TINDER

T.I.N.D.E.R (Together In Network, Distant when Entering Reality)


For this project I was posed the question "What Now?". In response I wanted to criticize the way technology has twisted and morphed into an entity that, rather than connecting us as people as it was originally intended to do, causes distraction and a misconception of what true human connection is. In order to combat this I wanted to criticize this aspect of the Network by utilizing it for its intended purpose of real human connection. This, to me, happens when the Network is used as only a form of introduction to an individual, while the in depth learning of one another happens face to face, with present mind and present body. True human connection is an experience of thought and laughter and self-consciousness. However, in our days society we are too engulfed in our Network to want to think about these things. In this video I invited individuals from a notorious dating app called Tinder, to meet with me in person and open up about themselves while also contributing to art. The product is an amalgamation of juxtaposed personalities, uncomfortable silences, and, in some cases, admission to ones own flaws; a compilation of human connection on a level more true than a text message.

Broken

Broken

This piece was performed in a separate room from the audience and was streamed into them through a projected skype call. The writings on the four mirrors in order of appearance are: "You shouldn't have trusted him!" "What were you wearing?" "Get over it" "Stop crying" "Pity Party" "Dis-gusting Dis-gusting Dis- gusting" and "You will never get better". This piece was inspired by my own personal experience with being a victim of violent sexual assault. The first mirror is a representation of the things people said to me when it had initially happened, the second represents things people say to me now (a year after it happened), and the third is a representation of the way I felt about myself for an incredibly long time - sometimes even today. The fourth mirror, however, is a representation of my current struggle with it, thusly being written in a different color of lipstick and going unshattered. This piece is meant to be ripe with symbolism. The mirrors are a representation of these things that were said to me and how, now that I am slowly learning how to cope, they mean nothing anymore, shattered into pieces in my mind. However, the mirrors also represent my past self before I was sexually assaulted, shattered and broken with no hope of return much like my past self. However, this creates a new meaning for the last mirror. The last mirror states "You will never get better". It is a representation of the struggle I have with thte current idea that I will never be able to recover the person I was before, however, since it remains unshattered and is a representation of my past self as well, it shows that I still have hope of that recovery in spite of what I am feeling currently. The reason for it being performed in my underwear is to show how vulnerable this topic makes me feel as well as to show my overcoming of my body issues (even though I do still have my bad days with it). And lastly, I used lipstick as the medium to write with because, even though it does effect many different kinds of people, the issue of sexual assault and rape with in the United States is a predominant issue among women socially. I am a firm believer that no one deserves to be treated negatively after experiencing something so horrible and I am aware that it does occur among men as well, however, women are taught in our society that is almost an inevitable occurance in our lives. The statistics are incredibly high and we are expected to learn tactics for staying safe - carry pepper spray, knowing how to get out of certain holds, walking in groups at all times, and so on - as if the responsibility of our sexual assault or rape lies solely on our shoulders. I wanted to address this social flaw by showing the link between sexual assault and being a woman, and that is why I used lipstick: a traditionally feminine product in our society.

Blind America

Blind America

In this piece I perform by playing a series of modified vinyl records while blindfolded. The idea behind this piece, as I state later in the video, is to depict the blind ignorance of American life and the idea of "stumbling blind" through the expectations of American idealistic life. This is represented not only by my blindfolding, but also by the records chosen. All records created for this piece are either Christian in nature, or were obtained from a series of records entitled "Happiness"; all of which have what can be considered "American Classics". Each record on its own has a separate meaning as well, which is explained below:

Record 1:

This record was spliced and put back together with itself, out of order and rather crudely. This represents the idea that our American ideals in the United States have been warped and twisted and are falling apart, with only a feeble weak backbone holding it together in our modern day.

Record 2:

This record, on the other hand, has a somewhat more hopeful representation. The silver star on the top side forces the record to skip, while the clean side would play normally. This is meant to represent the fact that we have a toss up chance of either repeating our past histories or progressively moving forward and ignoring this ideals that have been so long forced onto our society.

