Black Mirror

     Black Mirror is terrifying. Not in a slasher movie or even Psycho kind of way, but in a very hyper reality sort of way. The show has brought on comparisons from fans and critics alike to the Twilight Zone. The reasoning is justified, Black Mirror, is a sci-fi anthology series, much like Twilight Zone, in which each episode has a different conflict, different characters and actors, different worlds, and a different tone. 

     Created by Charlie Booker, a British satirist and broadcaster, the show aired on Britain's Channel 4. The cast includes many popular British actors. Popularity in the US increased when the series was placed on Netflix. The shows main theme is how technology is shaping the not so distant future. While the technology is different in every episode its still the driving force behind the characters and their motivations. The third episode, "Be Right Back" was picked up by Robert Downey Jr. to produce.           

                                                                            There are currently six episodes, three each for two seasons, and a third season in production. The plots include: a man who rides a bike for points and spends those points on an avatar, a society in which the chips in people's brains record everything they see and allow for playback, a comedian who uses an electronic bear to run for political office.                                                                                                         

                                                  

    The production quality is phenomenal. The worlds, which are so unique and distant, feel familiar and tangible. The lighting, in "Fifteen Million Merits" puts the viewer inside the glass rooms which the characters live. The walls are all LED displays and the lighting work that goes into this affect is astonishing. "Fifteen Million Merits" is the most dystopic setting and yet still strikes a visual nerve that is believable.

     Why the show is so terrifying, so gut wrenchingly horrible, is that each episode plays with our expectations and rooting interests. They establish the world, get the viewer comfortable as the characters are, and the shake the world violently. Often we are rooting for immoral actions but they are the best possible result in this strange dystopic future we've found ourselves. 

    It's believable. That's the scary part. It's so real. Each episode could happen; you can see it. The moral implications and the themes leave you silent at the end. Plot twists aside it's scary what humans can do to each other. It's even more horrifying when we look at the technology that the worlds use are not that far off. The camera angles tell the story, the colors tell the story, the extras are perfectly in sync.

        We are going crazy with the characters because of the production and the writing and the acting. It's a show that has accomplished and exceeded all it set out to achieve. It's truly a modern anthology.

                    

The Question of Art

Aaron, with Decorative Panel, 1992

"AARON would always need to know what it was doing, and the key to what it would be able to do would always be constrained by the ways it would represent, internally, what it had already done. "

For those of you unfamiliar with the work of AARON, let me first show you some examples of the work, and ask yourself this often asked question: but is it ART?

Meeting on Gauguin's Beach, 1988

Liberty and Friends, 1985

Theo, 1992

(Detail) One of the Young Ladies Grew Up ans Moved to Washington. 1980

When you feel that you have satisfactorily responded to your own question go ahead and meet AARON.

sorry im like spamming our blog

I wanted to see if I could get Processing to analyze the color in my drawings and then make generative art of this information. This was WAY easier than I thought it would be. Another step closer. Next I want to make a program with a GUI so you can toggle between more than one image and blend them.
So I went from this:

To this:

And this:

To this:

information anxiety collage visualizer

I realize now that working with the information stream that is twitter is not very appealing to me. It's a little too single-faceted. I don't think it is the type of data that desires to be made sense of. What is appealing is working with Processing and making use of it's ease and design for artists. Getting very good with the Processing language is one of my major goals in life. What is appealing about twitter is it's properties of dissemination. I would like to get better at explaining that both with traditional media and new media.

Information anxiety is a theme in my own artwork and I have perhaps thousands of sketches and no practical way to compile them or analyze them. In a way, these sketches are like twitter for my brain! They have iconography in them, often include text, and are diary-like.

I would like to create a program/softeware/application that can organize and reconfigure my own artwork, sort of like a new collage tool. I want to create new work from my own little crazy sketches. I want it to be more intuitive and easy to use, Perhaps one day another artist would want to work this way with their own artwork. Or, I could easily collaborate with other artists by combining my artwork with theirs.

This is an evolution of my first project that I would like to become a multi-semester endeavor. I would eventually like it to be projected in the REVE aas well as digital prints made. I would like to learn how I can make generative art utilizing these new media techniques while still maintaining my ideas of aesthetics. Also, twitter and other social media techniques could be implemented as I now know how to interface twitter with Processing.

The painting above is by Julie Mehretu, not me!

hey

I thought I would take this first post to write about things I am interested in. My work for my BFA was primarily painting. I also have minors in English and Art History. Artists I am interested in include Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Beuys, and Joseph Albers. Contemporary artists I like include Anslem Kiefer, James Jean, and Jim Houser.

My goal in life is to create powerful artworks. Things that are skillfully handmade do possess a power, a kind of grace. I do not worry that these things will become obsolete in a technologically driven world. Rather, I think technology will always have to look back and use craft if it is ever going to have any kind of permanence. And craft can utilize technology in unique ways. Recently I have seen a lot of work with soft circuits in fabric. These circuits are sewn with conductive thread. Besides looking cool, putting lights on your clothes could be useful at night if you were riding your bike.We as artists must learn to look back at traditional crafts and forward into what technology can offer.

Recently, I joined and helped initiate an artist collective called Afterschool. We are a group of Gainesville artists that have committed themselves to showing in town and giving each other constructive criticism and support. Most of us have graduated with our Bachelor's in Fine Arts. We are united in recognizing the fertile creative ground that Gainesville offers. Our first art show on September 25th was a success due to the level of talent as well as the amount of promotion that was put into it. We have much more to learn. I would like to continue to work with this group and incorporate what I will be learning within the Master's in Digital Arts and Science program.

Arthur Ganson,Machines & the Breath of Time

This a talk by a man who has been the artist-in-residence at M.I.T. that Arturo and I were talking about during our last class. His work is hard to describe, but it is a perfect blending of engineering and aesthetics which creates a sense of wonder in the viewer of his work.