http://webspace.ocad.ca/~eh11jh/

Artist Statement

The concept behind this site was focused on the visually response to the scanned film strips whilst keeping it within a simplistic and monochromatic layout, not necessarily a large focus on the interactive notion of the viewer making a decision on the final outcome, but it was created to keep the viewer interested. During the process of making this, I came across many problems (especially in scanning the actual film) but none the less, with trial and error, I am quite satisfied with the result of my site. The film strip itself portrays an explosion, representing the thought process of how an idea is formed. I wanted to somewhat manipulate the viewers response with the story line of the film as it progresses through the different stages. The development of the internet has provided a give and take service, which I wanted to latch onto. What ever thoughts you had when coming to view the site, I aimed to enhance that, takes those thoughts – what ever they may be – and take them on a journey.

Reading Response: Gill Brandston & Lev Manovich

The article written by Gill Branston was an interesting read about Semiotics and how our communication through language, and various other signifiers have become what it is today. Taking Design, I was relatively unfamiliar with the topics that have been touched in the two texts. It definitely left me with a more open perspective how how I could approach different tasks on how to communicate towards the viewer. Branston talked about Semiotics, explaining how meanings are constructed with the language that we’ve created for ourselves. With the conceptual and physical elements that contribute to the ‘give’ and ‘take’ process of communication, it was so intriguing that even though language has played such a vital part in making a sense of things, there are so many grey areas that leaves it not entirely accurate. It’s already incredibly difficult understand the human psyche, but to pin point the origins of how we describe things and create relations between different cultures is a phenomenon I have yet to comprehend. The section where it talks about colour and its denotations raises the importance of how our visual response  to our surroundings; because of its importance, colour itself has become an important language.

‘What is Digital Cinema?’ communicates the development and history of cinematography, and how its developments have interacted with various medias over the years. This notion of the “interactive narrative” has been a concept that the majority of viewers have been fascinated with. With the growth of technology over that space of time has greatly influenced the trends of cinematography’s ‘identity’. Before, it used to just tell a story, but now just telling a story is not good enough; we see how movies nowadays remove themselves from reality, both narratively and physically (with the introduction to computer generated animations etc. capturing live action film from a camera). Cinematography has that power to communicate a different reality that we can be a part of and enjoy. As much as I appreciate and enjoy the films that were created digitally, I do hope that in the distant future, the art of manual and traditional cinematography is not forgotten.

Reading Response: Peggy Gale & Leslie Hill

I find performance art very intriguing. Granted I don’t always understand it, and usually I’m left relatively clueless, but I still find this use of film quite interesting.  The way artists express themselves through the medium of film, completely changes the dynamic of how viewers can interact and respond with the artwork. I found that Peggy Gale explores that abstractness and talks about the conceptual elements in the use of film for performance art since the mid 1990s. I like how performance art on film has provided that expansion to tackle different issues such as the ones mentioned in the passage: ‘conceptual, narrative, dramatic and social concerns’.

“Video was taken up by individuals for what-could-be-discovered, what-could-have-been-experienced.” Watching Colin Campbell’s ‘True/False’ video was quite enlightening. The whole process of taking what you see and interpreting it gave this whole interaction between the artist and the viewer more intense experience overall. It really can change your perspective based how how you present yourself on screen, from the position of the body to the pronunciation of each word. Leslie Hill’s breakdown of how performance art became what it is gave me more of an understanding to the medium. Although the content of certain performance arts may leave me more on the unclear side, there is that slight increase in the appreciation for performance art as the process artists goes through to create that sense of control on the viewer through the medium of film is something that every artist should aim to achieve.

Reading Response: Michael Rush & Dan O’Sullivan.

It is interesting how technology has developed so rapidly over the past 50 years. Reading the two texts has raised interesting points about how the integration of technology into our daily lives and art in relevance to it becoming an actual medium. If we think about it, technology such as the invention of the camera (photography and film in particular) has opened new horizons to expressing our ideas and emotions within the art spectrum. To think that we have barely scratched the surface of what we can manipulate in terms of what we want to express and create is very exciting notion to take on. However, it is slightly worrying that, because of the ever-growing popularity of technology, will the integration of technology into modern art make the more traditional and older mediums obsolete? With that thought in mind, O’Sullivan’s passage explores just that.

What is technology actually doing to us?

Technology has become such a substantial part of our lives, that it seems that sometimes we can’t function normally without it. This dependancy may be the result of how the developments in technology have generally centred around the theme of making our lives ‘easier’. There has been that argument that a lot of the technology that is created nowadays provokes that sense of laziness; letting technology do all the mundane tasks that we find ‘so hard’ to do ourselves. To a certain extent, I do agree. But at the same time, there are ways to manipulate that design and utilize it for other purposes; similar to how an artist pushes those boundaries to search for their sense of expression. None the less, both texts left me with the notion that technology has played a vital part in helping artists push both our personal expression and technical innovation in our work.