Community Event 4: California's Hearst Castle

On May 15th I took a trip down the California coast to Cambria. While there my girlfriend and I decided to visit the Hearst Castle, which is located nearby in the town of San Simeon. We paid some money, got loaded onto a tour bus and made the five mile trek into the hill side up to the estate.

The place is unreal. A giant four building estate cram packed with artwork and salvaged relics from top to bottom. The place is amazing, with all of its fine craftsmanship and art. Of the multi-cultural influences in its architecture, I personally liked the Spanish style designs best. The place seems like a giant museum, it's hard to believe this was once someones house! I have to hand it to architect Julia Morgan, who designed the estate under close scruteny of Hearst himself, to bring this thing together. A one of a kind experience.

A sculpture I saw under a window in the garden outside of the Casa del Sol.

The indoor pool under the tennis courts. All tiled mosaic-style!


A 35oo year old Egyptian sculpture, one of my favorite pieces at the estate...

From the hearst castle website:
These four pieces date from the New Kingdom. Sekhmet literally translates as "the powerful." Depicted with the body of a woman and the head of a lioness, she was the bloodthirsty protector of Ra, the sun god.

Egyptian. Head on the left, 18th Dynasty; three others, 19th Dynasty. Granite Full figure with vein of feldspar, 5'10-1/2 x 20-1/2" (179.1x52.1cm); 3/4 figure, 45-1/4 x 17-3/4"(114.9x45.1cm); chipped head, 19 x 19"(48.3 x 48.3cm); head with sundisk, 23 x 10" (58.4 x 25.4cm). Hearst Monument Collection, South Esplanade.

There are five tours to choose from, each at $24 a head, which includes an iMax movie on the making of a legacy at the end of a tour. Despite the cost, I think the place is worth checking out...although my only advice would be to skip the movie.

Community Event #3: All About Evil, SF Premier

On May 1st I attended the world premier of "All About Evil" at the Castro Theater in SF. The movie was directed by Joshua Grannell, aka Peaches Christ, and stars Natasha Lyonne, Thomas Dekker, Cassandrea Peterson (aka Elvira), and Mink Stole.

What made this horror/comedys premier different than others was the live stage show which segued into the showing of the moving. Most premiers have an introduction of the film followed by the screening and the director and actors there to answer questions, make comments, etc, at the end. All About Evils premier featured an introduction of to almost all the stars, including (but not starring) John Waters who was seated in the crowd, followed by several live performances. Featuring a great sound track of several Bay Area post-punk bands and artists, the movie blends Dead Alive type gore, John Waters humor and Argento/Savini type death scene concepts into a well executed midnight movie sure to be a cult classic!

I thought this segue was particularly great! ...also check out the trailer on youtube...

Improbable Monument: Sounds of the Past

The idea is to connect people with a locations aural history by changing the environments sounds. The monument will be a place to sit and hear a played back recording of what the area sounded like at a particular moment in time. The structure will act as a receptor of transmitted recordings that can be heard by anyone walking by and fully experienced by standing or sitting in front of the monument.

This idea for an improbable monument came about from my interest in sound and how it’s broadcast. Actually, more precisely, I was researching EVP, electronic voice phenomena and became interested in how people understand what they perceive they hear. EVP is the result of may different peoples experiences with hearing voices in recordings that weren’t present when the recordings were made. To me it seemed likely, and exciting, that it may be possible to capture broadcast signals in the magnetic fields that surround the Earth, or some explanation. Some people who capture these phenomena on tape believe it’s the voices of the dead. Others think they’re simply making sense from chaos.

Either way there’s something about our sense of hearing that evokes skepticism. There’s the saying “I‘ll believe it when I see it”. While this saying may be a declaration of ignorance to the micro world, it does address the idea that our sense of sound is related to our emotions, or at least something subjective to each of us.

This is not to say that sound, although it cannot be seen, cannot evoke certain feelings and reactions that we all may experience. From dancing to yawning to jumping through a glass pane window music and sounds are a personal and shared experience. But music isn’t the only form of sound that affects us. From the syllables that make up language to the everyday sounds that we tune out, sound is all around and it has an impact on us whether we realize it or not.

It's my belief that every place, block to block, coast to coast has a unique mingling of sounds that make up that environment. I remember being in New York City walking down 5th ave (?) and I came to the end of the block and proceed to walk into a forest! That forest was central park, and what an impression that left. Going from the sprawling towers of buildings into a canopy of trees, rocks and well, concrete paths too…it was a stark contrast to say the least. Having a park like that in the middle of a city really got me in touch with what the landscape might have been like at one time long before buildings and cars and even people. Although the environment within the city and park have changed over time, of course, it got me thinking that sounds can be tied to places in a similar way; places have sounded different at times, with whatever inhabited the area, and so they must have a kind-of aural history of sound. This is a similar inspiration for other artist such as Bill Fontana and R. Murray Schafer who work with sound, recording environments and making sound sculptures and sound-scapes, and what gave some shape to this idea for an improbable monument.

Project Description:
As stated in the reading “Monuments: Past and Present”, monuments can inhabit the past and the present, because they connect people in the present with the past by commemorating a particular person or event from the past. All monuments and structures can connect us with a period in time simply by stating the date in which they were constructed. This monument makes literal use of this statement, only it uses sound as a way of commemorating a location; by filtering out the sounds of the present and beaming in the sounds of the past.

