Signal Project

Untitled from alison kitt on Vimeo.

WHamO!

Signal Processing Experiment

Signal Processing Experiments

Effects Explorations

Effects Explorations from Ryan Weber on Vimeo.

Lightning Waves

Video Effects Project

10 second effects from Michael Nespo on Vimeo.

Video Effects...

Effects from Frank Young on Vimeo.

Baby Steps

Baby Steps from Michael Telschow on Vimeo.

These experiments are the beginnings of small "baby steps" into a whole new way of approaching video. Being so used to same old visuals this was challenging, and I had to work hard at finding the resources to create some of the effects, but once I was able to use what I found to create new images I loved what I saw. I am looking forward to the possibilities in the next extended project.

Image Processing: Xplorations Sky

Images Processing - Xplorations from Sky Santiago on Vimeo.

Exploring video effects

Exploring Video Effects from Katelin Hager on Vimeo.

Sigtastic

My Perception

1. Night.

When I sit outside at night I look at the stars and wonder.  I think about the great distance between Earth and any given star, and contemplate the possibility of life outside our solar system.  I imagine different scenarios of what it would be like if Earth was visited by extra-terrestrials.  How would people react?  Have they already visited?  Does the government know something they’re not telling us?  There are no conclusive answers to any of these questions, so I am constantly wondering.  I see people walking in the street, at the mall, driving in traffic and I wonder whether any of them are aliens.  Maybe they are on some kind of secret mission sent to infiltrate our society.  Maybe they’re keeping an eye on us, making sure we’re staying out of trouble.  Maybe they have more hostile intentions.  I think about the vast distance one would have to travel to get here. How would they do it?  Are they traveling at the speed of light?  Are they traveling through different dimensions?  Are they time travelers? Are grey aliens an evolved version of us? Again, there are no answers to these hypothetical questions.  I wonder about what our eyes are capable of seeing, and what else could be lingering in the electromagnetic spectrum.  Are there waves of light that we are not capable of seeing, much less detecting?  Are there beings around us that we don’t know about?  I am constantly asking myself these questions.  Perhaps I have seen far too many science-fiction films, but asking myself these questions keeps my life interesting.  I devour any information I acquire related to aliens and UFOs, and there is no definitive conclusion to be reached that will put my mind at ease.  I enjoy dreaming about these things.  I like to believe that there is more going on around us than what we initially perceive. 

2.  Crime.

I live in the city.  I grew up in the country.  When I was a child, we had acres of woods behind our house where I would spend the majority of my time.  I enjoy the tranquility of walking around a quiet, wooded area.  That quietness is lost to me now, replaced by the constant sounds of urban civilization.  The neighborhood I live in probably would not be considered the best.  I’ve heard gunshots.  I’ve heard bloodcurdling screams.  I’ve heard the sirens of EMTs responding to incidents.   I’ve read the newspaper the following day to attempt to understand what happened.  I’ve never understood how anything could drive people to such extreme violence.  When I read about incidents in the paper, it seems so petty.  Guy One talks to Guy Two’s “girl.”  Guy Two becomes jealous and pulls out a handgun.  Guy One gets shot.  Rationally, it doesn’t make any sense, but these things happen all the time.  True crime is endlessly interesting to me, but I don’t want to be a part of it.  I don’t want to live around it.  I enjoy watching violent films, but I do not enjoy seeing violence in real life.  It’s an interesting paradox, and I can’t explain why I get sick to my stomach when I see a video online of a real person being beheaded, but I can watch a film like The Human Centipede without even wincing.  It could be some sort of primal instinct.  For thousands of years our ancestors had to fight to survive, and death was very much a normal part of life.  There is an animal inside of each and every one of us, ingrained in our DNA.  So maybe it’s some kind of a release, watching violent films, a way of “blowing off steam” for the animal inside of me.  Taking that same idea into account, it could also explain why I enjoy being outdoors so much, away from the city.  We’re not meant to be stacked like Jenga blocks in apartment complexes.  We’re not meant to live so close to one another.  The further our society progresses; the more we are alienating ourselves from the planet that provides us our home. 

3.   Cinema.

My favorite place in the world is the movie theater.  I love the smell of fresh popcorn, the movie trailers, the excitement of seeing a film on a big screen, and the moment the lights dim when the film is about to start.  In most cases, if the film is good, I walk out of the theater feeling energized.  I feel like a new person.  I look at the world differently, given the experience I just had.  I kind of view life as being like a film.  There are scenes that occur throughout my day.  The first scene is going through my usual morning routine: Stumble out of bed, brush my teeth, go downstairs, get a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, and eat a bowl of cereal.  The next scene is driving my car to wherever it is that I’m going, so on and so forth.  The conversations I have with people are like dialogue in my “life-film.”  I imagine how they would look if I could carry a camera everywhere, and had time to set it up.  If I’m smoking a cigarette, I imagine how it would look if I were watching a movie.  There are endless possibilities.  Would I try to get as close as possible, perhaps with a macro lens, so that the tip of the cigarette fills the entire frame when I light it?  Alternatively would I use a wide-angle lens to show myself, and everything else around me?  I’m always thinking about these things.  I think about the concept of time, and ponder whether it is real or not.  Is time a human invention?  If we were immortal, and had all the time we could ever want, would we still use it?  Time never seems to exist in the movies, unless it’s an important plot point. 

