Leigh Bowry

Leigh Bowry was a performance artist from Australia who was one of the first to create a female persona to use in his artwork. He transformed himself into a completely different person to perform and his influence echoed through the fashion, music and movie industry. Bowry became a well known figure bringing differnt light to what a performance artist can do, and the changing of oneself to become a new person in your art.

Some of his performances include him giving birth center stage to his partner who was dressed as a large baby covered in placenta. Bowry took performance art in a new direction with his novel ideas for transofrming yourself into the artist, or piece of art you wish to be. He showed us we can all deliver self-expression in any way we like, and we can do it to better ourselves and others.

Orlan

Many of the works by Orlan are not only shocking, but different from anything else in art. From her first works posing nude with manequins I thought she was a weirdo, but to me the most extreme of all her works is the plastic surgery she had to put horns on her head. Why would she want horns anyway? To look like...what? To me, it is a little extreme to transform your body as a piece of art, and to go under the knife in a life-threatening procedure to look like an animal with horns on your head. However, if its going to keep her top on, I think she's better off these days doing things of that nature than still to be posing with her boobs out when shes like 60.

Joseph Beuys

Beuys is considered one of the most influential artist of the 20th century. Not only was he an artist, but he was a social philosopher, humanist and anthropologist. Beuys aimed to help sculpt our social ideals, and give way for all people to stand up and voice their opinion in any way they choose. While addressing political instability, Beuys created art with a message and meaning. By taking art in a different way, Beuys helped pave the road for any artist trying to create something of their own and reflective of themselves or the culture on which they want to comment. 

     He was one of the first artists to setp outside the box and cahlenge what people called "art". Beuys was creative and thought in a new way about what is possible in the art world, and what would send a message through a different way. Beuys was truly a pioneer in not only performance art, but many other areas as well.

Tree of Life

I felt like a complete idiot sticking different bodt parts in the xerox machine in the library, especially doing my feet and lookin like a weirdo, but it came out kind of cool..

Howl at Censorship

The final ruling of this case seems to me to be the right one that this poem was not obscene enough to be held off air during times when children would not be listening. It is ridiculous to think, as they suggested, that so many other things far worse are created in our mass media culture and are accepted and allowed to be aired on television and the radio. Many pieces not accepted to be so cultural as a poem that reflects a man’s view of our society during a difficult time, have been admired and encouraged to be aired, even during times that might be caught by a child’s eye. While words such as “negro”, “naked” and “smoking” do appear in lines of the poem, none of these words are as terrible as some make them out to be, and are certainly far better than many of the language heard walking down the street today.

It is almost impossible to distinguish which words are acceptable to be used in a public manor, and even harder to determine how those who do broadcast or popularize them should be held accountable (the 1^st amendment is a hard thing to argue against).  I think that if certain words must be blocked out during times where children may be present, then they should be not allowed on television or radio at all. If so, then many of the songs we all listen to today would not be allowed, and the television shows we watch would be muted out every other word. When did it become okay to use the word bitch on TV? Or the word ass when hole is blocked out? A lot of this does not make sense and will never make sense because it what is okay is determined by a select group of people, who make decisions on what the public is presented with.

10 Revolutionary Computers

With computers being readapted all the time, and made smaller and smaller and smaller every day, it is incredible to look back on how the computer was invented, what steps were taken, and how long it took to get to the Mac Book Air. Learning about what Babbage did in class, was truly jaw dropping, How could someone come up with the concept of the computer in the 1800’s? It’s weird to think that the very first computer was more like a machine, than what we know today with technology.

The massive bodies these early counting machines used made it impossible for the first computers to be used in the everyday household. Not only this, but there hadn’t been a technique developed yet to make the computer easy to use. After the IBM system, more compact devices were developed, and took the shape of more of a typewriter then machine. If it’s funny for us to look back on the earliest computers, with large screens, bulky monitors and storage units, and think about the tiny computers we use today, even incorporated into our mobile devices. What will our kids think about the computers we still use today? How far will technology bring us during our lifetime? It is impossible to predict what is to come.

