RockBlog

A 16-year-old boy who relies on texting for almost everything says almost wistfully, "Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I'd like to learn how to have a conversation."

In today's workplace, young people who have grown up fearing conversation show up on the job wearing earphones. Walking through a college library or the campus of a high-tech start-up, one sees the same thing: we are together, but each of us is in our own bubble, furiously connected to keyboards and tiny touch screens.
READ MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/the-flight-from-conversation.html?_r=1

Love & Theft from Studio FILM BILDER on Vimeo.

GIFs are one of the oldest image formats used on the web. Throughout
their history, they have served a huge variety of purposes, from
functional to entertainment. Now, 25 years after the first GIF was
created, they are experiencing an explosion of interest and innovation
that is pushing them into the terrain of art. In this episode of Off
Book, we chart their history, explore the hotbed of GIF creativity on
Tumblr, and talk to two teams of GIF artists who are evolving the form
into powerful new visual experiences.
From PBS / Off Book

Featuring:
Patrick Davison, MemeFactory
TopherChris, Tumblr
Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader, Reed+Rader
Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg, Cinemagraphs

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: TUESDAY, MAY 1

http://soapfactory.org/exhibit.php?content_id=311
The Soap Factory's Ten Second Film Festival celebrates innovative and spontaneous filmmaking. Voted Best Festival in 2011 by City Pages, The Ten Second Film Festival is a celebration of micro-cinema and the everyman--a chance for anyone to be a cinematic god, if only for 10 seconds.

This year The Ten Second Film Festival is changing nights! In 2012, The Ten Second Film Festival takes place on a new night--June 9th--as part of Northern Spark, the dusk-to-dawn arts festival in Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

Festival emcees this year will be the Twin Cities' newest sketch comedy troupe, The 3rd Kind featuring Ian Fishman, Hannah Wydeven, Sidney Oxborough, Dave Christians, Kevin Albertson. For the third consecutive year, MPLS.TV will also be bringing the love. Come early to snag a good spot, people watch, and enjoy this mainstay of summer, The Ten Second Film Festival.

SUBMITTING A FILM
Email your films to: tensecond@soapfactory.org

MORE INFO ON SUBMISSIONS...

Brian Collins Lecture
THURSDAY April 19
6pm in Montague Hall
University of Minnesota Duluth

Brian Collins is Chief Creative Officer of COLLINS:, an innovation-led firm dedicated to inventing branded experiences, digital interactions and communications that shape both companies and people for the better. His team's work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ABC World News and Fast Company, which named him an American Master of Design.
http://collins1.com/
Identity for The Alliance for Climate Protection's "We" campaign by Collins.

http://idsgn.org/posts/award-winning-identities-from-cannes-lions-2009/

UMD Annual Student Show Jurors:
Scott Stulen (artist and curator) and Bud Rodecker (graphic designer)
will talk about their creative work as part of the Visual Culture Lecture Series.
The VCLS lectures are free and open to the public.

Tuesday April 10, 2012
6:00pm in Montague Hall 70
University of Minnesota Duluth

See Bud Rodecker's Portfolio and work with THIRST
http://budrodecker.com/
http://3st.com/

At Thirst, Rodecker helped create Gather Give Grow, a six-minute short highlighting the program of Archeworks' Mobile Food Collective (MFC). The film premiered at the U.S. Pavilion of the Architecture Exhibition at the 2010 Venice Biennale.
http://3st.com/#/clients/design_educators/archeworks_mfc

More about Scott Stulen's projects and artwork here:
http://www.scottstulen.com/works.html

this video promotes the book: IMAGINE: How Creativity Works, by Jonah Lehrer
Flash Rosenberg imagines how the ideas in IMAGINE are tackled, tickled and teased-out by the author Jonah Lehrer.
direction and live-drawing by Flash Rosenberg, video edit by Lin Sorensen

America has a long tradition of handmade arts and crafts. In the manufacturing age, however, much of this work was overshadowed by the homogenizing force of retail culture. But the passion for handmade arts didn't disappear, and persisted through the years in local craft fairs. Now in the age of the internet, these local craft cultures and artists have found a unifying online community, Etsy, that provides a platform for communication and sales to appreciative fans and customers, as well as a medium to connect with each other and share ideas across the globe.
Featuring:
Vanessa Bertozzi, Director of Community & Education, Etsy
Alyssa Zygmunt, http://www.etsy.com/shop/BROOKLYNrehab
Allison Patrick, http://www.etsy.com/shop/zipper8lighting
Katherine Rasmussen, http://www.etsy.com/shop/reiter8

