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This reflection is way pass overdue but I've been incredibly busy with school and work, especially school. I wasn't able to attend the Walker Films event with the class due to a night class that I have on Monday and Wednesday nights. Originally, I was planning to attend one of Walker Arts' Thursdays events but I couldn't squeeze it into my schedule. So instead, I did the following:

Over Thanksgiving break, I went to a Hmong bookstore in St. Paul called, Hmong ABC. Yeah, it's a bookstore but if you go to the upper level, you'll find that the owners of the store have started their very own Hmong museum. It's small but it has everything in print, writing, film, material, objects, etc. that has something to do with the Hmong culture and history that they can get their hands on. Their small library include a small series of films created by inspiring Hmong filmmakers that dates all the way back to when the first Hmong immigrants first started arriving to the US. I was looking at a few of them and while watching them, it's interesting how the style of these inspiring filmmakers has changed as their knowledge and technology advances with time.

I wasn't sure if this will make up for the Walker Arts films field trip so, I attended the Asian Film Festival that was held in St. Anthony Main Theatre from Nov. 3-13. I didn't see all of the films but for the one that I did see, it was titled, "A Brand New Life" by director Ounie Lecomte. It is a Korean film about a little girl whose dad abandoned her and left her at an orphanage home to be adopted by another family. It was a really sad movie. The cuts were smooth and the footage was shoot nicely with a few nice and creative angles. Overall, the film itself was good but it's not my type of film. It's sad, slow, and too sad.

My Little Piece of Privacy by: Niklas Roy
Monsters by Lukas Vojir (Ed.) [Single Hair Monster by Akinori Kinoshita]

The first piece that I clicked on and just so happen like is titled, "My Little Piece of Privacy" by Niklas Roy. What attracted me to clicking on it was one, it was the first one on the website and two, the title (little piece of privacy? Huh, interesting). I like it because it was funny and I like this sort of interactive installation art. I also like the special effects that was added to the video to describe the creation. Other than basic camera shoots, I'm not sure how he created the curtain machine nor how he added the special effects but I would like to learn how.

The second exhibition example that I enjoyed is called, "Monsters" by Lukas Vojir. It's a website that lists other works of processing by other people. I thought "Single Hair Monster" by Akinori Kinoshita. I like it because it was interactive and it involved more than just the motion of the mouse. What attracted me to clicking on it was again, the title (monsters: ooOoohh). Now this one, I really don't know how the artist/creator did it but I would love to know how. It's something I would like to create and hopefully make something entertaining and interactive out of it.

After seeing some of these examples, I admit, I am looking forward to this unit.

The relationship between technology and art can be that of a parent/guardian and child. The parent/guardian (art) resembles the old methods and slow routines while the child (technology) resembles the new techniques and the short cuts. Art can come in any shape or form, just like a parent and guardian. They are there to help direct the way while the child (technology) follows that direction and make its own new ways.
Technology and art creates a new chapter in the history of art. It creates more ideas, styles, and genres. Combining the two is the start of something and it depends on the creator to decide what to do with it and how to work it. The combination of the two creates a short cut to the traditional ways of doing certain stuff, such as making films, digital correction, making copies, creating a portrait, etc. Technology help shape art and art help shape technology, redefining the definition of art.

"Cybernetic Serendipity" communicates with the audience of what the future of technology can bring. It doesn't necessary scare people off or enlightens them, it informs them of the future possibilities: robots. Technology is constantly advancing itself and so are the creators/inventors/artists. I like this piece because it's somewhat amusing to the eye and informative to the brain.

I would like to experience synthetic realism (Patricia Piccinini) and construct reality with humor and entertainment.

Sound Art can be either very simple or complicated to compose and/or listen to. It is what we hear. It can be a lesson or a warning, such as the sounds of the sirens from an emergency vehicle or a simple do-re-mi vocal lesson. From what I understand from the article of sound art, it can be the natural sounds that we normally hear on a day-to-day basis with enhancements or something completely unheard of before. Sound art is similar to photoshoping a digital picture, using technology and/or other tools to add to the original sound to create something more. It can be any form of sound: music, noise, etc., since there are more than one type of genre to sound art.

The one piece that lingered on my mind after my visit to the Nash Gallery was the piece done by Eun-Kyung Suh called '87. The piece first drew me in with its color: yellow. The images that the artist used was so sad that I wanted to know more, wanting to know the story behind the pictures. It's because of their faces of sorrow that kept me interested. '87 is apiece made up of small cubes (a lot of little boxes) made of yellow cloth with black and white images on selective cubes. From a far, the boxes seem to be composed into a statement in the Korean language. The question that I would like to ask the artist is, if you were to only use one picture of all the pictures used in this piece, which picture do you think would best represent the piece overall?

One of the pieces in the gallery that really kept me thinking was by Clarence Morgan - about a 6 by 6 piece that looked like a chaotic mix of distorted flowers, with mostly black but also white and gray mixed in. The first thing I noticed was the scale of the piece and how when I looked at it from different lengths it completely changed. The scale of this piece and the tiny yellow dot in the middle kept my interest. I also enjoyed how I got lost in the piece, it was really interesting. The question that I would pose on the artist is why did she add the little yellow dot in the middle, what does it represent, and what were her thoughts on how she made it.