.

During the course of this semester, I've composited a couple of patches within Max/Jitter. One recent patch includes interaction. This patch in particular was a challenge because in the course of my multimedia major I have learned to construct linear pieces. Like I've stated before, Linear is the exact opposite of real time, which in the long run made me pull out my hair in stress. Anyway, for this project I focused on facial expressions and how these movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. So I took a couple of cell phone videos capturing my different expressions, whether its happy, sad, angry...you name it. The viewer decides what face they want to see. I added texture video and narration to spice it up a bit.


For me, Max/Jitter is complicated. I'm having a difficult time grasping the reading of patches and numeric values. Nevertheless, I will continue to play around with the software and become more familiar with it.

Lynn Hershman: The Fantasy Beyond Control

Interaction introduces a kind of freedom that fills the emptiness and replaces the longing with hope. Lynn Hershman valued the influence of how the concept of interaction responds to people. We move forward in life, making art active instead of passive. Communication technology allows the old art fasion to diminish and now participation is encourage to create an audiences' reaction. She quotes, "Interactive system requires viewers to react. Choices must be made." This is the basis of interactive art, where the audience dabbles between reality and the perception of reality...between fantasy and real events. One of Hershman's artwork, "Deep Contact," involves a touch screen and transforms the viewer into a virtual world, with virtual characters and the viewer chooses his/her own virtual space. Adventures are created through touch, which allows a connection with the viewer and the images. In 1989, I'm sure this artwork development turned heads and shocked the passive as well as the active art movement of the times.

Max Jitter Interaction Interviews

In these C74 Perspective interviews, Max Jitter is used to construct various forms of interaction through music and education. Matthew Lewis is an art and design professor at Ohio State. He teaches Max Jitter to college students allow play and experimentation in the classroom. Most art and design classes are filled this notion of freedom of expression as well as allowing the artist to receive feedback from their audience. Unlike many design programs, Max Jitter allows the user to modify live video. This is a cool concept that I have never explored before. I was quite fascinated with the Carrie Wilson's: Music Box because she used her movements and body language to change the sound. I agree with Matthew Lewis...Max Jitter is playful and fun.

On the other hand, Jamie Lidell used Max Jitter as a musical instrument. For him, this program is his helping hand or band to his performances. In many ways, he could be considered the DJ from the future. I hardly hear about any DJ's mixing beats and sounds live from musical patch that hasn't already been pre-recorded. He also presents a valid point: the more we play with Max Jitter, the more we learn, and the "finer points come into play." Max Jitter can be a tool to acheive a goal especially for Multimedia individuals.

Messa di Voce: Fluid

Singers and Composers Jaap Blonk and Joan La Barbara use their shouts and accented vocals to create a corresponding computerized fluid graphic. The Messa di Voce program visualizes vocal sounds and transforms into a fluid motion graphic. The background is a violet red and the fluid is a light white or yellow. As Joan pronounces a "zzzz" sound, it turns these accented letters into lighter colors. The graphics are almost dreamlike. The fluid movement reminds me of a screen saver image, however it lacks interaction. This fluid has movement depending on how they annuciate the vocals. Jaap uses a lower tone voice, but it is interesting how their graphic fluids interact with one another. This speech recognition technology is art because textures are created depending on what is said and sung. This is the concert of the future where the art is the software.

North Pitney: C74 Perspective

This interactive maze installation pushes the computer's capabilities and extends the relationship between computers and humans. North creates introduces an human-scale navigable maze that is conceived in a computer, but rendered in the real world. The machine interacts with the humans an changes the path depending on body movement and heat censors. I find interactive enigma installation extremely interesting to the point where I wish I could have experienced it. It would have been a challenge to leave my path with a computer rather than my own insight. Think about it. The computer determines my path through these white static walls. As soon as you walk up the stairs, you can clearly see the exit directly in front of you. However as soon as you start walking towards the exit, the walls move and close you initial way out. If the computer chooses, I can be trapped inside this maze as long as this electronic machine wishes. This concept is quite scary. I do applaud North for his achievements because he took an easy idea and expanded it to greater heights. Scary or not, I would have enjoyed the experience first hand and hopefully one day someone replicates it into a larger maze. Audiences would appreciate the tranformation of a visual space into the real.

Intermedia

Dick Higgin's definition of Intermedia suggests artists explore the territory that lies between "the general area of art media and those of life media." Intermedia allows the artist to incorporate several media forms and reveal an interaction or relationship with one another. This medium is not governed by rules or regulations, therefore intermedia includes the notion of "Fluxus." Fluxus pushes the medium to an innovative artistic experience with the intersection of different medias. Yoko Ono's, Cut Piece, performance demonstrates the characteristics of Fluxus when she allows the audience to decide the outcome of how much is skin is revealed by the cutting of her clothes. During the 70's, this performance was considered taboo, which presents the intermedia aspect to her work. Intermedia is not only interesting and fun, but it expresses an art movement without boundaries or restrictions.

Like I previously stated, Intermedia involves a connection between the art and viewer. Paintings lack any sense of dialogue and audience interaction. They are purely expensive ornaments to the rich, which ultimately limit the number of people who are allowed to view it. The suggestion of "grandeur" steers away from Intermedia because it is a concept of pure media and is not restrained by any institution, unlike the world of painting.

This medium also includes a relationship between art and technology. Today, technology has greatly expanded with the creation of the Web, Video Blogging, light experimentations, higher quality televisions, cell phones, digital cameras, which overall contains faster, more efficient, and easier access components. To a multimedia artist, like myself, this aspect of Intermedia is exciting and expands our thought on the infamous question of "what is art?" There aren't any boundaries in Intermedia, just an interactive fluxus performance.

Brandon Morse: Static

Enter the all white room of the Corner Contemporary Art complex where Static is shown. Welcome to a new virtual environment. Static is composed of two key elements: art and sound. Sound is heard in background as lines create random figures which is pleasing to the eye. The art moves with the sound. The interaction between these images is almost spellbinding and mystical as one doesn't recognize what it will make next. Where images and sound are uncontrollable and captivating at the samet time. These computer generated figures made me want to experiment with projections and LDC screens. My favorite piece was called "freight of images," where the composition has a natural and softer tone than the rest. This flowing piece left the audience free of form and imagination. Bravo to Static.

TV Stardom on $20 a Day

Video blogs is a the technology of the future. Vlogs introduces a new way of broadcast in a boring standard TV land. Its innovative, precedent, and seems to be growing in popularity. Amanda Congdon is the new rising star of the digital world, showing her audiences new found web information. It all started with her opinion on WHAT IS COOL. Astounding how one reporters opinion can generate video stardom. She makes reporting almost enjoyable with her charming and funny persona. While there are negative viewers who think the idea of video blogs is a waste of time, I couldn't object more. This will start to become a trend with bigger corporations, but I'm glad to see that a young filmmaker built her career in achieving her dream through the world of the web. This is indeed the "film of tomorrow."