For decades now, people have joined together online to communicate and collaborate around interesting imagery. In recent years, the pace and intensity of this activity has reached a fever pitch. With countless communities engaging in a constant exchange, building on each others' work, and producing a prodigious flow of material, we may be experiencing the early stages of a new type of artistic and cultural collaboration. In this episode of Off Book, we'll speak with a number of Internet experts and artists who'll give us an introductory look into this intriguing new world.
Featuring:
Chris Menning, Viral Trends Researcher, Buzzfeed
MemeFactory, Internet Researchers
Olivia Gulin, Visual Reporter, Know Your Meme
Ryder Ripps, Artist and Co-Creator, Dump.fm
John Kelly, PH.D., Founder and Chief Scientist, Morningside Analytics

Books are in a conflicted state. Should they still exist in a digital era? Will they all be replaced by Kindles and Nooks? These questions dominate the discussion of books in our time. A select group of artists, who use books as their medium, engage this discussion from another angle. From pop culture pop-ups, to surreal sculptural stories, to reformations of antique sacred texts, these creators re-envision what the experience of a book can be. At times playful, and other times profound, this episode explores the boundaries of one of the most important human creations.
Featuring:
Matthew Reinhart, Paper Engineer
Andrea Dezso, Book Artist
Carole Kunstadt, Book Artist

An intriguing combination of programmers, artists, and philosophers, these creators embrace a process that delegates essential decisions to computers, data sets, or even random variables. This allows important metaphors to arise in their work, calling attention to the relationship between humans and the computers that surround us, the mountains of information we generate, and the powerful impact that technology has on our relationships with each other.
Featuring:
Luke Dubois, Generative Composer
Scott Draves, Generative Artist
Will Wright, Game Designer

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/12/07/pbs-off-book-generative-art/

Featuring:
Yancey Strickler, Co-Founder of Kickstarter
Lawrence Lessig, Co-Founder of Creative Commons
Ciel Hunter, Creative Director of Creators Project
Julia Kaganskiy, Editor of Creators Project

2011-12 Visual Culture Lecture Series
March 20 @ 6:00 PM in Montague Hall 70
Gregory Volk, art critic and curator

Read Volk's article about Roxy Paine's Maelstrom here:
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/features/roxy-paine/

Gregory Volk is a New York-based art critic and freelance curator. He
writes regularly for Art in America, and his articles and reviews have
also appeared in many other publications, including Parkett and
Sculpture. Among his recent contributions to exhibition catalogues are
essays on Joan Jonas (Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2007) and
Bruce Nauman (Milwaukee Art Museum, 2006). His essay on Vito Acconci
is featured in Vito Acconci: Diary of a Body, 1969 - 1973, published
by Charta in 2007. Together with Sabine Russ, Gregory Volk has curated
numerous exhibitions, including Agitation and Repose at Tanya Bonakdar
Gallery in New York, Public Notice: Paintings in Laumeier Sculpture
Park in St. Louis, and Surface Charge at the Anderson Gallery in
Richmond, Virginia. Gregory Volk received his B.A. from Colgate
University and his M.A. from Columbia University.

Extra Credit >> Make some notes on this lecture tonight and post your comments here to the blog by the end of Wednesday. About 100-150 words about what ideas you found most surprising or interesting in Gregory Volk's talk tonight.

Another Extra Credit Op for Digital Art Students >>
Rocky McCorkle, Photography Lecture
6:00 PM Tuesday March 27 in Montague Hall 70

Rocky McCorkle, born in 1978 in Columbus, Ohio, currently lives and works in San Francisco, California. He studied photography at The Ohio State University in Columbus (2001-2005) and earned his MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute (2005-2007).
For the past few years, McCorkle has been constructing a silent film narrating the internal discourse of an elderly woman in today's pervasively influential world. Through a sequence of stills, "You and Me On A Sunny Day" explores the impact that film and fictional media has on her way of life. Each frame in this ongoing series is a large-format (8x10-inch) photograph.

http://www.rockymccorkle.com/
In 2008, McCorkle's solo exhibition "You and Me On A Sunny Day" at Little Tree Gallery received a rave review in Artweek, where contributing editor Colin Berry compared his work to the photography of Lukas Roth and Andreas Gursky. In 2007, he was a winner in PDN (Photo District News) Magazine's Pix Digital Imaging Contest 13 and Photographer's Forum College Contest. McCorkle, a member of Nikon's Emerging Artist Hall of Fame, has been exhibited at Baer Ridgway Exhibitions in San Francisco, Lennox Contemporary in Toronto, and GoEun Museum of Photography in South Korea.