World of Viewing

The view from the bedroom window can be voyeuristic, soothing, or just heartwarming. A bedroom window is a window both metaphorically and physically that one can view the world. It’s that area that gives you that home loving feeling and security that you can view and act upon anything you like that happens to be in the viewing area provided for you. The feeling that you get from viewing from this window depends on where your window is located physically and metaphorically where you interpret someone else’s work. You can say that a window that overlooks a 24/7 gas station or right across from your neighbors in building 1009 with their shades always open as voyeuristic but in that same window you can see the price of gas going down or the neighbor kids kicking around a ball giving you different feelings on what you can view from just that location. A bedroom window could also be seen as a vulnerability in the way that one could break in and completely shatter that feeling of security just as one may receive nothing but negative criticism from a piece they just put up for people to view. It also allows other people to look into the artist themselves just as one could be seen from anyone on the other side of the window. Unlike the physical bedroom window, an artist doesn’t have blinds or shades. Their piece is a completely open window to themselves with no option to cover up.
The parallel universe view is what I would like to believe is happening right now and will forever. It is sort of a two part view. The first part being that everything in your control that didn’t happen happened. Everything that you didn’t say, you said. Every thought you had, you acted upon it. This is shown on a wall of monitors. A lot of monitors. If a movie would be shot like this I would like to make it an interactive piece and make it like one of those choose your adventure books. The second part is a little harder to describe for it’s in real time but at the same time past and future. It would go a little like the actions that you did in the past you can see happen at the current time that you are seeing this in someone else that you feel that you have a connection/can relate to. I would say an example of this would be if you saw someone that you could’ve turned into and you feel that there was connection that you knew everything about that person and they took a different path then you and you are currently seeing them now. It also works with what you want/going to do such as for some a settle down and have a family or get a job as a car salesman. One day you go out for dinner with a couple of friends and see a family sitting in the corner and something about that family just clicks with you in the way that everything you would want it to be. All of your opinions about whoever you are married to looks like and how that correlates with how many children you have and how they are dressed. Everything about that family is just perfect and you can see yourself as that person being it the wife or husband. Back to the first part of this parallel universe viewing I think can be best said in the scene of The Matrix: Reloaded when Neo finds the architect.
My third view would to see what the world would look like from the eyes of a dog. The vision of a dog is not what I had previously known as just gray but includes colors from a light, soft yellow to white to a light, soft blue, teal, and purple then to gray. I think that it would be kind of cool to see what my canine friend sees. The viewing distance on a dog is also much different than that of a human in the way that an object is the clearest at 20 feet for them and everything else that they are not focusing on is a little blurry.

I See Me, I See You, I See The World

In

I see without words and then must interpret my inner language into words you can understand. You envision what I am saying through these symbols and interpret them to your own set of symbols. Sometimes, we can give each other new symbols. I see the world through the wordless, and commune with the outer world by going deep inside of me. I am a cosmonaut, a traveler of consciousness. A deep, rich inner life is where I continually reside. It is from this place I find a reservoir of basic, yet vital things that sustain me. In order to see here, one must delve inward and very deeply until other realities begin to reveal themselves. Now “I” am immaterial. My consciousness sees itself and I understand it is a basic operating program. Consciousness: like a immaterial materiality that is the same stuff from which we make our dreams. Only here, it is seeing this while we are awake. By doing this, I free myself from the constrains of the mainstream mindset, and indoctrinated ideas from society. Yesterday I was told who I am, what to believe, what is fact and fiction from some outside source, some authority, some figure that wishes to interact with my being as if it is an animal to be caught for a pen to be made domicile and domesticated, good for petting or eating. And then in this moment of truly seeing myself, the consensus hallucination has cracked open and the human world becomes nothing but stories. Children play make-believe and try to hold the other children hostage. For me, all the cardboard jails have fallen apart.

Out

I see your eyes and I feel warm. I wish for you to be more than something that belongs to me. I miss your skin and the way you made me feel. I do not know why I am so moved by you, why losing you has destroyed me. I cannot find any reasons and lose my faith in goodness. My muse has fled and suddenly the world is stark, Godless, empty and meaningless. I love you still in a way that I have never known. You are saying and doing things that would seem to be very hurtful, almost intolerable. Yet, I feel no withdrawal. My heart remains an extension of yours and if I must give you up, then I can only watch you go and keep high hopes for all of us to be happy. We keep our contact, because we both know there is some strange connection between us. We miss each other, but now we are just friends. Sometimes you fish to see if we can still have physical intimacy not understanding the amount and intensity of sheer pain I have felt from knowing you are unable to give your heart to me. I must be firm to be your friend, although we sit much too close and our hugs are much too long, too tender, and filled with head-kisses and tears. I see you as most of us would like to be seen, with a basic goodness and a way of being that is beyond forgiveness, which is an allowance and well wishing for all you are facing now. I see you have only just begun recently to really see me. Not the me that is the object of some desire, or a gratification to be filled, but as a being with thoughts, feelings, struggles just as you. We met, and it became an exercise of looking out and finding yourself in another.