Record 3 & 4:

For these two records, the appearance from a distance seems normal and undamaged. However, when taking a closer look you notice that there are imperfections. This is a representation of these ideals themselves and the idea that we see them as perfect (people, ways of living, wealth, etc.) despite the fact that when you study them closer, they are far from perfection.

Record 5:

This record is more so a commentary against the most common, "ideal", religion in the United States. On one side you have a cross drawn, a common Christian symbol that represents, in the most simple terms, good when right side up and bad when upside down. When on a record player this common symbol spins between stereotypically "good" imagery and "bad" imagery. This is meant to represent the pick and choose hypocracy that I, and many others, have experienced from this common American religion. The other side is left blank to show that there is, once again, a toss up chance of avoiding this hypocracy and inequality in America, allowing for religious freedom and understanding across the board. I felt as though it was important to touch on religion as well because many of the ideals the United States possesses stem from being so heavily saturated in Christianity for years.

The performance:

Mackay the Monster Hunter

Mackay the Monster Hunter

In this project, the goal was to create a guided sound tour that individuals would be able to participate in on their own using a personal electronic device. The starting point for this particular project is in front of the John William Mackay statue outside of the Delamare Library on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno. This piece takes on the narrative of John William Mackay being painted as a secret monster hunter who is undercover as a miner. Mackay, through the help of some mysterious magic and a little imagination, allows his voice from the past to enter your mind and give a personal story telling tour of his works within the museum. He opens up your eyes to the truth of fantastic beasts that lie in secret in our world. The idea behind this piece was a way for me to show how I often as a child, and sometimes even today, view the world. For as long as I remember I have enjoyed creating alternate stories and universes for things within the science community that would otherwise bore most children, and sometimes adults. I, personally, have always held an interest in certain sciences and I believe this way of thinking may have helped with that. A goal for this piece was not only to let the audience into how I think for a moment, but to also inspire children or those not particularily interested in sciences. I wanted to spark imagination in my audience and show them that things you may find boring can become fun if you just look at it from a different angle. If I were to change anything, however, I would like to lengthen the tour as well as squeeze some factual information in there while still having the element of imagination and adventure within the piece.

To Be Like Water

To Be Like Water

This piece, originally, possessed a much quieter composition. The inspiration behind the original had more to do with experimentation with sound, having never worked with it before. This included things like mic sensitivity, and submerging the recording device underwater (protected within the confines of an air-tight plastic bag). However, art being much like life, it develops and having a second listen with fresh ears on the original I was unsatisfied, primarily with its lack of meaning to me. I, personally, as an artist strive for a piece of myself, regardless of content, to dwell within each piece. Thusly, this one in particular needed a change. I did decide to keep some of the more playfully experimental elements, such as the devise submerged in water. The idea behind this piece bounced off of that experimentation as well. With recent events in my life, I have found motivation, flexibility, and general happiness have alluded me. Upon reflection I have found much of this likely stems from my inadaptability to negative situations. This is why the title is "To Be Like Water". I strive to find my own happiness once again by becoming more like water, by becoming more adaptable. Water has the ability to be both delicate and strong, to shape itself according to its surroundings, and to come in different forms all without loosing the essence of what it is. I find this idea applicable and helpful for all people as well, and this becomes evident by the fact that the subject matter of this piece makes up most of our biological bodies. Despite not all of the sounds being directly water themselves, they do all have an association with it. The two sounds I speak if in particular are the clinking of sea shells against one another and the music box. The shells have a direct correlation to water because they are shells I have obtained myself from the few beaches I've visited. These shells have been birthed directly from the largest body of water, the ocean. The music box, however, is less obvious of a connection and much more personal in nature. Music boxes, to me, have always been a reminder of the small tinging noises of individual raindrops. Along with this, music boxes have been a personal symbol for happiness since my young childhood, bringing the idea of this piece back to becoming much like water in order to obtain my own happiness.

