The Art... of Procrastination

Yes I went there, the art of procrastination.  This art style should be outlawed, alas many college students fall to its enticing temptations on a daily basis.  You know a task is upcoming, and all you can think is "I'll do it tomorrow".  That tomorrow suddenly turns into the due date.  Why does this art occurs so often is a mystery and varies for each person much like regularly accepted art pieces.  Whether its sickness, laziness, job related  or something else all together does not matter.  What does matter is that procrastinating brings out that fight or flight response in students on a regular basis (unfortunately).  This art however also produces some of the most comedic results that would not have been possible if the job was done right away.  While some people would say "that was a stupid thing to do" others laugh about it and have a new story to tell their peers when discussing grading.  Will a procrastinated paper do as well as a planned out one?  Chances are no, will they be more entertaining on a humorous level?  I'd like to believe so.  Here's to procrastination, an art style that came to be because someone chose to do it later.  

Final Presentations

No need for links here, this post is all about the final presentations that happened live in ISTA 301, Spring 2013.  There was a ton of cool ideas this year, my favorites being the game of life color version, the keyboard sounds, and the game of life minim combo.  Out of the top three, my favorite and overall "winner" goes to the game of life color version.  When I first saw this piece I thought "Oh joy, another game of life."  I was pleasantly surprised to find out you could alter the color of the pixels and that those pixels kept their own unique identities.  In addition to all of that, the user has the ability to draw their own pixel image that the game begins with.  The "cat" did not last for very long but the end result was beautiful and I could have mistaken it for one of those codes you take a picture of to get sent to different links.  Overall I had fun making a web based college adventure day, but after seeing that, my eyes have opened to more in depth possibilities    

Street Art, Never Fails to Make Me Laugh

Street art is so amusing because it is generally painted into an already existing structure (here is the link).  What made me want to keep looking through all of these examples was the incredibly simple piece where someone spray painted a face onto a broken building.  The face caught my attention because it appears to be incredibly cheerful and optimistic though the building that once stood is in shambles.  To me, it seems like the artist knows how to make the best of any situation by creating this piece.  I also feel that this artist did this to encourage those around them that things will improve, something that is broken can actually be something beautiful with the right approach.  Am I reading too much into this, maybe, but that does not change how I view the art piece.  To be cliche, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I see this wrecked building as a reconstructed and completed piece of art.  The emotional impact that this piece had is incredible.  Hope in desperate situations is a rairty these days, and I admire that artists have the ability to spread that hope through little actions without expecting much in return (if anything at all).

You Stumble Upon Some Crazy Things

Stumbleupon has been very useful when finding inspiration for these blog entrees.  This time around I found a bunch of paintings that seem to show the suffering that artists go through (linked here).  While I have always heard of the term of starving artists, I never saw the other side of the spectrum as portrayed in these images. The most compelling one to me is the one of a crying child who has to clean what they created on the wall (which appears to be "The Scream").  This can be seen as a message that parents are not always supportive of a child's desire to be an artist (perhaps its the fear they will become a "starving: one).  The very first image shows an artist who appears to be homeless and is burning their works to stay alive.  Sometimes the drive to be an artist is not enough, you need the support (or in this case money) of others to continue following the dream.  Another image that strikes me is the one where the artist child is spraying their car while another child (who appears to be wealthy) is sneering at them.  I take this as the idea that many "higher up" people look down on artists and do not consider it a real living.  Perhaps they do not like the paint job, or maybe they do not like the person simply for being different and standing out. Art is not intended to blend in with the background, at least I do not believe so (camouflage is a counter example, but lets ignore that for now).  What makes art so appealing is the ability of it to grab attention, and keep attention and provoke thoughts.  While these images are slightly depressing, they have managed to impact me in a way such that I have a new found respect for "starving artists", who go through so much to keep their dreams alive.

