(This is an amazing video illusrating an interview with John Lennon. Brilliant.)
I Met The Walrus
“In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message. (from YouTube)”
Posted on: July 11th, 2008 by Dante
I tried to create something out of an aligning and scaling movie clips demo from class and successfully made the action happen on a click. Initially, I was going to try and have the movie clips mask images, but the scaling caused everything to be distorted, so instead I scaled the images first so that they expanded to full size. At least, I have played around with a lot of different functions, even if it’s not as finished as my previous homework projects. The pictures in the piece are from my collection of interesting found images. View the .swf - hw4
Posted on: June 28th, 2008 by Dante
Over the past few weeks I have neglected my writing in favor of concentrating on learning Actionscript 3. On only my 3rd class, I feel like I am really understanding logic of the programing side of flash. In my latest homework I have created a series of buttons that control a robot’s arm movements, a control panel that is drag-able, an object that follows the cursor and used the drawing api when clicking and holding down the mouse. Each class I am blown away by how much easier it gets… conditional statements and variables make things extremely easy. Here is my latest homework: hw3.
Posted on: June 19th, 2008 by Dante
I finally decided to get some formal Flash training and have enlisted in an intermediate flash class at SVA. We are starting to learn the very basics of ActionScript 3 (which I had no prior knowledge of). For my first homework assignment I have used basic event listeners and a mask to create the illusion of magnification and control buttons. It’s really simple, but I decided to spend a little time to make it a fun piece that I can eventually put on my site. I am still putting the finishing touches on the piece and I will post it when it’s finished.
Update: View the .SWF (it should size to your browser window if you have the flash plugin)
Posted on: June 5th, 2008 by Dante
The screensaver is an example of a technological art that once served a specific purpose, but was never made obsolete once that purpose was lost. Old CRT monitors needed a screen saver so that images wouldn’t burn or ghost onto the screen. Now, they serve as mainly entertainment. Recently, two very nice screen savers have been developed that also keep track of the date and time typographically. Word clock by Simon Heys is a simple list of days and numbers that highlight when needed. The interesting thing about Word Clock is that it is so customizable. Another screensaver of note is Drop Clock by SCR featuring helvetica numbers free falling into water in slow motion.
Posted on: May 28th, 2008 by Dante
A trip through the galleries of Chelsea is an adventure and an escape from the large overcrowded museums of the city. There is more diversity in the small gallery. You can see Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings next to the work of an unknown artist’s renderings of the relationship between bread and butter. Everything is for sale and for twenty thousand dollars you could take it home with you. I was most impressed with the sculptures of Robert Therrien at the Gagosian Gallery. A small closet with 888 red objects, stacks of giant pots and pans, and a towering card table with huge fold-out chairs were particularly interesting. Each small exhibit always give me the feeling that I’m inside a micro-universe that the artist has created and Therrien’s giant objects heightened that sense. In this alternate world we entered the land of giants.
Posted on: May 18th, 2008 by Dante
This is what happens when a cat eats a whole spool of baker’s twine…
Posted on: May 16th, 2008 by Dante
Recently, I have been experimenting with the idea that a business card should be something more. It will now be thought of not only a means of communicating important contact information, but also something even more personal. An unspoken form of communication that will force the recipient to create meaning.
The card I am envisioning as a shell or container for a found object or material. This found object within the card functions almost as a non sequitur because there is no apparent connection between it and the shell. The personal information (shell) represents the giver, and the object (found material), after it is discovered, work together to create a different meaning all together. For instance, if the shell appears to be a very formal business card with small type and embossed monograms, the receiver forms an initial impression. Later, when they realize that inside the card is a cut-out magazine clipping of Flava Flav’s gold tooth they would form an altogether different meaning or persona.
As this is an ongoing experiment, I will be updating this post in the next few days.
Posted on: May 9th, 2008 by Dante
When cassette tape technology matured in the 80′s becoming cheaper and of higher quality, it enabled easy home recording, and a new art form took shape. A mix tape could be recorded from different sources beginning with LPs, off the radio, and later from CDs. Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity” which was later made into the movie starring John Cusack publicizes the etiquette that is so important in the creation of mix tapes and mix tape culture. No back-to-back songs by the same artist is a given. Starting off the mix with a song that will grab attention is key, but you don’t want to over do it, so you might have to turn it down a notch with he next track. Maintaining a flow is also very important because you want to maintain a seamlessness from one track to another. The most important aspect of mix tapes is that it allows the author to say something or make a statement through the music. With the rise of CD burners and the creation of mix CDs, the tape has fallen by the wayside. The idea of the mix has even surpassed the CD and gone completely digital. Muxtape.com allows you to create a mix that lives completely online and can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection. The site is so simple and refreshing to use that it’s as easy as uploading your own mp3s, dragging around your track listing as desired, and sending out a link to your mix. The site also makes it easy to randomly listen to mixes that others have created and bookmark them. Check out my mix.
Posted on: May 3rd, 2008 by Dante
I have recently become addicted to the work of fiction writer T. Coraghessan Boyle after reading his novel “Drop City” and the collection of stories “Tooth and Claw”. You can hear him read Tobias Wolff’s short story “Bullet in the Brain” and read a short story he has written for the New Yorker entitled “The Lie”.
Posted on: April 29th, 2008 by Dante