This can be achieved by using Directional Sound. Directional Sound is an emerging technology that focuses sound similarly to how a laser focuses light. A beam of sound can be projected into a space with accuracy, to the point where the person next to you won’t hear it.
The structure itself will be designed to capture and amplify the sounds in a way that is most affective, keeping to a general concept of being able to fully experience a range of sounds while standing in front of the monument. My design mixes a well with a backing to capture and amplify the sounds in a natural way. Sound will be captured by reflecting off the back of monument and amplified by the hollow well-like structure at the base, similar to how speaking through a cone amplifies someone's voice. The monument will have a pole adjacent to it and out of view, with a directional sound speaker mounted on top. The looped sounds of the aural environments, or sound collages of a time in history at that location, will be transmitted from the outer pole to reflect off the monument, producing the sounds from the surface of the monument.

People walking by the monument will be able to hear something different than what is going on around them. Drawn in by this, they will have a fuller experience of the sounds by standing in front of the monument and still be able to look around with little visual obstruction.

The idea is improbable for many reasons. For one the costs of the technology I will propose to use. It may likely prove impossible to find someone willing to pay for expensive equipment that will then be left outside in the rain, wind and community. For this reason it would make more sense to locate the monument within a room or a building, but I believe it would be far more effective of an experience outdoors. Of course, location and resources permitting the equipment could be housed in a secured building. Another reason is that certain places may have been a lot noisier in the past, like the old Alameda Naval Base. Walking into a space filled with sirens and plane engines may not go so well with many people. For this reason, the location of the monument is really important. In my sketches I have it in Jack London Square in Oakland, California. I’ve spent some time in that area and believe it has some pretty unique overlapping sounds; running water from the Bay, wild life (birds), people and trains, to name some. Still, the idea remains to contrast an environment with the sounds of its past.

Benefits:
It’s difficult to say the benefits of a project like this. The idea is to connect people with their environment by changing the way their everyday environment sounds. Sound is a subjective medium and experience. Some people may enjoy hearing the past through sound and others may not. Many of us block out the sounds of our environment, because there is simply so much going on, (or maybe just consciously we do). If traveling can give you perspective in some way, then this monument would at best, aim to give perspective to people in regards to the environment they inhabit. Whether that is beneficial or not I don’t know. Personally i think it could be. As a side benefit, I think it would at least be a positive use of these technologies; in opposition to the sound canons and directional sound marketing that seem to be making this technology even a possibility right now.

Estimated Costs:
Research and Development: Three person team to research, find and record sounds of a specific environment….$67,500.
Materials and Production: Sculpture: $5,000; Pole: $30. Directional Sound Speaker and equipment: $5,000; Housing for equipment: $1,000; Solar power unit: $2,000.
Installation: $3,000
Maintenance: ???, Parks and Recreation services

Total Estimated costs: $80,530.

Timeline of Tasks:
3 months for research and recordings.
6 months for production.
3 days for installation.
Yearly maintenance.

Community Art Event 2: SFSU...again

Yes again...I can't help it there's just so much going on here. Actually I didn't mean to attend this event, but think it should count based on the content. Working late on a project in one of the labs, a class began to meet. The class turned out to be a DAI class, Digital Media 3, which focuses on web design and is very relevant to CIA. At any rate, I quietly stayed through the 45min. lecture and took some notes on some interesting technologies that the product/digital media industries are working towards, at least theoretically. They're called "Spimes"and they're already being used if you ask me. check this out for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spime
The idea comes from Bruce Sterling, a science fiction writer, and revolves around small devices that are trackable throughout their lifespan, easily recyclable, and used to encode an object with information about the object. Kind of like a barcode times a thousand. The idea seems to go beyond commerce though, being that an object can be tracked throughout its lifespan providing data about who used it, for how long, where...you know sci-fi stuff. But actually, Berkeley bus systems aren't far from being something of this nature. I recently heard of a phone application that tracks buses. Uses a GPS device, you can literally log on with your phone and see where the bus is...like being able to look through the buildings at the end of the long street at the corner where the bus should have turned 20 minutes ago. Not glasses, a phone application. At any rate, I thought the spimes concept was an interesting idea that ties in a bit with Google's Earth...one day we may be using it with spime technology to find our house keys!