A reveiw and reflection on "Hypernormalization" by Adam Curtis

A reveiw and reflection on "Hypernormalization" by Adam Curtis

While watching “Hypernormalization”, a documentary by Adam Curtis, I will admit to at first paying little attention and experiencing moments of boredom and distraction. In that moment within the first half hour of this film I was the quintessential child of technology he later describes. I, out of ignorance, have not been involved in the world of politics and activism in world issues until these recent past two years. Up until the age of eighteen I had this perspective that since the world did not care about my voice why should I care about it? Recently, and especially after watching this piece, I realize that I was wrong. I was a victim of this “fake world” that Curtis describes. I may not have had a political voice yet, but much of my time could have been spent widening my world view and opening my mind beyond what social media sites allowed me to see (as Curtis describes, we are isolated within a bubble of a static, pre-existing world view due to the filters utilized within these sites). Curtis describes this condition I was in within his film. He describes members of a fake world utilizing cyberspace to distract from the real world issues; individuals that are victims of the constant flux of politics that is now run more by corporations than people. He shows several examples that embody this new form of politics ranging from Trump’s flip flopping rhetoric, to the Western depiction of the leader of Lybia, to the Russian funding – while under the control of Putin-  of nearly every political group. This constant confusion and constant fear create a society that is too distracted to revolt or make a real change in were the world is going. Curtis even addresses the point that, even though this cyberspace environment has had the opportunity to bring people together to try and begin a change, the unchanging world we’ve been so long a part of seeps its way in by means of no ideas of a new society after the revolt.

This film, after much thought, has lead me to question much of the way our world is set up as well as how I feel I should, as opposed to actually do, view this world I live in. I want to make a difference, I do, but it also brings into question how much of my own happiness I am willing to sacrifice to make this difference. Do I sacrifice my only dream of being happy within my own life to create a difference in the world, or do I continue to live in blissful ignorance, concerned only with my values and needs and well-being, allowing this system to continue? Would making a difference even really mean sacrificing happiness, or is my idea of that merely a manifestation of this world I have been raised in? And if I were to decide to “make a difference” how much of a difference would that difference even be? Can my sole voice even mean anything or effect anything if one of the main ways of spreading that is through a system that only allows other who agree with my view to be reached by it? Is it a bad thing to participate in a social construct that you oppose? Does that make your voice invalid? For example, I have always been relatively opposed to the way University learning is run today. From the inequality of funding to certain programmes, despite everyone paying the same ludicrous amounts of money in order to even participate, to the fact that the University system is run solely out of an idea of profit rather than the enrichment of the human mind of every student. The University does not care if I actually learn to go on to actually apply that learning in a career that applies to subjects that I had learned. In short, after graduation, after they have acquired their money from me, I no longer matter to the university. Despite this view of mine, however, I still plan to participate, even up to the level of graduate school because I am equally aware that in our culture, a college degree gives you worth, despite it being only a piece of paper saying I learned something in a classroom as opposed to somewhere else. Does this personal fact of a “if you can’t beat them, join them” mentality make me another product of this world that Curtis describes, or is a simple awareness of it make and individual different enough?

However, I will say there is one particular flaw in Curtis’ film that I noticed. He uses diction that points out that he may disfavor rhetoric that hides truth. He shows the negativity that comes from lying while in power for benefit that suits it at the time. With this in mind you would think that he would want to expose all truth in relation to his topic of living in a fake world. In contrast, he shows a bias towards liberal views and I believe this results in his lack of addressing the corruption within the Clinton administration. I am myself a liberal as well and did support Hillary Clinton within the previous elections. I am still, regardless, going to play devil’s advocate. In a film toting about how certain things are hidden from us and we are stuck within isolated bubbles allowing us to only see what we want to, I do believe he should touch on the corruption that does arise within liberal parties from time to time. Even if it is just for a moment, bringing up possible counter arguments to his points and attempting to refute them would possibly make his arguments about politics even more powerful than they already are.   

Noel Johnson

Digital Media I

5/5/2016

A comparative analysis of Lillian F. Schwartz and George Legrady

          In our world of consistently advancing technologies, it is expected that we, as artists, should grow and advance with this world that surrounds us. Works of art that utilize a digital platform to be created – whether it be merely used to enhance the more traditional mediums that compose it, or it is the heart and soul of the entire pieces creation – are steadily on the rise for what is considered the intriguing, seductive, and all around more appealing embodiments of a ripe, bursting imagination. The use of digital platforms opens an entirely new realm of opportunity for creating art and many contemporary artists have noticed , and taken advantage of, the opportunity that these ever rapidly evolving technologies provide. Two such artists include Lillian F. Schwartz and George Legrady.