MZTV

Right off the bat this website caught my attention with the first move of the mouse. Entering the “museum” of television, you move toward the image of the museum and suddenly a man, and a woman with child icons appear to be walking in with you, leading you to the door. I love the way famous quotes are on constant replay, it keeps the attention of the user and gives them something interesting to look at on the homepage of the site.

It is very cool how the colorful reels of options to click on rolls by with which aspects of the history of television you want to explore. The site aims to please many different kinds of people, with a ton of information about early pioneers of TV, famous television actresses including Marilyn Monroe, and an easy to read timeline of the history of television. Anything you need to know about one of the most important inventions of the past decade can be easily found and learned.

The interactive 3d gallery is an incredible idea of the creators of this website. Not only does it attract you to use the website to its fullest and look around at everything, but it is an even better way to learn the information being presented, and explore it on your own terms as the user. It’s very cool to see the evolution of the television set from the earliest model in 1928 to what we see today in Best Buy.  

Experimentalskeleton.com

Experimentalskeleton.com is a really very interesting site to explore and look around on. First of all, the website is very simple to use, with clear display names that contain links, and a clean well organized structure. I first began to explore the past projects the site contains. Some of the most interesting ones I saw were the ES Toy show exhibit, and the lotus flower installation that included pyrotechnics and grand beautiful flowers.  My favorite parts about these pieces are that they have a meaning and message. My favorite “past project” is the Take Your Breath Away piece that showed how much CO2 emissions we give off, how they are reabsorbed, and how the same amount of area for one parking space could equal a plot of land in the rainforest that would absorb 3,500 Lbs of CO2 per acre per year.

This seems like a very fascinating group of artists who, despite the money driven world we live in, continue to create art that serves a purpose, and can help people to learn about our existence and how we can improve it. These projects were sometimes inspiring, thought provoking and shed a new light on what can be considered art, and how we can create art out of anything we want.

The War of the Worlds

Performed as a Halloween episode of the American radio show Mercury Theatre on the Air, the 1938 broadcast of Orson Welles the War of the Worlds create chaos and pandemonium to the public. The story, originally adapted from the novel The War of the Worlds by H. G. Welles, was about a group of alien life forms that come to Earth and disturb the people. While when many read the novel with no ideas of panic or reason to freak out, the fact that this version of the story was done over radio involved many reasons for it to be misunderstood and misinterpreted.

After the show aired, not only were many people outraged about the entire incident, many public figures spoke out about the broadcast, and newspapers and other radio news labeled it “cruelly deceptive”. But despite the bad press, and confusion among Americans, this single air time allowed Orson Welles to become very well-known.

Napoleon by Abel Gance

Napoleon is a silent film from 1927 directed by French man Abel Gance. The film was revolutionary in many ways, despite being a silent epic during a period where talking pictures were close on the horizon. A story of the famous rulers life, the way this movie was created was in many ways ahead of its time.  During filming, the crew used new techniques like hand held cameras shooting in action, along with new age editing techniques such as creating color by painting right on the film strip.

This movie was very important for the time where crucial big steps were being taken in the film-making industry, and all directors, producers, writers and so on were concerned with creating films that captured audience’s attention, and held it. It was a race to create the most beautiful and epic films so far in the history of movies.  This movie was created to show new developments in cinematography, and create a project that incorporated many of the new developments.

Frame by Frame Animation

This frame by frame animation is one of the coolest I’ve seen. Similar to the street art frame by frame animation we watched in class, this video is great because it is brought to life by the movement which is perfectly put together and runs smoothly like the materials take on a life of their own. My favorite parts about this animation were the computer screen and spilt coffee number count, and the staple-shark. It’s interesting how these everyday objects become characters in the story the artist is telling with movement.

