Hello Everyone. I am Ashutosh and in the class of Digital Design and Visualization. I am doing my masters here in computer engineering. And hence I, quite possibly have formed a lot of my "notions/views/biases" by looking through the glass of an engineer- more often than I probably realize. Digital design and visualization is the first course that I am taking outside the computer engineering department. I hope to become some sort imagineer rather than just an engineer in future! :)
I still have no idea what project I can/must/should do for the course. And been looking in my head and in the world wide web, hoping to find some inspiring thought that I can make as a project work! :) But nothing. Here's some cluttered thoughts, sort of ranting or maybe towards that illusive idea. Feel free to help me out :)
..I have always been fascinated by works which transcends the medium in which it is manifested. Perspective view in paintings did it for everyone by having illusion of depth in a piece of paper. Cubists took it further by adding more than one view points.
When I was a kid, I read a comic book on GI Joe (don't remember the name of the book). What I found really interesting in that book was at the end of every chapter it gave the option of choosing which chapter to read next depending on which direction I wanted the plot to progress. That was my first exposure to interactive story telling, although at that time I didn't know what it was called. Content was very mediocre(!) , however I liked the non-linearity; extending beyond the limitations of books with papers bundled together in a particular sequence as deemed appropriated by the writer. Chris Marker did La Jetee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jetée); an awesome science fiction movie with just photographs that I somehow remembered just now. But I am talking way way back in time and technology :)
With the advent of digital media, not only the medium has become very rich in itself- giving artists a whole new bag of tricks, it promises new boundaries of the medium to be broken. I am thinking what should immersive virtual reality do to go beyond the medium...I am reminded of Nietzsche (who was one of the early adopter of type-writers!). He said, "Our writing utensils collaborate in producing our thoughts". And with immersive virtual reality, computer graphics, etc., the "writing utensils" has become vastly potent than a piece of paper and a type writer.
John Maeda, professor from Media Lab at MIT believes the distinction between digital artist and (non-digital?) artist is no longer necessary. He says that internet, computer graphics, digital video has become so pervasive that the term "digital artist" is loosing its meaning. "Computer technologies are at all levels and scales in our civilization," Maeda said. "Everything is digital -- copy machines, hair dryers, microwave ovens -- but we don't refer to them as 'digital.' Why should we bother to refer to digital art?"
Just read about the film "Life 2.0" (life2movie.com), directed by Jason Spingarn-Koff, which has just been accepted into the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and is a feature length documentary about the impact that the virtual community Second Life has had on the world. Anybody has any comment on it?
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