World View

I see the world as Artist. There is no other way of seeing that is more fundamental to me. The art of the moment, the beauty of some monstrous ugliness, the potentiality of everything that surrounds me and what I purposefully seek.  My daughter lays on the bed eating a green apple. A birch tree stretches its branches in an angular symmetry across the road. The brittleness of winter falling down and spring falling up into the sky. The world appears as things which become abstracted, conceptual, and metaphoric. Yet, the sunlight just right upon a peeling barn is a simple statement of gray and orange. I see the world visually, although it is something past the image. It is a language of symbols. Musical notes are colors. The melodies are stitches of these colors in fabrics that have a texture that can be known with these senses. Moss and fungus appease some need for organic chewiness. A face tells a thousand stories with miniscule nuances expressed. Under it all some bittersweet motion continually pours into more disappearance. Art is nothing more than being vulnerable to me. Vulnerability is how the seed grows: it exposes itself. In this exposing, its inner beauty or truth of it is revealed to the observer. If it is not this exposing, it is simply an idolatrous image, something quite easily seen as a facsimile of true art.  Art must be that terrifying naked moment. 

Different figurative and literal ways of seeing

I open the door to my apartment and step outside of it into the main hall. As I turn to my right to walk down the stairs I see a giant, blank, white wall where there could be an Ad. As a graphic designer I see many possible places for ad-space. I imagine a giant banner, maybe ten feet long by three feet wide. Many places are just opportunistic space for advertisements. I walk towards my car and I see all the blank space on both sides and the back of the car. Many people will allow advertisers to place decals on vehicles in exchange for payment. On my drive to work I pass by buildings where an advertiser could paint an ad. In the future I believe that more open spaces and places you see every day will eventually be bought out by advertisers. I see sidewalks becoming a big place for new ad-space to be. Each advertiser could buy a three-foot by three-foot square to place ads on. This could actually be a way for some cities (especially ones with lots of sidewalk traffic such as Los Angeles or New York) to earn a lot more money for repairs to streets and services they provide. The sides of Water bottles or Starbucks coffee cups could even be possible ad-space if the advertisers were willing to pay enough. The ad would probably show up in a small box on the opposite side of the bottle or cup that has the logo on it. There is ad-space all around us, and I’m surprised advertisers haven’t taken more of it up than they already have.

With a little help from my imagination and a little help from my memory, I can imagine being in a state of inebriation. With their senses impaired, everyone views the world differently than when they are sober. I sit in the comfortable warmth of my apartment as I focus my attention to the television in front of me. My peripheral vision blurs and the attention of my hearing goes in and out of focus between the program on TV and my cell phone as it rings. I stand up and feel a little dizzy. I stay standing and make sure I have my balance before I move my legs. I walk toward my cell phone and pick it up. I hold it closer to my face than I usually would to see what the text message says. I realize it is from my friend living two buildings down from me as I read the text that says “come hang out over here”. I feel glad to have heard from my friend and feel like getting out of my place would be fun. I quickly grab my shoes and jacket and throw them on in a sloppy, uncoordinated manner. I then feel my back pockets in order to remind myself that I have my keys and wallet on me. I walk out of my apartment and close and lock the door behind me, then with slightly wobbly legs I quickly walk down two buildings to my friend’s place. The chill of winter seems to immediately touch my spine and sends shivers throughout my body. When I arrive, I think back and wonder how many times I almost stumbled over my own feet. When I knock on the door I feel a cold numbness running through my hand. The door opens; I step inside, and feel dizzy and warm again.

Sometimes I think what it would be like to experience a day as my pet bearded dragon. I would know that I control the temperature of my body and how fast my digestive system works by how often and for how long I am out in the sun, or the light of my heat lamp. I lay basking in the heat most of the time with a warm rock on my belly because it is the most comfortable thing in the world. I lead a fairly easy life knowing that the predator with the fur and sharp claws and teeth living outside of my magic, see-through force field cannot eat me. Sometimes I get scared and feel the need to run when this predator gets too close to my force field, but then it is stopped by another, larger creature who I am excited to see. This creature creates a loud noise by pulling the ceiling away from where I live. Suddenly, I see the small, tasty, chirping creatures rain from above me and my reflexes kick in. I lunge at them one by one as I reach out and grab them with my sticky tongue. I make quick work of these delicious things as I swallow them after four or five chews. Sometimes I sit as still as I can and wait for another to run in front of me, as I know I can outrun them and they cannot run too far away. When I am thirsty I walk over to the pond that I can just fit my entire self in. the sand that I walk in all day finds its way into the water with me. I bath in the water if it is warm as it helps me digest large meals. I lap at the water once with my tongue and my thirst is quenched. I walk back to my basking stone but stop for what seems like hours on the tree branch where I can climb closer to the heat above me. Later in the day the lights turn off and the temperature where I live cools which makes me tired. I crawl to the small space beneath the basking stone away from the commotion of the really large animals communicating with each other and walking around in the space that they live in. I dig a small divot in the sand that I curl up in and close my eyes as my body cools down and my digestion slows. I fall asleep.

Skewed Views

                Driving from Panera Bread on Ireland Road in Erskine Plaza, headed north to IU South Bend, I sat in traffic pondering this journal assignment. I kept thinking in my head, ‘What does my professor want from this assignment? And why do we have to come up with different ways of seeing things? Is that even possible?’ Just as it appeared to be a dead end road (not literally because I was turning left onto Ironwood), I started noticing a pattern of people passing me by. The drivers of the cars headed towards me were being blinded by the setting sun across the horizon. The sun was low enough in the sky to force every driver that came hauling up the hill to pull down their sun visor. Not one. Not two. All fourteen cars that passed me in that allotted time of roughly two minutes pulled down their sun visor.

