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.