Whilst the power is out!

Waiting to get hold of a generator i have decided to explore the Internet from a slightly different approach. A long time ago the best things to do whilst stuck in a computing lesson were to IM people using some sort of proxy to bypass the Schools firewall, or play the 'Wikipedia game'.

The 'Wikipedia game' plays as follows:
- Start by generating two random links from the English Wikipedia home page
- Write these down and then return to the first one
- From that point on the player has to use only the internal links of the article to progress from page to page to the second random page.

With this game fully remembered and the strange and sometimes wonderful things that you come across, I think the exercise exemplifies a sense of freedom that the internet offers. Wikipedia in itself is a great icon of the nets potential for knowledge, the process of the game means that the more you know about the articles you are reading and the more information that you take in, then the better you are equipped to finish in fewer links and therefore have a better score.

here is an example of two random articles that I have just generated:
1st - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Toyota_Tamaraws_season
2nd - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Kuprikov

soo after a large amount of linking from page to page I came to a dead end, it appears that the origonal random article was incorrect as the final article in my link would explain here: (cross reference the k 4 1000m winners) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_medalists_in_canoeing_(men)#K-4_1000_metres

so 26 links it would have taken me, it is my intention to use these 26 article as resources to create a mix media image, liek a documentation of a small journey through a very small tunnel in the internet.

Mark Bradford

Link to his page on the Saatchi Gallery in the Abstract America exhibition

The work that has most interested from Bradford is that which is shown below, The way that he has used a rectangular plastic sheeting taken from some form of black hair treatment is contextual and creates a captivating effect, one which reminds me of my 'Pixelation' and 'Data Moshing' work of the last year.

The Devil Beating His Wife - Mark Bradford

detail from same piece below:

Jean Francois Lepage

http://two-eyes.com/ (Lepage's Website)
These images are inspiring the Work that I am developing, The vast landscape contrasted with a dominant figure accentuation by a remote light source. My personal favourite is the low key image on the pier by the lake, the contrast create by the harsh light is the bold imagery that I am looking for in my work.

NEW PROJECT: Subject, Object, Space

Having received a letter from my degree course briefing me on an 'Introductory Project' titled above, I am now in the process of beginning the project.

Having been advised to begin with a space, and from there explore this space in order to find influences for the work. I have decided upon the global non physical space of the internet. Considering I access it like almost everyone else I know on a daily basis, it has to be one of the more dominant spaces in my life.

That settled i headed to a friends for a night of pizza and Xbox, during this i noticed how certain games use a map as a real time geographic of all the players who are currently on the said game at that moment in time. examples can be seen below (lights indicating where the players are in the world):

a better quality version of the map can be seen below

Looking at the map there are the obvious heavy traffic areas of America and Europe, though it was not these florescent blocks that attracted me, it was the sparse and dim singular entities which can be seen dotted around seemingly unique locations such as Niger and Ethiopia, Alaska and Bolivia.

When looking at the people accessing the internet in this way I have an image of such remote landscapes and and such beautiful landscapes within which is being overcrowded by the vast space of the internet, accessed literally through portal like windows of LED screens. I find the contrast quite powerful and it is this that I want to explore in my work.

Wanderer above a sea of fog - Caspar David Friedrich

The image I had of these distant internet users was one which reminded me a lot of the painting above which I first saw on the cover of Mary Shelly's novel 'The Last Man'. His large series of Romantic landscapes contain many figures which stair into the distance, conversely I feel making a series of landscapes in which the viewer or potentially a protagonistic figure is drawn to ignore the landscape and focus on an LED screen would suit my interests well.

The images would be asking the viewer questions of how they see the internet in terms of a 'Space' and whether or not that fact that it is pulling us away from nature is a good thing.  

Some Delightful Animation

Vomit

Taking a more personal approach to the characters that we see regularly in media, I have taken a mass number of tv and film characters, the arrangement of the faces creates a bumpy vomit like texture which I wanted use as a methaphor for the huge number of these fictional characters that we ingest on a daily basis. 

taking the pieces a step further I am considering hidding my face contrasting with tha many characters faces, suggesting a lose of identity or shame of inadiquesy

G&G (profanity alert)

Gilbert and George's self portraits below titled 'George the Cunt' and 'Gilbert the Shit'

were shown to me in the article here

''two portraits of the artists as young men adorned with these very legends.'' the use of the word legend here caught my attention in relation to the myth and legend that creat much historical fiction. This idea of declaring yourself as a legend relates very much to the work that I am producing for this project, The decliration of myself as these extreme characters is an area I am currently exploring.

aboive is an interview with the pair, and below is simply a piece of thier work with an interesting explination

The ball is rolling, Slowly . . .

Soooooooooooo
finnaly got my tablet working today and decided to start on my extrusions of real characters, taking them into the bizzare, i remember the huge number of bloopers George W Bush has emassed and found it therefore fitting to portray him as a clown, in heinsight maybe a primeape would have been more fitting, anyway here is my first attempt:

Next I decided to use the same source image that i had used above, and apply it to a mugshot in relation to the work I had been looking at in my last post:

Whilst working on these images I came back to thinking about the personal connection that I have to the concept which I spoke about in my post involving the works of david blandy, with this in mind Chris Cunninghams videos hold some relation, he uses images of his face on various characters within his music videos, something that I may consider doing in my own work.