                This observation took me for a loop because I never even noticed the patterns of drivers around me. Normally, I am in my own little world in my beat-up mini-van and never take the time to notice those who are around me.  Sure, I take notice of bad drivers, speeders, tail-gaters and other obnoxious drivers but never just every day, normal things like pulling down a sun visor.

                What if those sun visors had never been invented? What would people faced with a blinding sun do? Cover their eyes? I sure hope not! We would find an alternative but that’s not necessary with the convenient sun visor that hangs above our heads everywhere we go.

                Sure, this may seem mundane and irrelevant to some people but this observation made me really start to think about how little I pay attention to patterns of people around me. From this observation, I ponder the thought of observing other patterns like which hand the driver uses to pull the visor down, whether they were in a happy or sad mood or if they were on their cell phone. (The latter frightens me and is technically illegal now so I will refrain from doing that one.) But anyway, I challenge you as a reader of this journal entry to take time out of your day to observe those around you.

                You ever wish you could return to being a kid knowing what you know now? That Santa Claus isn’t real, that things you order online don’t come out of a special printer at mom’s workplace or that those teeth you stick under your pillow? Yeah, they end up in your mom’s jewelry box. Wouldn’t it be awesome to return to those days of hopscotch and coloring books without caring about anything except your place in the lunch line?

I frequently revisit those thoughts in my head and wonder what it would be like to truly return to that stage of life and relive it. Not because I have any regrets but because I know now that not everything was a huge deal and that it would be okay to be late for school or that mismatched socks didn’t make you unpopular. I often wonder what kids these days see and how they view the world. Sure, they are much shorter than us but what would it be like to be that height again and see the world from that angle? Or what if a child took place of an adult in a workplace, sitting with their feet hanging over the edge of a chair in the corporate office?

Oh and to be able to ride a tricycle again and be able to take piggy back rides. Now a days, if I jump on someone’s back, they might wrestle me to the ground and ask me what the heck I am doing. I always heard the phrase, “Oh to be a kid again”. What if that was possible? Not necessarily a time machine but to be who you are now, but in a way tinier body. Maybe I’m not making any sense but I definitely have thought about this before.

                One word: Facebook. On the Internet, an average two hours a day, looking inside the lives of those we barely know, have met once or those who are closest to us. Facebook allows viewers to see inside people’s lives, including some rather private information. Of course, people can choose how much they reveal on Facebook but from what I’ve seen, people enjoy sharing a lot of useless information. This may not have anything to do with art but it’s a webpage, a social networking service that the majority of us spend a plentiful amount of time on.

                It’s funny because when we meet new people, we sometimes say, “Oh yeah, add me on Facebook, dude!” or “Yeah, I’ll hit you up on Facebook sometime.” This brand of networking has allowed people to view the most intimate details of a person’s life, including but not limited to, where they work, what they eat for breakfast or who they spent the weekend with. We share so much detail about ourselves that there is really no purpose to meeting someone in real life anymore.

                I read an article once about if we really put every single detail on our Facebook, documenting our lives, we would find out that we are quite boring individuals, unless of course, you do something really fun for a living like a sky-diving instructor. But that’s highly unlikely. Instead, what we do, as humans, is limit the boring activities of our daily lives and really amp up the exciting days of our lives. Doing such, limits what people can read about our lives and therefore, they get a skewed version of who we are. It’s all about perception and what we put on Facebook directly relates to how people perceive us. That’s why I am always very careful as to what I put on Facebook.

The Way We See Things

How We View Things. The way we view and observe things cannot really be interpreted the same way to everyone. As individuals the way we view things is extremely based on our own perceptions and our own preferences. People are drawn to things due to a lot of different reasons: color, scent, sound, etc. I feel that a lot of the signals that we are given in life are received solely because something about them causes us to be drawn to it. We like something because of its color, we want coffee because the smell of it brewing draws us to it, or we hear a sound and follow it because of our intrigue. We live in a society that is full of sensory overload and what we see and how we see it seems to be based on the intrigue that it inflicts on our own personality and preference. Through my own observations I have realized that a lot of the things I am drawn to in life are based on the colors that I see. Color theorists tell us that we all make color decisions everyday in our life. Our world today is marked by bold uses of color in ever area of modern society. As a society we make a lot of decisions based on the color or spectrum of things. We want things that represent ourselves and we want to see things as we feel they should be represented. This is true for most aspects of life, but we also want life to reflect the way that we want to see it, which isn’t always the same reality as other people. As Americans, we see things as we choose to see them. There really is no wrong or right answer to the question of signal processing, we are drawn to objects and ideas in the world because they intrigue us and we want to learn more about them. We make decisions in life that effect the signals that we give to others which can also change the way that others process the signals that we inflict on to them. As a modern society, the topic of signal processing is the way that we process the visual and audio information that the world gives us, and the way that it affects us in our own lives. Through my own observations over the past weeks, I have come to a few perspectives on Seeing things differently. I read an artist interview where the artist spoke of a process He called, “breaking your eyes open.” He stated that in order to be a good artist you have to see things in a different light that you normally do. Try to experience life through the eyes of another or try to see things the way that other people view you. It is important to try to see things from different perspectives and visualizations in order to bring more ‘creativity into your life and your work. We all process what we see differently, and I feel that it is important as a graphic artist to have my own work reflect the way that I see thing and share that information with others. Sometimes we see things in life that really change our own perspective on how we perceive things, or should perceive things. The artist, Jean Michel Basquiat talked about how his mother took him to an art gallery when he was a child and he saw Picasso’s “Guernica.” This painting not only changed the way the he saw things, but you can see the influence of that painting and style of painting in a lot of his own work. His paintings were very large in size, similar to the sides of buildings that he used leave his graffiti tags on before he became a famous painting. The signals from the world around him influenced him in such a way that his work became a commentary on the big city urban landscape. In conclusion, I feel that the subject of signal processing is a very important to the visual artist. It is important to understand what aspects of society speak to people visually, and what intrigues others. We all process information in our own way and we base what aspects of life influence our work in different ways. It is not only important to express our own views of life, but to understand the way other people see life as well.