I chose this frame by frame animation because my friends found it on YouTube and became obsessed with it. Its pretty funny because of the way Marcel speaks, but also because of the way they developed her character, and use the filming like an interview with her. My favorite part in this video is when she uses a piece of lint as a dog. Hahaha

I love the way this animation begins with the artist using his touch to look like he’s manipulating the character and drawing it with his fingers right there. I like the way he not only uses frame by frame techniques with the post it notes and the story there, but adds to it by also using the space around the post it notes to have physical items in play as well as drawings. My favorite part however is the very end where he piles up the used post-it notes and brings the story backwards so we see where he started and how he developed the images.

Singin' in the Rain

During the 50s many great advances in the film industry came about. The movie Singin’ in the Rain 1952 was one of the first motion pictures with sound both recorded along with the acting, and also added to the background of the taped footage. The most famous song performed of course is what the movie is named after. In class we took a look at this number performed in the original version of the movie from 1952, and later we saw the same song performed in a dramatically different light. “Singin’ in the Rain” appeared again nineteen years later in an almost scarily unique movie named “A Clockwork Orange” directed by Stanley Kubrick. Singing in the Rain and A Clockwork Orange were created during two drastically different points in our country’s history. One could even argue that during the almost twenty years between the releases of both, the United States went through the most significant change of our country’s past.

                The 1950’s was still a decade that was full of rules, church views, family values and hardworking American’s with one view morals. During this time our country was involved both in Korea during the war and also in the Space race with the soviet’s launch of Sputnik. Because of all of these things the government was trying to put out media that only soothed tensions and ideas at home. Not a lot about the war or soviet relations was released, and the main focus of many directors was to make movies that will keep focus here, and also make people happy, with entertainers such as Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean and Marlon Brando. The version of “singin’ in the rain” performed in the original movie was a happy number sung solely by the main character as he dances around tapping his feet and swinging on lampposts. This shows a happy go lucky attitude that the film industry aimed to put across in hopes of easing the public’s nerves.

                From the beginning on the 1960’s to the beginning of the 1970’s when A Clockwork Orange was released (1971) the United States took an immense turn and has never gone back to its conservative ways since.  Many social revolutions occurred during this time which was nicknamed the “cultural age”.  Sexism and racism both relaxed, and radical and new trends emerged. Many think our nation was reversing their rigid culture of the previous decade with unattainable demands, and break free of these social constraints through drastic digression from the norm. This explains why the second time “singing in the Rain” was performed in a movie that was made almost twenty years later; the delivery was on the opposite end of the spectrum. Acted out while abusing a tied up man, and going to rape his wife, the new message was not joyfulness, but rather an image with a deeper and more intense message.

Art and Technology

While discussing popular entertainment and how it played a major role in shaping the culure of America, s a class we examined some U.S. history to get a better grasp on how entertainment evolved in our own history not just in that of the world. A major part of American culture in the 20th century was the beginning of the Jazz music era. This was a defining segway into defining our own sense of unity. The origin of jazz music is by African American musicians in the south during the early 20th century. At this time many black musicians were trying very hard to get into the music game, and took musical traditions from both Africa and Europe to develope this popular style of music which consisted of notes from "blue's" songs along with polyrythms and improvised playing as well. The most interesting link I found while researching this topic is named "A Passion for Jazz" http://www.apassion4jazz.net/ and has links discussing everything about jazz music from milestones in the history of this genre, to a timeline, to musician tips and a photo gallery.

While still discussing American culture and how it was shaped by not only entertainment, but by many other major factors in our country's history, there is no way to skip over the stock market crash. The "stock market crash" of 1929 was when all the stocks on Wall Street crashed leading to a major downfall that lasted an entire month. This was preceeded by a period of decline in industrialized nations and also by declining real estate values. During these days, a majority of the population of Americans decided to sell or trade shares from the stock market, or to try and liquidate their funds from the bank. When this happened  all at once in a big panic, the market could no longer keep up and inevitably crash. The loss during this single week in 1929 was $30 billion.