Community Art Event 1: SFSU

A couple Thursdays ago I took the elevator down to the second floor of the Fine Arts building and walked around the gallery which was displaying the works of MFA students. The Masters of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition included the works of Bren Ahearn, Jeff Ray, Taryn McCabe, Luke Damiani, Matt Kennedy, Holly Williams and Aaron Granich.
I was immediately interested in Matt Kennedy's work, which at face value consists of multiple blown up prints of geographic locations. I was particularly drawn to them because of their depiction of rocks with "rings", layers of various rocks, sand and settiment which builds up over time. Like growth rings on a tree, these layers give me a sense of time, the past, history. Plus they were black and white and grainy looking, which appeals to my aesthetic sensibilities. I come to read they are depictions of "natural events associated with an impending earthquake". Sounds pretty interesting, snapshots of bizarre happenings during earthquakes? I would have liked to hear him speak about his ideas on this.
Speaking that day was Jeff Ray. His multimedia display incorporates sound, smell, photography, drawings and model sculptures of buildings. He called it an "exploration of the phenomenology of sound, of dwellings, and beyond". Walking into the curtained space I immediately heard the music-like, field recordings which were looped to give an ephemeral effect. To me it came off a bit reflective, or meditative and got me thinking of memory, which was a theme he had touch on in his talk about his work, which had a lot more to do with architecture than I was picking up on. I saw three walls with blown-up photographs on them and model buildings in front of them. Some of the photos were drawn on, like sketching out other buildings into the landscape or adding grid lines. They got me thinking about how photographs can capture something like a building and how I might remember the building if I didn't have the picture. I thought the models were scaled, 3-d versions of the buildings from memory, since they looked different than the pictures, but similar enough in shape to make the association. I continued to trip out on the idea of how memory rewrites itself every time we recall something; or according to some articles I've read, we remember the same things differently, say an event, every time we recall them. It's like six degrees of separation, only we do it with ourselves. Which is great if you actually want to change your memory of an event. Like keeping a picture of a past lover put away as a gauge for when you've changed your memory enough to move on.
I guess buildings can hold memories as well. I still have jubbled dreams of places I've lived. Recently, I had a dream of buying a house with my girlfriend down the street from where we rent, only it was in the neighborhood I grew up in, 400 + miles away. The house was very specific in my mind, and I know a house exists in that actual neighborhood, but probably not the way I dreamt it. I guess this might tie into the ideas of utopia that Jeff talks about in the reader from the show, creating our own utopias and dystopias from our memories. That house would have been across the street from a park I visited a lot as a kid and have good memories of, and they just got better? Weird to think my idea of a utopia is owning an imagined house and a childhood park, only up north to where I live now. Now I just need to create a source of income and save some money for the next 10 years, enter dystopia.
Over all I liked most of the works in the SFSU gallery. I'll have to remember to go in there more often.

Improbable Monument Ideas

As we were talking in the hall the other day, my ideas for an improbable monument revolve around materials and locations.
I like the idea of a satelite that explores the outer reaches of space and a place, maybe a tv channel or web site, to tune in and watch...or a submarine that explores the mid Atlantic ridge. Both these ideas, I think are residue from the pioneer monument project I did; somehow commemorating the extending of the frontier. My third idea though, the idea I'm currently researching, revolves around a monument which uses sound.
I got interested in looking into a Swedish man by the name of Friedrich Jurgenson. He wrote some books and has an extensive library of recordings which he claims contain the voices of the dead on them. As some may imagine he received a lot of scrutiny throughout his life for this claim, but also a lot of support. There's a lot of research into EVP (electronic voice phenomena), from Cambridge University to Ghost Hunters. Although for myself, ghosts are not the first thing that jump into my mind when I hear things that I can't explain. I'm of the mind that I except that there are many things we don't know about the world around us, and seek to understand them anyhow, choosing the consensus of science over myth. But this has nothing to do with my project...except to spark ideas around what could be happening with these recorded voices and how to incorporate the sonic phenomena into an improbable monument...I don't mean a sonic medium booth, although I would check that out! I guess where I'm heading with this is uncertain, but am looking into many things, from frequencies not heard by the human ear, to healing cat purrs, throwing your voice and combined white noise effects, in the hope of making a monument that is more of a sound-scape enclosure....I'll post some more links on it...but check out the link on Friedrich Jurgenson if you're into ghosts and bizarre happenings. Awesome stuff, I love it...

Monument Intervention; A Monumental Move

After some internet searches, pointers to links and debate, Dan I chose to visit, research and intervene on The Pioneer Monument at Civic Center in San Francisco. Neither of us knew much about the monument to begin with, but from initial readings we gathered some information about it and began kicking around some ideas. One of these ideas had to do with popular reference to the monument as being the James Lick monument. James Lick was the wealthiest man in California at the time of his death, in 1876, leaving a trust of $100,000 to San Francisco, to build a sculpture commemorating the people and events that contributed to the settlement of California. The other ideas revolved around the monument itself, its relocation in 1993 and the controversy around its depiction of Native Americans.

After some research into the monument, I found that it had a monumental history! Old things have history, but this monument has been through a lot. From it’s inception as a civic monument, to it’s perception as a wealthy man’s legacy, to a beacon of resilience during the 1906 earthquake, to a callus depiction of the early settlers treatment of California’s Natives, the Pioneer Monument seemed soaked with some heavy ideas. And I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into. Still, I found interest in the fact that it had been moved to make way for the current library. This seemed funny and practical in a way, that the “pioneer” monument, which is somewhat synonymous with explorer to me, would make way for a library, which is synonymous with history. The idea that explorers make history and that the moving of the monument can make history as well, got me thinking that the moving of the monument, whatever it turned out to represent, could be a symbolic thing and may be a place to start for our intervention, regardless of how absurd it sounded.