Ways of Seeing

Knowledge is the key to seeing any given thing in a different light. An architect will look at a building differently than a person with little architectural background. As a person who works with textiles, I see stitches and patterns when I look at clothing allowing me to be more aware and interactive with cloth than someone who has no knowledge of the subject. This ‘awareness’ can apply to trivial things such as clothing, but it can also be applied to dealing with social issues or even conceptual art. The more time one spends analyzing the world around them, the more they will “see.”

Getting ridiculously close to something allows you to see abstractly, and allows for a breakdown of an object into its essential parts. When you get really close to the TV screen, you can see all the little colored pixels that make up the whole image, but you have no idea what the image is anymore. The use of zoom or macro shots on a camera shows us details that the human eye is incapable of seeing. Igor Siwanowicz photographs insects using the macro setting on his camera and turns “creepy” bugs into beautiful and amazingly intricate creatures. Spider’s eyes are given a friendly and innocent look that rivals the eyes of a baby seal creating an empathetic emotion in the viewer.

I personally love this concept for the metaphors that can be applied to the idea of closeness and sense-of-self. How do we feel once we get close to someone? What happens when the sense of closeness abruptly changes?

You can physically change how you see by taking hallucinogenic drugs that have been credited for centuries as inspirational tools for artists. From absinthe to shrooms and LSD, these substances create chemical changes in the brain which alter reality. Some drugs make colors more vivid and create a type of animation in inanimate objects. Others have been said to have the power of transforming the perception of the passage of time. Not hallucinating is a different chemical state of the brain, not necessarily more “real” than the images produced when on drugs. This then leads to asking the question, “What is seeing?”

I feel that drugs may be helpful for some people who want to step out of the restrictions they normally feel when creating art. However, I think that they should be used only on occasion and never as a permanent means of creating art. I also think that artists who rely on drugs get pushed into a category of art that ends up in dorm rooms lit by black lights.

Three Ways Of Seeing

     It is Wednesday afternoon. This morning was white with snow and frost, but the day is clear, sunny, and bright. Kind of reminded me of the Beatles song," Here comes the sun...its alright". All the remnants of the cold melted away into little wet puddles. Especially on the little burnt red brick path that leads around my garage to the backyard. I'm standing next to a mound of matted brown, yellow, and green grass and to my surprise, there in the center forming a semi-circle are crocus blooms. The petals are light violet-blue and the stamens are orange.  I see the flowers, my sense of sight differentiates them from the grass, and my mind contemplates what type of flower I am seeing. This thought evokes an emotional response. Crocus are an early spring bloom which mean warmer days are inevitable. There is a swelling of hope, gladness, even joy. I feel the petals and they are very fragile, I know as soon as the sunsets they will fold together, retreating within to survive another cold night, until the sunrise rejuvenates them, again. The next morning is Thursday. Like the crocus, I find myself drawn back within against the cold, gloomy, damp fog and mist.

It is so damp that little drops of water condense on the branches like transparent pearls. The two seasonal titans of winter and spring are still slugging it out in an annual grudge match. Even though winter lands some hard last desperate blows spring always wins in the end. By the end of the day spring has indeed triumphed and the sunset this evening turns the landscape into a flame of orange and pink. There is no more awesome moment as the experience of the last glorious glow of gold just before it disappears behind the globe.
     Friday I am asked by my boss to move a broken down car off our premises and take it to its owner who has a business down the road. I climb into my mechanical armor and pick up the Geo Metro with the mech's strong arms, and carry it down the road like a craddled baby in its mother's arms. All the other cars going up and down the road respectively slowed down and passed, giving me plenty of space as I swaggered down the road after dropping my load.
    I am wandering into the garden directly behind my house. The water fountain lady of plaster shyly looks away, embarrassed, because she has not poured any water from her vases all winter long. The waterfall of brick has brought forth no gurgling, birds have not bathed in its peaceful flow. The goldfish in the pond do not dart about the lillies, playing hide and go seek.