The eonomic crisis we are currently in today is said to be the worst fincancial crisis since the great depression of the 1930's. Triggered by a shortfall of liquidity in the U.S. banking system, the effects have been grand and significant. These include the need for some national banks to be bailed out, the failure of several large financial institutions, suffering of housing markets, and even risidual effects that have caused downturns in stockmarkets across the world. With so much new technology and banking systems, much more seems to be at stake during this crisis (which could cause a tidal wave of crashing markets across the world).

Madama Butterfly

I really liked the beginning of this video. The combination of the opera playing in the background paired well with the happy, light feeling that the first part of this short was trying to express. At this point the music and singing going with the visual was happy and uplifting during the part where the butterfly finds this young woman, and the young woman falls in love with the captain. It was a "pretty" setting, and I found it interesting the way they used doll-like figures as the characters. While the two were making love the music was soft, slow yet powerul which was a perfect soundtrack to what was going on in the video. I couldn't really figure out what the meaning of the butterfly was, until she became pregnant I thought "oh, maybe the baby will connect to the butterfly in the way that it emerges from something and is beautiful". However, then the baby was represented like a fish in a bowl, which was a little bit bizzare, which then turned into a young girl still atached to her mother by the ambilical chord, which was also quite bizzare and a little gross.

I like that the entire time, the opera music is coming from an old music player, it makes it sound authentic and more personal as Madama carries it around with her. When the "barbie's" came back to take away the young girl I anticipated a dramatic change in the music correlating to Madama's feelings about being torn away from her child, but the music instead was sad and soft rather than angry. My favorite part of this short video is when Madama begins to dismemer herself. As the music builds we see this young woman tear away her outer shell and severs her insides.I think its a cool way of showing that this inanimate characters no longer wants to live. However, the end confuses me. I'm not sure whether Madama was the butterfly the whole time, dies and becomes the butterfly, or comes back to life with the butterfly's help. It was an interesting movie, but im not sure I got the message clearly...possibly that no matter what happens in life we all have the potential to find peace in ourselves, and even be our own butterfly, or perhaps the writer is trying to express their belief in reincarnation. Either message seems like an important one to express.

First Blog Ever

I've always considered writing a blog but never though I would have anything interesting to say. I guess having a homework assignment to make one is a nice push in the right direction...

My name is Kelly Wade, I am 20 years old currently studying Advertsing and Public Relations with a minor in Spanish at the University of Tampa. I am originally from a small town 20 minutes south of Boston named Canton. This tiny town gets a little too cold for me during the winter, and I am very happy with my choice of attending UT, not only do we get to enjoy basking in the sun at the beach, but we are lucky enough to find shade under palm trees when we need it. I am a second semester Junior and I spent last fall in Barcelona, Spain. After living in this amazing city (the best city in Europe in my opinion) for three and a half months, and traveling throughout Europe, I have gained more appreciation for cultures around the world, and feel very blessed that I got to take part in such an unbelievable experience. Although sometimes I wish I were back in Barcelona, Tampa is a great place to live and I'm excited to be back in the Sunshine State after missing it since last May.

This class Art and Technology (or New Media and Art) seems very interesting if not somewhat out of the ordinary. When I first entered the classroom, it was set up not like any other i've been in at UT with a large screen in the front, and rows of squished chairs with no desk to write on. While the professor and another man from the art department played with what seemed like some new video game I began guess at what we might be learning in here. Once the professor began to talk I knew this would be a class that kept my attention, and wil definitely broaden my mind as to Art and Technology. We learned a little about the basics of multimedia and discussed certain elements that go into it, and how Multi and Hyper media came about.

From this class I hope to gain a better understanding of how artists can create peices on a computer or with digital animation. I look forward to seeing a much different, new side of art and hopefully be able to look at many different compositions in a new light. It will be fun to learn about how new media is becoming art in our tech-savy world, and where that will go in the future, and I hope to learn how to create some of this media myself.