I focused on the most recent events, to try and get an idea of what the current perception might be. In the last 20 years it has been the topic of controversy because of its depiction of Native Americans. The statuette at the eastern end depicts a Native American passively lying/sitting before a cowboy and a monk. One seems to be preaching and the other…I’m not sure. Perhaps, needless to say, Native Americans take great offence to this statuette. During the monuments move in 1993, many people protested it, with some throwing red paint onto it. It’s not the least bit surprising that a monument with a statue such as this would be offensive, since it commemorates a time when many California Natives died, or were forced to assimilate into another culture. A compromise was made by the city, one that revolved around the placing of three plaques at the base of the monument to give some light on the treatment of Native Americans, but hasn’t been carried out to this day. Meanwhile Dan was researching James Lick the person and his legacy at Lick-Wilmerding High School. He had the idea that James Lick the person could be a role model for the kids at the school. While I designed a plaque that would cover the existing plaque at the monument, Dan put together a controversial t-shirt design. We decided to tie our ideas together with a joint plea to the city to move the monument to our proposed locations.

About the Pioneer monument: It was dedicated to San Francisco in 1894, several years after it’s benefactor, Lick, had passed away. It consists of five pieces, all bronze statues on marble bases. From observation, the monument seems to be laid out similar to a compass, or cardinal directions, with the center being the zenith and the four points representing north, south, east, and west. The centerpiece is a sculpture of a woman, Eureka, holding a spear and shield representing California. A band of four bronze reliefs depicting events in California history lie just below, with the busts and names of prominent people from California’s early history: Sutter, Lick, Fremont, Drake and Serra. As it’s currently situated, to the north is a statue of a woman with a horn filled with food, representing agriculture and plenty; to the south, a statue of a woman with a breast bared and a paddle, representing commerce; to the west, a statue of three minors and the title “in 49”, representing the discovery of gold; and to the east, a statue of a Native American, a missionary, and a cowboy with the title “Early Days”, representing the establishment of the missions.

My idea is to reconnect the monument to the spirit of the pioneer by making it a symbol for reconciliation. Not to say that this could be done by any one gesture, rather the idea behind the intervention is as a symbol to continually seek and to share common ground between people. By acknowledging the past and incorporating a gesture that attempts to include Native American values, this old monument can carry with it an idea of civic responsibility to be inclusive to multiple views of its history. Part of me feels this has been somewhat accomplished by it’s location between the UN plaza, an organization dedicated to the promotion of human rights, and the civic center. Still I liked the idea of playing with these symbols and the attention that moving a monument can create. My idea was to move the statuettes, to different cardinal positions according to Native American symbols, leaving the centerpiece in place. From the first time I saw the monument, I read into the statuette of commerce as being the archetype that represents “the pioneer”, or qualities I would associate with someone who braves the unknown, seeking new possibilities, and the struggle that comes with starting from scratch. This is partially because I can see a double meaning to the exposed breast and paddle of the woman in the commerce statue. The paddle as a literal device can symbolize a larger concept, the tool by which ships are moved (well boats maybe), and ships being the vessels for journeys and explorations, tying back to the pioneer. According to the Penguin Dictionary, a bared beast can signify protection as well as motherhood, security and plenty. I found a website which outlines the symbols of the cardinal points. It is known as The Medicine Wheel in Native American spirituality with North representing defeat/trouble; South, peace/happiness; East, success/triumph; and West, death. But I have no idea, as to what tribes believe this or if it’s even relevant to California. Nevertheless, the gesture is one that offers protection and innovation through the troubled waters of history mucked with genocide and forced assimilation to begin with. Further, commerce, in an old definition found in my Webster’s dictionary, means “social dealings between people”. My part of the intervention involved rewording the existing plaque to talk about the monuments history and future. It was written onto a piece of cardboard and placed over the existing plaque.

This is the inscription as it reads now.

PIONEER MONUMENT
Sculptor, Frank Happersberger (1859-1932)
Dedicated to the City of San Francisco on Nov 29, 1894, the Pioneer Monument was a gift of philanthropist James Lick. Lick, who died in 1876, left $100,000 to the City for the creation of "statuary emblematic of the significant epochs in California history" dating back to the missions' early settlements. The monument stood in Marshall Square facing Market Street in front of the Old City Hall that was completed in 1897 but destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. When the City was rebuilt after the earthquake, Grove and Hyde Streets were extended to meet Market Street, creating a new intersection. The Pioneer Monument stood at this intersection until it was moved to its present location in 1993.

As it will read…

PIONEER MONUMENT
Sculptor, Frank Happersberger (1859-1932)
Dedicated to the City of San Francisco on Nov 29, 1894, the Pioneer Monument was a gift of philanthropist James Lick. Lick, who died in 1876, left $100,000 to the City for the creation of "statuary emblematic of the significant epochs in California history" dating back to the missions' early settlements. Since it’s dedication the monument has come to represent; a commemoration of the people and events that contributed to the settling of California; the rebuilding of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake; and the perseverance towards a heritage that is meaningful for all Californians. Given the symbolic nature of these old sculptures it has been proposed that the pedestals, laid out as if representing the cardinal points, be repositioned according to Native American Spirituality, so that the archetype of commerce be facing north, symbolizing a tribute to the spirit of the Pioneer to take the road less traveled. This tribute could act as a reminder for all people to face the unknown, and blaze reconciliation in our present from the events of the past.

Dan’s part of the intervention involved designing a t-shirt that kids at Lick-Wilmerding could wear as well as a newspaper article talking about the proposed moves. His ideas are written out in his blog.