An awful tower of darkness and foreboding has mystically appeared in my backyard in the same location as the crocus blooms. I am unaware of the intents of whoever malignantly placed it there without asking my permission. You may be sure there will be hell to pay. Nobody builds a tower for dominance, war, or oppression in my back yard and walks away without some amputated limbs, crushed skulls, or plenty of ventilation. I must dress in my best battlegear and face them on the field of battle.

Purgatory, a place somewhere between, where one waits until they pay for services rendered, so they can be released to their destiny. My wife, Heather, and I wait in the local car dealership service waiting room while our Prius has major front end work done. There is an unspoken rule that the captives of waiting room purgatory understand, without talking about it, no one there speaks to one another. You may grab a magazine, read a book, surf the web, watch television, but for God's sake don't talk to one another, nod understanding, or acknowledge one another's existence, this is taboo. Every so often, a guardian will come through the pearly service doors and call someone's name, they are the blessed who will next leave the prison of solitude. They, stoic and silent, walk toward the door and enter into bliss. The rest, left behind, continue to wait, we have no other choice, we wait until our names, too are called, and we too ascend.

    Full Metal Grocery Store Video Game could be the title of the newest gaming experience. Each player has his weapons of choice; grocery cart, little basket, debit card, AK-47, and my favorite alien death ray sabre. Four lanes of cheap, sales coupon laden, stock, everything you need in life, from anchovies, radio drip coffee maker, or nylon slip and slide. The gamers move back and forth up and down each aisle, racking up points for picking off their kids when they try to climb to the top of a stack of groceries in boxes. Each new department is a new level, most dangerous of all are the zombies in the frozen meats, they will gnaw on anything. Finally, you gather all your prizes at the checkout and are rewarded by paying the cashier, hopefully you walk away with some points left in the bank. Stupid game!

Ways of Seeing.

There are numerous ways for people to view things in life.  Sometimes we see certain things or even certain people for that matter, differently than we might have once see it before.  Sometimes if we see things a  lot of times we begin to see things in a new way it conveys a new message to us. Take the bible for example.  No matter how many times you read it completely there will always be something new for you to find out and learn for it.  One verse that you know by heart can easily have a whole entire new meaning to them.  The 3 ways of seeing I chose to write about are imagine, create and visualize.  I chose these 3 because I feel that they all go very well with one each other since they are very similar.  When I imagine I what to do for a project I try to think as big as possible.  The more passionate I am about a project the bigger the idea is usually. I usually think way above my abilities to make it possible from the resources I have available to me.  Sometimes I like to look at other media pieces to help me get the creative juices flowing.  Sometimes when I am out driving around the scenery usually catches my eye just like it would for anybody else.  I particularly love the look of the city night life.  Seeing all of the static and moving lights together makes for a pretty good photograph or shot for a film.  It sometimes gets me thinking if I was working on a project how can I make this particular shot work in my piece.  Sometimes it can be the very thing that you base your whole entire script around.  Sometimes listening to music can give us a new way to see things or help inspire us to create something visually.  After I’m done imagining and visualizing what my piece will be the next step is to give it a physical form to bring it to life.  This is my favorite part of making media.  Sometimes in the creating process, what you produce may not always what you visualized it to be originally.  When you put the power or imagination and visualization together there’s no telling what you can create.

Ways of Seeing Essay

There are so many ways to look at things that I really didn’t even know where to begin at first. I began by exploring perception because I feel like that is the root of how two people can look at an image and get two very different interpretations from it. One thing that I think influences this is our background and interests. However, I think it is also possible to look at things semi-realistically and draw conclusions that should be fairly concrete about an image, meanwhile, one can really only enjoy an image when they can relate to it via emotions and past experiences. When thinking of ways to see things I immediately think of how my major of photography really altered the way I look at things. Acknowledging this influence made me wonder how people who have other jobs or majors relate them to the way they see the world. How might a writer see and comprehend something differently than a photographer or a biologist? As a photographer, when something catches my eye, I sort of put an imaginary frame around it when looking and think of how I might catch it in an image. Say a child is standing a few feet away from me, I might think of how to capture their “cuteness” in photo or maybe just document them the way they are, without a certain goal of what emotion a photo should convey. However, I find myself doing this most often with landscapes. There is a gorgeous pond by my house and it’s frozen over this time of the year but there’s still always a ton of geese and ducks surrounding it. I also see these guys that like to go ice fishing there. Sometimes I park and take pictures but I also drive by it every day on my way to work and I’ll glance out and see an angle that I think would be so interesting to take a picture of. When I look at things in general, I look at them for aesthetic appeal and wonder how I could capture something I like in a photo and be able to portray it to someone else. A biologist might look at my pond very differently because of their background. Although they may appreciate it for its aesthetic principles, they may have additional thoughts that run through their mind that I would not think about. They may consider the creatures that live here and how they are affected by the freeze. They would take a closer look at the pond by trying to study the experience of the animal. This is due to their background and the fact that they have been trained to question certain things. If a writer were to look at the same scenery, they would be influenced by their background when they go to interpret it. When you write a lot, you try to think of the perfect word to describe something and from experience, I know when I go through a phase of frequent writing, I like to tell stories to people as well. When looking at something, you almost see it as a story in your head. A writer might ask themselves, how could this inspire me or how can I write about it?