Gravity Defying Land Art... WHOAAAAAA

Yes you read that right, gravity defying land art.  I saw that title and thought "welp, I know what has to make an appearance in my blog next."  Finally, here is the link so you know what I am talking about.  As a basic intro, land art is land that, well, incorporates the land in some way shape or form into its design.  Generally, I am not a huge fan of this type of art because there are already so many artistic beauties in nature.  This however changes everything, from the floating branch doorways in the forest, to my personal favorite of the snowball archway.  Though it does not explain the process to achieve these incredible works, I speculate that there is a very thin string to which the pieces are connected (or some kind of support that blends in with the environment surrounding it.  Again, I am never the biggest fan of land art, but the bizarre and "wow" factors about each piece have won me over enough to consider writing about them.  If things like this could exist in real life without any alteration or fabrication, people would have to re-evaluate everything (gravity woks... but does not work all the time...this could be a problem).  Anti gravity art, redefining logic one leaf at a time.  Are there already existing artworks like this out there?  A "snowballs" chance.  However I still feel very strongly that these works promote the name of land art in a positive way.    

Well... That Escalated Quickly

There are no words to explain the eeriness of this art piece, see for yourself at this link.  Yep, now that you have seen that (if you have not, stop here, click the link, and continue), you understand what I mean.  This poor passerby now has the question of whether or not someone is actually taking their picture, and begin glancing around nervously for the photographer.  Another reaction could be they storm off hoping to get away before a picture is actually taken.  The last possibility I can think of is they call the police, and try to put an end to this work for a violation of privacy or feel they have been violated.  There is no way to determine how much of this piece is true other than whoever reads it on the street will most likely be incredibly disturbed.  Chances are, there is no photographer, but rather an individual who posted it in order to watch the readers reaction, get some laughs, or even just to ruin someones day. This is what I find so artistic about the piece (not the creepy factor of the dolls that could be made), the fact that there is so much room for interpretation of the reality of what happens after, if anything even happens after, and the various responses from the readers.  This piece invokes a great disturbance from me, however it still got me engaged like a "good" piece of art should (in my opinion).    

Artistic Interpretation of the NFL

This image restores my faith that one day I will be able to access the imagination I once had as a child.  This Pixar animator has decided to take the time to draw pictures to represent different games that occurred in the  2012-2013 NFL season.  When I was younger, I could never get very into the football games on television, but if they were anything like these drawings I can say I would have been able watch every game of the season with excitement.  While I am a Giants fan and find it rather disappointing they lost in their picture, I found myself picturing the entire game between the pairs and how it would play out.  The most humorous match ups to imagine in my opinion were the Ravens VS Patriots and Jets VS Texans.  A bunch of birds slowly eating their prey much like a Resident Evil horror movie had me smiling to myself in such a goofy way that I am glad no one was around to see.  In addition, a cowboy kicking a jet fighter to make it malfunction, I think Chuck Norris would be proud.  In any case I find these representations of the teams of my favorite sport to be both creative and enjoyable, and I think it’d be hard not to enjoy these interpretations yourself (unless you are hurt that your team lost).      

Recursion Art

Recursion can be defined as many things, both logically and in a picture.  A recursive image can be an image within the same image of a bigger image, while a recursive function is a function that calls itself.  Recently, the movie Inception makes use of recursion through dreams within dreams.  What I find amazing about recursion is that its both artistic and humorous (though that might be due to my history as a programmer).  When using Google Chrome, a Google search for recursion will result in a message “Did you mean recursion?”.  I cannot explain why I like such a small joke, but I do.  In nature, recursion appears in water ripples and some flowers have layers upon layers in pedals.  My favorite image from class of recursive art has to be the image of two hands drawing each other.  They seem to explain a message that as long as there is one willing to work, that results always have the potential to increase exponentially (these two hands can draw two more hands).  The main reason I see recursion as art is that it is art that can create itself.  An algorithm is a set of instructions that always produce the same result, and as such algorithmic art exists.  Because recursive calls always produce the same result, I see them as art.    

How... How Was This Done?