Logo Jamming

This is my culture jamming project in two parts. The first is a logo from the media giant Comcast that I changed to read .com costs. For me it was a given, changing it in this way. Having lived in the Bay Area in the late ninties, early 2000 and hearing and reading about the new internet businesses that were making millions overnight and then failing horribly. It wasn't a stretch to associate an internet provider with a boom and bust business model that is now referred to as the .com bubble in an obvious way, they provide access to the internet. At the time, I thought .com businesses were largely a huge scam, hearing about new internet companies that make their stock public and are worth millions, literally, overnight. Although I didn't understand how the market worked, and it seemed possible that millions of people were buying something from a location on the web and that somewhere there was an office with a server housing a website that sold light bulbs and somewhere else there was a warehouse shipping these light bulbs, etc. It seemed idiotic not to invest in these businesses since they were an extention of the technology that was already wildly successful. Not that I played the stock market, but even I could see that reading along in the papers and watching my parents fix up their house with the money they were borrowing against their stocks. Microsoft stocks kept doubling their value, it seemed every three months. People who had invested money in it, say their 401k retirement money, were suddenly "successful". Their was a steady feeling about things, nobody wanted to rock the boat, just let it keep doubling. It didn't seem that weird that people would carry this mentality into investing in an internet business. Like "oh, a computer business" let's watch these stocks double up.

Most of the early businesses survived on investor's money alone without ever being profitable, until they weren't reporting profits, people pulled their money out and the business went bankrupt. When the bubble burst, meaning the inflated idea of what a company was worth was replaced with the reality of what it was actually worth, the value of many of these companies dropped dramatically, all in the span of one weekend. Many businesses failed and many people were forced to put their fabulous lives on hold.

There are other "costs" that come to mind stemming from the .com boom. Namely the cost of living going up. Especially in the Bay Area. While these businesses were working hard to look good on paper and raking in dough, they were also hiring some pretty well groomed, highly paid associates. It's like suddenly some jerk was willing to pay double, triple the rent of an SF apartment and your landlord would either evict you or in some cases buy you out of the lease. Some of these lease buy out deals were for thousands of dollars. I would hear of people being paid 10 thousand to move out of their SF loft. Then move to Portland and buy a house! It was like a transfusion happening, driven by people needing to take advantage of these people with money to spend. At one point there was a 1% vacancy rate in SF. People couldn't find a place to live. Living in Oakland, I started to see the same trend. People getting evicted on "legal" grounds, like "my family is moving in". A friend of mine won a settlement when his landlord evicted him only to double the rent on the place. Trying to rent at that time meant showing up to some crappy apartment to compete with 25 other people and pay a "processing" fee in excess of $150! That was just to turn in your application and be rejected! Suckers!

Yeah, internet businesses failed leaving investors with an urge to somehow win their money back and we're still paying inflated rents if you ask me, but what does an internet provider have to do with it? Maybe nothing? Relating Comcast to the .com bubble is admittedly a pretty loose connection. But anyone who uses Comcast, with their inflated, ever increasing rates on packaged channels could get the reference as well. Plus .com is short for commerce, so there's always the literal reference.

Culture Jamming

My second project is a spoof on a poster for the movie Junior with Arnold Schwartzenegger. I replaced the other character's with the heads of Comcast's Ceo, as the doctor, and the chairman of the FCC, as the onlooker. The idea revolves around an interesting debate happening right now over an idea held by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission), among others like Google, called "net neutrality". The idea seems to be to keep the internet open to everyone and free of discrimination. Businesses like Comcast, who provide internet access say they should have the right to regulate the internet how they see fit. Comcast was recently sued by the FCC for slowing down the rate in which people could download from certain sites, like sites where people download movies. In April 2010 the courts ruled in favor of Comcast because of some deregulation of broadband in 2005. It seems to me that in the past regulations have been put in place to protect consumers from businesses who owned the infrastructure which their competitors had to use as well. From the railroads, to electric and water, businesses and utilities seem to have needed some kind of regulation...not to mention today's banking industry. But the internet is like a child that no one really knows how to care for, and the debate of who the caretaker will be is going on right now. In light of all of the irresponsibility of big business in the last 10 years, Enron, banks, it seems like a bad movie leaving the internet in the care of a cable company. Of course there's DSL and wireless, but those businesses have the same rights based on this recent ruling, to regulate content with broadband, rights that people fear will create discrimination because all these providers have their own products to keep competitive as well. People against this also fear it will destroy the idea of the internet which makes it a great open source for all information.

Chance Project: Chance Collage Using Images and Text

My project uses Googleʼs search engine to find and download images to then import and
manipulate in Photoshop.
Part 1: Gathering Your Images into Photoshop and Naming them as Layers.
1.Use the number of the month of your birthday to extract letters from your first and last
name. If you have a double digit month like December (12), add the two numbers
together.
ex: December = 1 2= 1+2 = 3

If your birthday is in January or October, use your birth day. If your born on January 1st or October 1st, then add your month and day together.