Ira Glass on Storytelling from David Shiyang Liu on Vimeo.

Digital Arts : Mixed-Media Studio
Tactile / Digital Projects for Spring 2012
DUE Wed March 28

Several Experimental Projects will be part of your grade for Tactile /Digital Assignment:
1. Final Version of your MOSAIC SELF-PORTRAIT, using image transfer techniques to create a large scale mixed-media image. Size must be at least 30 inches in one direction.

2. Final Version of your SLEEP/DREAM Pillowcase project. Must use a real pillowcase and iron on transfer. May include other mixed-media.

3. Small Series / Tactile Digital Remix
NEW DEADLINE >> DUE WED APRIL 4!
Using your own subject or theme and ALL ORIGINAL IMAGERY, investigate the flow between your studio art practice and your own digital art making. You may use any process + materials you'd like, but you must integrate digital art into some portion of your process. Alternative processes for printing or transfer of images to tactile media may be explored. Size and complexity of work will be taken into consideration.
Series options : 

Series of 5 small works (~8x10 inches or smaller)

Series of 3 medium works (~11x17 inches)
Material options: Specialty art papers, canvas, wood, metal, glass, plastic, cardboard, 2d or 3d found objects like ceramics, books, boxes...

Techniques
More Tutorials online:
http://www.graphicsfairy-diy.com/2012/01/12-easy-image-transfer-methods-for-diy.html
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jrock2/rockblog/183837.html#more
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jrock2/rockblog/cat_tactile_digital_mixed-media.html

Reading: Digital Art (World of Art, Thames & Hudson)
As you are selecting a digital artist to do a presentation on, please note the chapter + category in the Digital Art book. Choose an artist whose work intrigues you. Make sure you can locate good visual examples of their work on the web. You can also access library periodicals and books to search for more detailed info about their important works. (reviews + articles in art magazines)

EACH STUDENT WILL SIGN UP FOR AN ARTIST IN CLASS...
Please SAVE your research about the artist, You will post to the BLOG later, AFTER SPRING BREAK.

Write a brief overview about the work of this artist, including:
1.YOUR NAME
2. Your artist's name
3. Background info on the artist + their work
4. Description of their digital art (Be sure to include: What specific technology and ideas are explored by this artist. Process: How do they create their work? How does the audience experience it?)
5. Context + category of their work in the book
6. A specific work you like + why
(Be sure to include: Title, date. and location of the specific work. What does the work look, sound, feel like? Ideas and technology explored. What about this work connects with you personally? )
7. How their work might influence your digital art (Be open, stretch your imagination here, describe a work you might want to make some day.)
++++ ALSO INCLUDE >
3 links to the artist's work on the web (use FULL URL > http...)

ASSIGNMENT >> To Sleep Perchance to Dream
Work with personal ideas about sleep and dreams to develop a conceptual approach to the theme. Create original imagery on the sleep/dream theme using digital tools. Images may be illustrative, abstract, photographic or any mix. Experiment with tactile media and iron-on image transfer process to integrate digital imagery onto fabric. Use both compositional space and limited materials inventively to solve this problem. Craft a final mixed-media work that creatively uses both sides of a cotton pillowcase.

FINAL finished pillowcases will be DUE on Monday March 5.

Inspiration on blog:
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/jrock2/rockblog/cat_dreamsleep_projects.html

Here is a fun stop motion music video about sleep + dreams:

"Her Morning Elegance" - from the album "The Opposite Side of the Sea", written and produced by Oren Lavie. © 2009 A Quarter Past Wonderful.
and there are parodies too...
http://youtu.be/DmVMP8Ht4kY

Pillowcases by Miranda July
"Here you will dream of endless kissing" and "Here you will dream of people you admire exposing your fraudulence" pillowcase set.
http://thirddrawerdown.com/shop/product/miranda-july-pillowcase-set-TPC015

Captured Dreams:
20 pillows (45x45 cm each), 225 x 180 cm
http://www.dopludo.com/678/2009/gallery/captured-dreams

Why is it always so difficult to memorize the dreams that we have during the night? They usually quickly escape out of our minds as if they were sneaking away and hiding the traces. If we could believe that thoughts find materiality then also our dreams might have the material shape as well. Then where do they actually disappear? Might they be stored somewhere? They can visit our minds several times per night, and often they just slip by barely touching our consciousness for a short while.
 The work "Captured Dreams" is an allegoric attempt to visualize the idea of the existence
of pillows that could capture dreams and display them. As though the latent image is revealed during the photographic procession after putting it in developing chemicals...