As the title suggests, this really baffles me.  Upon clicking the link you will find art made from single pieces of paper, while this sounds simple, I can only wish I could do this type of art on a computer.  It is not explained how the user does it, but I feel it is a very minimalist approach to creating art.  By that, I mean they use as little material as possible (a pretty impressive accomplishment for creating such an awesome piece with a single sheet of paper).  Rather than having to buy ink, paint, pencils, marble, canvases, ect., this artist simply has to walk in a store, buy a stack of paper, and get to work.  I especially enjoy the fact that some of the figures are still connected to the paper, giving the feel that the paper is coming to life on its own, trying to break free into the world.  Out of all the pictured works, my favorite one is the skeleton trying to break free, especially because on paper they still have very alive legs drawn onto the paper, while it is the skeleton that is actually coming to life.  Ironic?  Yes very much so, but as I have said in previous posts it is the peculiar works of art that really draw me in and get me engaged.  While some art does involve logic, I am most intrigued by that which has conflicting messages or little logic at all.   

Jump On In! (But Not Really...)

This time I decided to view some street art, and this particular image struck me as incredibly interesting.  As seen in the linked picture, the image is an art work painted onto the ground with a 3-D atmosphere.  As for the story it is trying to tell, I cannot wrap my head around it, but that is part of the beauty I see in this work.  Because I am a programmer, I always tend to look for the logic in everything, and sometimes that ruins me when something is not intended to be logical (there may be in this piece, but I do not know what it is).  It appears to be an old woman trying to fix her television while eating an egg, wearing what appears to be the top half of an egg shell.  If that were not enough, there is a giant cup of coffee with what appears to be a man reading a newspaper inside of it (perhaps frustrated with the broken television).  Also pictured is a cross (indicating a religious aspect), some animals, a tank, and something I cannot quite make out on the leg of the table.  All of these mentioned images are heading towards the "top" of the hole, perhaps resembling they are trying to get out of the hole they have fallen into since the invention of television.  What I feel is the most powerful part of this particular image is not even in the image itself, but rather the fence around it, intended to keep passerbys from "falling in".

Random Elements are Beautiful

Personally, I love the aspect of random elements in the universe.  Much Mozart's Musikalisches Würfelspiel, an algorithm that created music by rearranging pieces of his symphonies, life has random algorithms everywhere.  In Arizona, monsoon season tends to occur during late summer.  Heavy rains, winds, and lightning flood through the sky.  The erratic pattern of lightning is what really captures my attention, as well as many other people in the world.  There are many lightning bolt pictures online, and I guarantee that no two of them are the same.  There are also random artistic elements in casinos as well.  The way in which the reels align, the noises, colors, and odds.  There is something magical about casinos (including the rate at which your money disappears).  Probability and chance are games I tend to enjoy, whether it is gambling or just for fun.  I cannot explain why I am drawn to percentages, but the way it captures my attention is why I believe random elements are artistic.  Many people would disagree, saying that if it is not intended than it cannot be art.  I however believe that it is when you don’t expect anything that the most beautiful works of art come forth.  This belief holds true to my relationship with my girlfriend, an unexpected and welcome surprise thrown my way over a year ago.  No planned art piece has captivated me as much as our first encounter.  The art of love is discussed regularly, no one can say that every case isn’t at least a little random.  

Video Games as Art

So to begin I thought I'd discuss the possibility of video games as art as discussed in class.  Are they art?  I would like to say that they are.  Programmers spend hours bringing their ideas to life to fulfill a story being visually b     roadcasting to the players (some games even allow the user to change the outcome).  Art is said to engage the user, draw in their thoughts and emotions.  That's just what some characters do, especially in games such as Fallout 3 where the gamer creates a character and modifies them to their preferences, and even their name.  I find video games to be beautifully artistic because there are no limitations to them, and the hours they provide in entertainment have to merit to something more than a waste of time.  If these games were not artistic, why would millions of people spend hundreds of hours on them, and then restart them to change the outcomes?  The field of video games is ever growing, and I am excited to see what the future of them will produce.  The number of gamers is also growing with the release of new consoles and platforms.  Gaming has expanded past arcades, past computers, past home systems, and even past phones.  Games have even become a part of daily social media such as Facebook.  These games attract players through something, whether it is stories, characters, artwork, or something else all together.  The point is these games draw in people on a regular basis, if that is not an art in itself I do not know what is.