Continueing from the example, then extract every third letter from your name.
ex: anDy zEvaLloS
Every third letter spells “DELS” in this example.
2.Search this random word in Google. Use the spell corrected version if necessary.
- if nothing comes up, invert the letters and search again. ex: SLED
3.Look into the “images” for your search result. Using the number of letters in your
searched word, ex: d.e.l.s = “4”, select the “4th” image displayed on the page
beginning from the upper left position moving right. (This number will also determine
how many images you will download). If your number is greater than the number of
images displayed horizontally on the first line, continue to the next line.
4.From this point you will collect two things: the image, which will be opened in
Photoshop as a layer and the word directly next to your search word in the images
caption. You will use this along with the number of letters in the word to name the
layer.
ex: caption under images reads: Mapa general dels Països. This layer would be named
“Paisos6” .
This image will also be a starting point from which to collect the remaining images
(unless your number is 1). Collect the remainder of your images and layer names
beginning with the image directly under your first image, then the image under that
one, etc. If the number of images exceeds the number of images displayed vertically
on the search page, continue to the next page continuing in the same column from
the previous page.
5.Save and name as you go or copy and paste directly into Photoshop..doesnʼt matter.
This does- The size of your canvas will be determined by the first image loaded into
Photoshop. This first layer is referred to as the “background”. Open it up in Photoshop
and rename the “background” layer so you can manipulate it. You can do this by
“control” clicking on the “background” in the layers window and selecting “layer from
background”. Name it using the information from the example in step 4. Now import
all of your images into Photoshop as their own layer with their own “chance” name
and number.
-Using my DELS example I now have 4 layers in Photoshop all having a specific
name and number associated with them.

Part 2: Manipulate Images and Layers.
More than likely your images will be of various sizes at this point. So weʼll size them to
the canvas, which was determined by our first image. Donʼt change the resolution of the
images. Weʼll use the Transform function to size the images.
1.In your “layers window”, highlight the top layer. On your keyboard hold down the open
Apple key, next to the spacebar, and hit the letter “t”. A wire box will appear around the
image size. This will either be larger or smaller than the canvas size. Notice there are
smaller wire boxes around the wire frame. Moving your mouse over the smaller box
creates an arrow icon. Click and drag this in the direction needed to fill the canvases
space. Do this for each side of the image until it is the same size as the canvas. This
will pixelate and/or warp your image, but so what. Double-click with the mouse within
the larger wire frame box. This sets the image size. Now proceed to do this with the rest
of your images. Notice the top layer obscures your view of the layer underneath. Donʼt
worry, use the wire frame as guides and size all the layers.

2. Notice there is an area directly under the layer tab in the layers window that says
“normal” with a blue end on it that has arrows. By clicking on the blue area, 25
options appear. Using the number associated with the layer name, in my example in
part 1-step 4 it was 6. Divide 25 (the number of options in the layer blending mode)
by your number and round it up or down to a whole number, below .5 down, above .
51 up. Use your divided number to select an option for each layer, starting at the top
of the options and moving downward. Start with “normal” = 0. If you happen to have a
negative number, then start from the bottom up. Repeat with every layer.
3. Now, use the same number in each layer, to set the “opacity” of the layer, located to
the right of the layer blending mode scroll in the layer window. Only divide the number
100 by each layers number (the total percentage value). Round to a whole number and
use this number to set each layers opacity.
4.Click on the type tool in the “tools palette”. Click anywhere on the picture, the less
thought the better. Type out a sentence stringing together the words from each layer.
Start with the top layers word and move downward. Do not use the numbers in the
sentence.
5. Lastly, set the font size and color. Multiply each number in sequence, top to bottom,
the sum of each two numbers multiplied by the next number, etc. Then divide the total
by the number of layers. This number in your font size and your color. Highlight the
sentence you just wrote by double clicking on it with the type tool. Change the font size
to this number. Then select the “eyedropper tool” from the tool palette and click on your
canvas, anywhere. This will change your selected color in the tool palette area. Double
click on this color, this will bring up the color picker. If the color displayed on the screen
looks red to you change the “R” value to the number you multiplied and divided (mine
was 144 for type size and color). If it looks more blue to you, change the “B” value, more
green, change “G” value.
Almost done. Notice in the layers palette, when you scroll the mouse over the layers a
hand appears. By clicking and holding you can drag each layer, up or down. This places
the layer on top, or below the other layers. Like me, your image may be too transparent,
if this is the case, add a layer, use the paint bucket to paint it white, and drag it to the
bottom of your sequence of layers. To change things up a bit, use your original birthday
month number to determine the number of moves you can make rearranging the layer
sequence. Moving one layer and then moving it back counts as two moves.
Save and your done!

What Are The Chances.

My results to following the instructions in Tane's Project.
Tane's project required that I make a couple of choices: one choose a medium in which get the data from, in my case I chose Pandora, since I didn't have my Mp3 player with me. Second, choose a medium in which to present the results. I chose Illustrator, since we're learning about that right now and the practice is welcome.
A word on Pandora. After skipping through the songs several times, Pandora makes you start a whole new radio station. I had to do this three times. Every time I chose to start a radio station, I used the last artist as a starting point.