The Science of Sleep (French: La Science des rêves, literally The Science of Dreams) is a 2006 fantasy comedy film written and directed by Michel Gondry. The film stars Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Miou-Miou, and Alain Chabat.

THE ART OF SLEEP, 2006, was commissioned by YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES for Tate Museum Online, to coincide with the opening of the Frieze Art Fair in London.
Employing their usual mix of animated black and white typography, jazzy music and humor, the work explores the international contemporary art market from the artists' perspective, through the use of an insomniac narrator musing over its persuasion.

http://www2.tate.org.uk/intermediaart/the_art_of_sleep.shtm

http://www.marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/introduction/
Marshall McLuhan Speaks
An introduction to media theorist Marshall McLuhan by Tom Wolfe

How McLuhan, Agel, and Fiore Created a New Visual Vernacular for the Information Age
by Maria Popova > see blog
Ultimately, The Electric Information Age Book is about what made this collaborative book innovation -- which McLuhan called "the mosaic of instantaneous communication,"
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/02/10/the-electric-information-age/

For our continuing discussion of copyright + open source culture:

ALSO VIEW University of Minnesota Guidelines on Copyright:
http://libguides.d.umn.edu/content.php?hs=a&pid=97624

Understanding Fair Use:
Fair use is an important part of copyright law that provides some flexibility for users and new creators. At its core, fair use ensures that there are some kinds of uses that do not require permission or payment. But there are no easy rules for fair use - if you want to take advantage of its flexibility, you have to understand its complexities!

Read more about these Four Statutory Factors...
1. Purpose and Character of the Use
2. Nature of the Original Work
3. Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Used
4. Effect of the Use on the Potential Market For or Value Of the Source Work

and The "Fifth Factor" - Transformative Use
http://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/fairuse

The world has experienced an explosion of openness. From individual
artists opening their creations for input from others, to governments
requiring publicly funded works be available to the public, both the spirit
and practice of sharing is gaining momentum and producing results.
Creative Commons began providing licenses for the open sharing of
content only a decade ago. Now more than 400 million CC-licensed works
are available on the Internet, from music and photos, to research !ndings
and entire college courses. Creative Commons created the legal and
technical infrastructure that allows e"ective sharing of knowledge, art and
data by individuals, organizations and governments. More importantly,
millions of creators took advantage of that infrastructure to share work
that enriches the global commons for all humanity.

http://thepowerofopen.org/

http://thepowerofopen.org/assets/pdfs/tpoo_eng.pdf

Visiting Artist: AMZE EMMONS
VISUAL CULTURE LECTURE
WHEN: 6 pm TUESDAY February 7
WHERE: MONTAGUE HALL 70 
University of Minnesota Duluth

Additional work and information can be found at:
www.amzeemmons.com
About the artist:
Amze Emmons (b. 1974, Amsterdam, NY) is a Philadelphia-based, multi-disciplinary artist with a background in drawing and printmaking.  His images evoke a sense of magical/minimal realism inspired by architectural illustration, 
comic books, cartoon language, street art, information graphics, news footage, consumer packaging, instruction manuals and cinematic space-time.

Emmons is also a co-founder and contributor of the popular art blog 
www.printeresting.org

Please watch this entire documentary film online:
RiP! A Remix Manifesto (it's about 86 minutes)
http://films.nfb.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/

Directed by Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor, RiP explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers.
http://ripremix.com/

Take notes on what you find most revealing or surprising about the contemporary practice of remix artists. How does the video relate to recent internet blackout/protest and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation?

Prepare your comments (about 150 words) and have them ready to post to the blog here on Monday February 6.

Here are some tips for using your built in QuickTime Player to record movies, audio or your desktop screen... You might use this as a tool to create presentations or tutorials for how to use software.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4024

Free software works on SnowLeopard, Improved on LION

Screen Recording w/ Audio on Mac OSX Lion - FREE
http://youtu.be/gRoXcsJezuU

Here is where you will post the short description of something interesting you have recently noticed in Digital Culture. Please include the complete URL (http...) and tell us what you have noticed and credit your source. Thanks!

Art 2016 students, please post the photoshop tutorial you want to share with the class as a comment to this blog entry. Include the FULL URL (http...) and write a few sentences that tell us what the tutorial teaches and credit the source.

Here is a step by step tutorial from DIGITAL ARTS online
Phil Wheeler talks us through the creative process behind his artwork Sin, where experiments and limited time lead to some interesting results.
http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/?featureID=3330761#1