          These two digital media artists had recognized the moment in which this new medium had begun its swift ascension and boarded that metaphorically fleeting train, releasing their creative ideas to the public in new innovative ways. Although both are separated by a decent margin, in terms of technological advancement time, they have both utilized the advancements in technologies at their respective years in the most advanced way possible for the time. Lillian F. Schwartz dedicated much of her time to arts that utilize the computer, despite it being at the time that more traditional mediums, like her kinetic sculptures, were gaining the attention of her audiences. She, rather than following the crowd, decided to us the most advanced digital outlets available to her at the time. George Legrady, although working in a time when computer art is slightly more popularized (largely due to Schwartz herself), similarly, utilizes the most advanced digital outlets that apply to his work that are available to him. One example, is the fact that Legrady displays his art through the use of both in person installations as well as internet based viewings. This utilization of the newest technological advancement (the internet) is an incredibly intellectual move on his part because it allows his artwork to reach as many audiences as possible. Legrady also uses a bettered knowledge about coding to allow him to create algorithms that create visuals based off of any said code. This is described as being a project that largely reflects his favor of aesthetics and technique. This favoritism for aesthetics and an almost instinctual need to study artistic technique is an attribute that Legrady and Schwartz share as well. Before her exploration into the use of digital medias, Schwartz is described as drawing inspiration from a favorite audience of the time being. She would often closely study the technique, as much as she could, of a particular artist. She would then deconstruct this technique and practice it until she could claim it as her own and apply her own unique twists to them. From this process her multimedia pieces, sculptures, paintings and sketches would bloom like flowers in spring. This method of hers, this process, carried over somewhat into her career using the computer for art creation. Lillian F. Schwartz spent most of her digital media career collaborating with scientists that shared her interests and allure to specific technique of some of the great artists she was inspired by: like Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, and Leonardo. Together they worked on her Art Analysis series, where they dissected several of the most famous paintings from the greats – including the Mona Lisa – in order to uncover their own unique techniques, their utilization of specific colors, direction, and compositions and so on. This was then used to reveal the possible psychological reasons why audiences were so seduced and attracted to these specific art pieces.

          Both of these artist are also well known for being multidisciplinary within the realm of the digital platform as well as being well adverse in the use of multiple mediums throughout the digital platforms as well.    

          Another similarity that Lillian F. Schwartz and George Legrady share is that many of their artistic “installations” are considerably interactive and allow the audience to be submerged into the art in a way. They do, however, vary ever so slightly in how this is done. For example, one of Schwartz’s pieces utilizes digital modeling and animation to provide multiple perspectives looking upon the painting of “The Last Super”, thusly submerging the audience into the artistic experience through her providing of a three dimensional experience. Legrady provides this experience throughout several of his art instillations allowing for the audience to actually interact with the art piece to change its outcome and aesthetic appearance. 

Source links to the artists' websites: 

George Legrady

Lillian F. Schwartz

Noose and watch panel

shattered pieces panel

Love and Pain panel

Dandelion Panel 

28 Letters

In this short film a lesbian couple fall in love through a series of 28 letters (this amount of letters, however, is implied by both the beginning of the video and its title). The original inspiration for this film stemmed from a gif by Alex Turgeon entitled "Better Homes and Gardens Revisited". As a way to show tribute to the original piece of art the two characters form a relationship using words passed through a door - an action that imitates the motion of lines of poetry in the gif. I also wanted to show tribute to the title itself by showing imagery of both nature and the home.