Tane's Project instructions:

1 - Choose a medium (I chose Sharpie on paper)
2 - Create a 9 box by 9 box grid
3 - Put music player of choice on shuffle (if you don't have a suitable music player, either create a Pandora or
use the radio)
4 - The first and last letter of the band name (ignore "The") corresponds with a box on the grid. Letters =
numbers based on alphabet sequence (a=1, b=2, and so on) For double digit letter/numbers add the 2 digits
together (m=13, 1+3=4). First number is horizontal, second number is vertical.
5 - Number of words in the song title denote shape (see key below)
6 - Number of letters in the last word of the song title denote color (see key)
5a/6a - If any double digits occur add them together
7 - Use only as many songs as your age. If using the radio, use all songs between one commercial break. If
using Pandora, use all your skips.

Note: if using your own music you may end up with the same box in the grid being used multiple times. This is
ok. You can either make shapes not fill up the entire box or you can just overlap shapes. Toss a coin to decide
which you do: heads for smalled shapes, tails for overlapping shapes.

Key:
1 - triangle/silver (or grey)
2 - square/black
3 - circle/red
4 - star/blue
5 - cresent moon/green
6 - arrow/purple
7 - spiral/orange
8 - dot/yellow
9 - zigzag/brown

Note: I didn't use chance to decide which color/shape was which number, I just randomly assigned them...

Google Earth: Remote Locations Tour

To take my tour, click here

At last! Version 13 of my now memorized tour of remote islands and locations in Google's Earth. It contains 9o-some percent of the discriptive information I had intended, with the exception of Isla Pescaso, Boliva...which is a kind-of island within a sea-like salt flat, the largest in the world. Also believed to be a, mostly dried up, prehistoric lake that resides at 11,000 ft. above the median sea level.
Alright so places visited in this tour:

-SFSU
-Galapagos Islands
-Isla Pescaso, Bolivia
-Antarctica
-South Pole, Antarctica
-Tristan de Cunha
-Bouvet Island
-Migingo Island
-Motuo, China
-Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
-Ahmed Awa, Iraq
-Dikson, Russia
-Alert, Canada
-ATOW1996, closest land to the North Pole
-Bering Straat
-Red Rock Island

All of these places, with the exception of Boulet Island, ATOW 1996 and the Berring Straat (which really symobolizes more of a concept to me...migration) are inhabbited by people...well maybe the Berring Straat too...at one time- hairy, ape-like men and women groaning and screeching across frozen land with animal skin, bronze and thick souls? Yeah...A few things that got me thinking while making this tour, namely Google Earth's ability to put these remote places, not only into our view in a visual context, but also within a geographical context. This context readily makes use of macro and micro perspectives of the world and put me into a frame of mind to do some research on certain places based on their unique character from a macro perspective. For example, from a perspective somewhere in the stratosphere, the salt flats at Isla Pescaso appear as a large white spot. Similarly Lake Victoria appears to be a large black spot on the earth. As I zoomed in I discovered islands within this large lake and began searching databases for information on these islands which related to the theme of remoteness, or seclusion. What I found was a story of a border dispute that is happening in the current time, one that disputes a "border" that lies somewhere along the ripples of water created by the boatloads of fisherman who are making their living. I guess this idea of remoteness can carry over into borders, in the sense of where is it forbidden to go and for what purposes is it forbidden. Remote in this sense could be the distance two leaders can create from reaching an understanding for their countries. The posturing of their leaders to control the lucrative fishing industries that drive a portion, or in Uganda's case a large portion, of their countries economies seems to be driving these governments to further disagreement. (more info here:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/world/africa/17victoria.html). In the case of Iraq though it becomes posturing by our own government and leaders. What is seemingly a hiking adventure, becomes a complicated political matter by the fact that a country we have no "official"relations with, decided to enforce the crossing of the "border line". Most people who travel, do so under the radar of countries political agendas. I suppose in this case it's not the border that is promoting the distance between people's governments, rather, drawing attention to their differences in a matter that seemingly has nothing to do with their political differences or otherwise. When it comes down to it, isn't that why we create borders though, to logically state, with GPS acuracy, exactly where my property begins and your property ends. A sticky area for realty. One where it helps to have at least an idea of a border to discuss and then the reality that no country really wants to acknowledge a ridged boarder when it doesn't suite there interests....ahhh the hairier times...a time when we could mark out our home with foot steps and listen to the symphony of nature and predators over freeways and sirens....[?!?]
In making this tour I was also interested in checking out some virtual sights such as the Northern and Southern Poles, by coordinates of where the lines of latitude meet. I was surprised by what I found at the southern most point...as well as the story behind the northern most point of land. It seems this is the advantage to traveling virtually, a glimpse at a simulation of what the world holds. It's definitely the coolest globe I've ever used, despite the difficulty in recording this tour.

Thanks for checking it out.

An Imaginary Hybrid Animal:The Psychic Cheetah

My creation of a hybrid creature mixes the following: wireless communication technology, in the form of cellular communication and video cameras; man, in the form of a walking guy in leather (undercover security type); animal, in the form of the cheetah; and plant, in the form of poisonous fungus.

My idea stems from horror movies that use monsters as a metaphor for social ills. For example Dracula as a means for exploring disease as an epidemic, like Werner Herzog did with his remake of Nosferatu. I thought it would be interesting to explore the uncertainties and fears of wireless technology, through a creature that lives in the cellular tree-like antennas that are used to boost wireless signals and are located on, ever-increasing, hilltops through out the world. The fears and uncertainties being whether or not exposure to low levels of radiation from boosting the wireless signal will have an effect on people in the long term.