From looking at these different interests, we can see how our interests influence how we see things. When we look at things in this way, we look for a way to make a purpose out of an image and we sort of go in with an expectation of gaining something from it. However, it is sort of therapeutic to look at things for their basic qualities and not what we can do for them or what they can do for us. When you look at the formal qualities of something (formal meaning the form in which it is in), you are trying to look at things realistically as possible. Some may argue that there is no reality, there is only perception, but when looking at and stating the formal aspects of something, it is with the goal of saying something objective that you cannot generally denote. For example, if you look at a picture of a pug, there are certain formalities that you can use to describe the way you “see” the pug. Qualities like the pugs coloring are one way to interpret how you see it; the pug has an off-white or a light beige colored fur, its nose is fairly black, it has a dark brown muzzle and ears. You could also comment on the textural qualities of this dog. You might say its skin is wrinkly or folded and its eyes are wet and shiny and some may say the fur is soft looking. Describing things like color, texture, and shape are part of a formal analysis. It can be a little harder than it initially seems because you have to force yourself to ignore the mental process that leads you from saying “the pug has wrinkly skin” to adding your own experiences and interests and then starting to look at it and say “it is a kind dog because his eyes are shiny and kind looking”. Looking at something for what it is and not what you get from it is a good foundation to build off of for informal analysis where it is ok to bring what you want to an image or situation. In informal analysis, which is something that is slightly easier because it is more natural to the human mind, you begin to confront your relationship to the image as a whole and start to move away from the parts that make it up. Now we can say things that the image of a pug makes us feel. You may look at the image and say “aww, how cute” or “what an ugly dog” but that is one of the great things about informal analysis, it is mostly opinion and can be scrutinized forever and no one is wrong or right. However, when you look at an image and make this evaluation, it is important to be able to recognize why you think that way. I would think that most people would not think of this dog as a threat. Because of its posture and facial expression as well as the smaller size of the dog, we do not feel fear. This is because most people have had some sort of interaction with a dog and know that you should be worried when a larger dog’s hacks rise up on its back and it bears its teeth and growls; when this happens a dog may attack or bite you. Thus, when we see a small and content, relaxed looking dog, we do not associate it with fear. There are a lot of things that go into our relationship with an image and some images make you work in more ways to get something out of them. By knowing the elements that go into the activity of seeing, we can begin to see things more wholly and understand why others see them differently.

Ways of Seeing

New Ways of Seeing

Everyday people take in visual data through their eyes. Most of the time it is just as simple as seeing a tree and recognizing that it is a tree, but what if we can see it as more than that. When I see a tree sometimes I will picture in my mind what it would look like in a printed picture. I can see it in color and in black and white or both in one. Then I think about the background how should the sky look, clear and sunny or cloudy and dull. Then I think about the season how will that tree look in the different seasons and which look would be the look I want to get out of it. Using the tree is only one example, but really anything that can be seen can be visualized in this way. I was on my way to work the other day and passed a small private airport. It was cloudy but there were spots where the sun was coming through the clouds. It looked like spot lights coming out of the sky all up and down the runway and in all different directions. It would have been a great picture, but I did not have my camera. The runway and the lights coming from the sky gave a very cool perspective and I wish I had my camera. I like trying to find scenery like this and imagining what it would look like as a photograph even if I do not have my camera to make it a photograph, I have my eyes and my mind.

Another thing I do is when I see certain objects I imagine what it could be and even look like in another medium. Something as simple as a stack of boxes can inspire something unexpected. In my mind I picture that they are floating in 3-d space and I can view them in a 360-degree space. Which can lead to thinking of cool ways to display those boxes in a re-imagined way. Like hanging them from the ceiling by strings and presenting them in way which is not normal. When I look at an object I can see it as what it is, but I also can be inspired by the object and start to see it in different ways. This will come in handy later in the year when I start to sculpt ice. Seeing an object or animal and being able to see it in ice. Then being able to see the ice and see the objects in the ice block. When I see the objects in different ways it does not have to be the object as a whole, it can be just parts of the whole and used in a way originally unintended. The parts can be used in a verity of different ways. This can help in video art because it will allow me to visualize an outcome of what the project should be and then I will find the objects necessary to make it. By using the tools I have at my disposal I will can produce the pictures in my mind so other people can enjoy them too.

One way of seeing that I need to expand my ways of seeing is when looking at abstract art. I can view objects in some ways that people can not, but abstract art is always something I have a hard time looking at. I always try to identify what it is and try to make connections with things I have seen before. I see things for what they are and or what they could potentially be. When I see something that as no connection with something that I recognize or have heard of it makes it very difficult to view. I need to view the piece with an open mind and forget about what I have seen before so I can view the pieces for their own attributes. I need to focus on what the piece is trying to tell through the colors, shapes, lines and movement. Are the colors bright or dull? Do the shapes have pointed edges or rounded? Are the lines straight or curvy are they uniform or chaotic? I need to ask myself these questions to try and wrap my mind around this kind of art and understand what it is. Especially in abstract video art because a lot of it is very abstract and I really do not get it, but art is anything someone says is art.

Haitsma

Haitsma from marisa haitsma on Vimeo.


My last name means a lot to me because it's my blood and family. It is what was given to me when I came into this unruly world. It's what I carry with me every single day and it's what's called when a teacher is taking role. Of course, they always butchered the heck out of it and after doing this project, I don't blame them.