Come to Daddy - Aphex Twins

Window Licker - Aphex Twins

Im late for work now lol

tadar

Mug Shot

Mosted wanted by Louis Sidoli

 A series of mug shots all of famous male figures, portrayed in a pop art style influenced by Andy Warhol

Ozzy Osborne

Sid Vicious

Mick Jagger

Elvis Presley

David Bowie

Kurt Cobain

Steve McQueen

Frank Sinatra

Al Pacino

Al Capone

Jim Morrison

Johnny Cash

The self portraits I had produced seen in my post 'Face Off'' here, is where i have drawn a visual relation to these images. in realtion to my concept, the contrast of having such idolised figures in popular culture being portrayed as 'mugs' is amusing, yet is asks powerful questions of the viewer and society as a whole, are these star figures which we idolise so much, any more or less human then we are and were is it that there power lies, is it the ability to make people see beyond thier everyday lives, I think so.

A Good Example

This is an excellent example of the caricature like exaggerations which can be drawn from real world figures, again the element of humour is appealing.

The Melodramatic Stereotype

Focusing my project on fictional characters I want to look at some which are melodramatic. As a running theme throughout my work, I enjoy using comdey and satire; I believe that it brings a sense of humility while over enforcing my concept through exaggeration, something which is an interesting concept in itself.

Duke Nukem is a fictional character from the origonal video game of the same title, a self proclaimed hero, a good description is provided here 'wise-cracking, hyper-masculine, egotistical, chauvinist, machismo-filled, womanizing tough guy' (Wikipedia). He is the appitamy of the melo drama that I am currently interested in.

His voice, brought to life by Jon st John creates much of the characters depth; a montage of his quotes can be seen here:

From here I intend to create montages of these fictional characters trying to exaggerate them to extremes, I am also considering acting out these or portraying them as elemtns of myself in a more self analytical manner like David Blandys work.

you can find full versions of much of his work here. Im not completly sure why i find his work so attractive, I think it is the reflective way that he looks uponmn the world and popular culture in particular, I myself have always been curious as to why we do the things we do and how much of who we are and what we want is dictated to us. This may come from a need for rebellion or maybe a feeling of not quite fitting into this formation of society; considering the later it would explain my fascination with worlds beyond my own. Contemplating the boundaries of society and what is deemed fitting and not so, the way my concept has now developed to explore the extremes of characters has more solidarity, these exaggerations of real people would certainly not fit into normality. The concept still strongly relates the realtionship between the elements of realism which build the foundations of these characters and the gross extrusions (not neccisarily physical) which identify them.

Face Off

Here is some work ive done today, looking at transforming my self into different characters. The first is the original image i have been working from:

Some more surreal ideas

This is more plausable yet still largley distorted

Here ive tried to make the image believable as real person

 As an excercise here I have cut the origonal image in half and mirror each in on itself, strangly creating two very different looking versions of myself. 

 Finally i took the original image and decided to try and reform my face to recreate that of a fictional character, or strange proportions, the character i decided to emulate is Voldermort from the Harry Potter films.

Hell, It's About Time!

These videos are all related to the Video Game StarCraft2, As an introduction to the science fiction based universe here is the Origonal trailer for the game.

The part of this trailer which truley captured me is in its conclusion seen here (below)

For the me the portrayal of the character was very strong and you instantly gain the sense that this man is a very tough character, all complimented by the deep Southern American accent. Really I wanted to show and analyse this footage as an example of how different elements can come together to add personality and depth to a character, in this case voice, visual props (cigar) aswell as aesthetic (scars) and situation (prisoner being preped for war).

Here are further voice clips that accompany the character

I'll call this a kind of case study

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . .

I had come across the effect that sound waves can have upon certain liquids before, now i am interested in the movement of the liquid and the forms that it creates; the smalls pillars that emerge seem like figures moving in a strange way

considering the motion of these figure like pillars as dance here is a video on where the figure is both liquid and distorted in what i would best describe as abstract dance



Igonoring the title of the above video as inaccurate, the dance was actually designed by Boris Zolotov who is an master of Tai Chi, and it was his intention to show the ancient traditions of the art through the dancer.

from the previous video i came to this, skip to 1:00

I came to realise that the reason for my interest in these dances is the concept that compels them, it is the use of dance as a form of self expression and expression of an art form which promotes inner strength through fluidity and softeness. In a sense the dances provoke the supernatural beliefs that I am considering, the notions of ritual and a power beyond human physicality.

Further consideration of the use of dance could produce some interesting art in the form of performance. Possibly contacting a dancer to interpret some of the work i produce.

Long time no see

Havent posted in ages, my bad

decided that instead of word publish things for my new project i would simply blog it alll :) so let the project commence

For my final super major project which is where all of my marks come from, I have decided to explore the world of supernatural and fanatasy fiction. The roots of the supernatural in the real world, relating to myth and legend such as the mintaur and the bible, also interpreting modern society in a supernatural manner. Fantasy and sicence fiction is hugley popular in the media of today, and I therefore have a huge pool of resources to draw from. I aim to produce a series of character and environment designs ranging in origin; the process of illustrating these design will almost be emulation of my similar roles carried out in game and film designs. I do not want to be too single minded about the project and will therefore keep this as merely an intention