The subject matter of this video holds a very special place in my heart simply because it features a lesbian couple instead of a nuclear, straight couple as society would expect. I, myself, have recently come out to many of my friends and family as bisexual; a incredibly difficult thing for me to do considering most of my family is heavily religious. Although society as a whole has made leaps and bounds forward in regards to the LGBT community, there are still people who struggle and are scrutinized for their sexual orientation. I hope that, even though it is merely a few seconds over a minute long, this video will help those who watch it to at least see the members of this community as similar to themselves and perhaps open the mind of the audience to want to better understand our perspective.   

The video above is the completed rendition of my digital media animation project. The project developed from the beginning tryptic stills, constructed in photoshop, into an animation of one of the three, constructed in photoshop as well, and, lastly, ending with the additional sound as shown above, constructed in audacity. In this project I wanted to continue with the idea of juxtaposition. In this animation there are two ideas of juxtaposition that I aimed to present. Firstly, the sounds an images are juxtaposed against one another. They seem to not quite fit, but still have a flow about them. This is perhaps due to the juxtapositions of sounds not necessarily found in nature with several naturalistic images (with the exception of the clock and the ticking). The other juxtaposition takes place with the idea of the sound itself. The items that are animated within the image are all associated with silence; a quiet butterfly, the lightly ticking clock, the voiceless rays of the sun, the gentle flow of flowers blowing in a breeze. All of these are not things we would think of as predominant sounds, so, in order to challenge this idea, I decided to focus the sounds on these "silent sounds". The sound in this video features the background noises I recorded while sat in a library, the sound of a ticking clock, a sound of breath mimicking the wind, and the sound of a pen scribbling across paper.

I plan to continue a commentary on juxtapositions between realities and our skewed, vague, and simplistic descriptions and perceptions of them. I plan to play with the concept of silence when sound is to be added. For now, here is my progress with the simple motion animation alone. 

What it all really means...

A triptych montage by Noel Johnson 

For this particular project I wanted to embody my extreme interest in language. I find it particularly intriguing that language in our modern day lives seems a necessity that is so often taken for granted. We NEED language to survive today. We use it to buy food, get jobs and thusly money, and socialize with every other individual in our daily encounters. We learn through language. We learn how to properly speak to people, we learn how o write and read, and much of what we know about the past today stems from written languages that give us clues about the culture of that time. With all this in mind it becomes clear that language may possibly be a basic human need. However, I would like to challenge that. Do we really need language to communicate with each other effectively? Even though we may you language as a way to communicate every day it has a tendency to lead to many miscommunications. For example, translating one language to another can completely change its meaning; It can create barriers between those who do not speak the same language as one another, opening up a possibility for more differences to be spotted and separate us as people even further from one another. And even when we do speak the same designated language as one another there are differing dialects within that language that separate people. Furthermore, even if one individual may speak the exact same language and dialect as another, they can still misinterpret each others' intended meaning according to their own emotional and intellectual backgrounds, and how their culture or society determines its connotation.  This is the reason why I would like to argue that, even though very useful overall, language, in many situations, can be rendered useless. In direct juxtaposition to these written languages, there are visual languages. In many ways it can be said to be the same with its culturally constructed iconographies, however, there are several aspects of a visual language that stretch across the board and can be understood by many individuals who speak several different written languages. 

The idea Ive splayed out for you above is precisely what inspired the creation of my pieces below: 

 

          In these particular images I juxtaposed bright colors and symbols that are, in general, considered positive. Their vibrant colors and cluttered, loud compositions are intended to catch the eye of the audience and bring them in for a closer look at the smaller details. Of these details a single word is included: stuck. This word, in the english western dialect, is considered a word of negative connotation by most ( I am not necessarily one of those people). However, this word in its original meaning in no way on its own insinuates something negative. It only means to be in a state of being at the present time. Thusly, the word is only given its negative meaning by being culturally constructed. Notice that the words are never quite the center of your original attention and pale in comparison to he visual imagery presented to the audience. This is since the message of this piece is to show the insignificance of written language to a more visual language as well as provide a juxtaposition of the two in order to tease the mind of the audience into challenging their own perceptions of both written and visual language. 

   

A few of my favorite things

One of my favorite slam poems

A clip from one of the most masterfully executed animated features I have ever experienced

An art piece from Stephanie Pui Mun Law's "Shadowscapes" online gallery