When I first learned how to say my last name, my dad would say, "it's like your 'ma' is afraid of 'heights'". Simple enough? Not quite for a pre-kindergartener. I would often say "hates-ma" and I finally caught on and learned to pronounce my full name loud and clear.

To emphasize the difficulty that comes with pronouncing my last name, I recorded this video of me repeating it over and over again for two minutes. In that time frame, I learned that "Haitsma" repeated over and over again quickly becomes "my heights".

I finally realize why I have a tongue twister for a last name and now I understand why some teachers and coaches always butchered it.

The idea came to me while I was driving my mini-van to IU South Bend and my inspiration came from seeing a video performed by my professor, Eric Souther, repeating the word, "expectation", Just as my video resulted, the word became a different sound. I suppose any word that you say over and over again for two minutes becomes a different sounding word, whether it be in our minds or our own tongues giving out on us.

This project was a success because I took a word that I say and hear often and placed emphasis on its pronunciation. As a student, teachers and coaches always slaughtered my name by saying, "hates-ma" instead of "Haitsma".

Creativity

Creative Processing: The act of analyzing your ideas/beliefs/attitudes/thoughts/sights/smells into anything you choose. The creative process is an ever long, ever happening process. It is something or some idea that has happened, is happening, and will happen. It is a continuum that you learn from, that you act on, and that you re-act upon. It is the process that allows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen. Without it everyone is just…

Flowing Silhouette

Flowing Silhouette from Ryan Weber on Vimeo.

Glow-stringing is a type of performance art derived from a similar art form more commonly known as fire dancing. When one spins such objects around oneself, such as glowsticks, L.E.D. toys, or fire, that person gains the knowledge of better understanding the distance around his or her own body. The mind traces the paths of these objects, letting us see them even when they are above or behind us, usually creating circles and patterns around ourselves. As a meditative practice, one learns to better manipulate such objects in patterns that can ease the mind. As an outsider viewing such a performance, the audience is let in to the performers mind as they see the patterns and objects the performer imagines. During such a connection, the audience can become entranced. The audience is viewing this person's personality through their method of object manipulation in a way that cannot readily be explained. This performers dance tells the audience who he is, and lets them in on an intimate look into his minds creations.

Layered

This is me walking in front of a projector that is playing video of me walking in front of a projector. The color changes and effects are messed with while I'm shooting it, so there was no editing afterwards!

It all comes down to this...

A lonely, mentally unstable man watches television with a companion.

Unbeknownst to him, the companion has been dead for a very, very long time. Also unbeknownst to him, there is nothing on the television but white static.

With this video I am playing in the genre of video performance art.

It is meant to be slightly unnerving, but also comedic in a dark sort of way.

Here I am exploring a few issues/ideas, including:

Mental stability
Loneliness
Addiction
Procrastination
Unhealthy relationships



The "set," designed by my friend Nate Bennett and myself, was originally intended for a different short film but I thought it could lend itself well for this concept. The rubber skeleton is also a prop from the previously mentioned short in progress. I used a wide angle lens so that the viewer could, in one shot, get a decent idea of this character's world. Also, because I saw very little editing in most of the performance art examples I chose to shoot this from one angle and to never cut, keeping things somewhat consistent with the genre from what I've observed thus far. I chose to keep the sound minimal, with only the ambient sounds of the city outside underneath the dialogue.

Blind

Untitled from Michael Nespo on Vimeo.

For my video art performance piece I chose to tackle a subject that bothers me as an American. A large majority of Americans are so wrapped up in superficial things that They seem to be blind or asleep to the real important issues that happen in the world. I chose to intermix scenes of social issues that I believe in with footage of myself holding Up words such as, “blind, asleep, heedless, unaware, etc. I chose to film the footage of myself In a long hallway in the basement of my father’s house to give it an “interrogation” or minimalistic feel to it. I also chose to film the footage on my Macbook using the Photo Booth Application to give it a somewhat voyeuristic approach to viewing, like a webcam does. . I also chose to wear a mask in the footage to show the way that most people wear masks to shield themselves from the real world. When people get so masked in their own world they tend to forget the more important issues going on outside their own realm. I used the invert and extract filter effects to give more moodiness to the piece. I feel these effects added more emotion and seriousness to the piece as well. Overall, my message I was trying to get across was that as Americans we need to wake up and deal with the more important issues that are plaguing our society.

Disconnected

Connecting from alison kitt on Vimeo.

The "global village" allows us to connect instantly to people all over the world. The use of internet chatting creates an "anonymous" and distant interaction between users. Chatroulette, for example, randomly selects who you are paired up with in a video chat. Being able to see another human being who may never meet you in person creates a world without rules or boundaries. Although the options are endless in terms of creating a unique interaction with a stranger, this freedom is often used (by males) for sexual purposes.

Men visiting this site were willing to ask me to show my breasts, but became uneasy when I refused to break "eye contact." Some shifted their cameras as to not be seen by me anymore, some broke off the connection when I filled the chat space. I feel that my actions are unsettling because they break the illusion that I am simply a image on the screen, and amplifies the fact that they are being watched.

Self Reflection

As I look into the mirror I see what ours see me as. Staring at the reflection in review to see if the reflection is what I want it to be. Being in a setting to view the home image is the most honest view of yourself. Putting the body in front of the mind to view its creation.