A bit about the Psychic Cheetah: it is A-sexual, doesn’t eat and doesn’t sleep. It can project itself into people’s thoughts via their telephone calls and video screens. Similar to the cheetah’s head, exposure to its influence turns a person’s head into poisonous fungus. It steadily feeds on people’s psychic energy in a parasitic way, but can completely turn your head to rotting fungus if you become aware of it. It can materialize itself, as shown in the picture, but can also take the form of gas or voltage. In this way it is always, potentially, present in all of our wireless communications.

ANDi: A DNA Altered Monkey

I remember reading about this several years ago. But after talking about BioArt last week it got me thinking about ANDi, the monkey who was genetically implanted with jellyfish DNA back in 2001. At the time he was the first of his kind to survive, similar to Dolly the cloned sheep. Several cells were implanted with the jellyfish DNA, which is deemed beneficial due to the fact that jellyfish exhibit florescence. Given our evolutional proximity to monkeys over walking fish, the jellyfish DNA is suppose to help scientist track and learn about disease. Three of the cells grew into monkeys, two of which glowed florescent under black light and didn't survive for whatever reason. The third, ANDi, did survive (didn't glow though) and was then set to be infected with diseases for study! So much for amazement. It's hard to cheer the advancements of science when it's coupled with the grim realities of scientific research. Which baffles me to begin with. Sure we eradicated small pox, but diseases live; are alive; they're evolving too (super Tuberculosis!?) I'm not saying that learning about and curing disease is not worthwhile. Or that a monkey with glowing skin won't help humanity find the cure to diseases like HIV. Who knows? Humans may have created HIV. Or like super TB, through antibiotics, and maybe even hand soap, simply helped diseases to become stronger. It's a constant; disease. While experimental research on human patients with fatal diseases may merit a foundation, research on monkeys does not. But it's not to say that a respect for all life should not be the ideal from which to look at these matters. Getting back to the topic, it seems Bioart brings these matters into discussion, or even into view. It's no wonder why a University like Standford would want to promote Bioart, they're one of the leading institutions of stem cell research.

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/01/11/green.monkey.02/

...string theories: readings on semiotics

I just finished reading from the links on Roland Barthes and Tom Streeter and found semiotics to be really interesting and something I could understand in my own way. I remember as a kid in elementary school learning about the teqniques advertisers use to sell their products, of course I can't think of one right now...but they had to do with the association products can have with socialization, such as choosing a brand of alcohol because the people on the tv drinking it seem to be having such a good time. Third grade and I was being taught to think critically about what I was being presented on a daily basis in the form of advertising. Barthes example with the Panzini brand of pasta fixings was a good one. Although I associated the fishnet grocery bag as being more like a half-hung hammock and therefore read into it as having the connotation of the food comma that would proceed my carbo-heavy pasta dinner (because who eats pasta for breakfast?) Being it was half-hung, it gave a secondary connotation of motion, like I can't lay down on a half-hung hammock, I better get to making this dinner! All that was left would be a pair of disembodied, wine encrusted, lips, chapping and smiling in the background while a disembowled cow drags it's remains along a spiral in the shape of a meatball of which a pig, a turkey, and a chicken stand on the periphery. Joking and fun aside, semiotics does play a role in the desicions we make as consumers and when related to ideologies it has larger social implications. Both Barthes and Streeter talk about the social aspects of semiotics. Barnes young man saluting is no different than Streeters Kuwaiti kissing the flag. They're both pushing a point of view that I don't think I completely understand. Although, possibly the most sinister form of semiotics is it's use in propaganda to rally a people during war time. The connotation of "weapons of mass destruction" after 911 comes to mind...not to mention Bush jr's photo opportunity in combat gear with the banner behind him that read "Mission Accomplished". It makes me start to wonder if what Streeter was getting at was history told through the victors; how the semiotics of a photo can relate an idea, which left unchallenged or ignorant to other perspectives forms our opinions and ultimately how we look back on history. Of course in all hopefulness Bush jrs portrayal of success in the war against "evil", or one leg of the tri-pod of evil, won't factor in the same way archeologists piece together the lives of neanderthal man from cave paintings. I guess an example of what I'm trying to say is evident in an issue of "Life" magazine that I saw the other day from 1953. (Amazing printing in those magazines). "Life" seems to sum up the 50s, through it's adds targeted at the nuclear family: suited dad, two kids and smiling, slim-waisted mom. On the cover was a woman in an evening gown, open back, title reading "Bare Backs In Fashion"... while in the upper right hand corner are the article captions, two: "The Dangerous Luxury Of Hating America" and "Our Powerful Red Nieghbors In Guatemala". I just looked it up...in 1954 the CIA lead a covert operation to overthrow the then leader of Guatemala...who was democratically elected. Sure this was a publication in the height of the McCarthy era, but "Turn Your Back On Our Red (communist) America Hating Neighbors?". That's how I read it. It's silly, political rhetoric embodied in a woman's lovely back. And creepy, pairing the semiotics with reality. I guess the bottom line is what do you do with this information? I'd just take a wild guess to say that the forming of opinion through media is partially at the heart of the "spin" wars that politics in America has seen in recent years, making semiotics a point of discussion. But who's really listening anyway?

Ideas for a Geo Spacial Project

I spent some time recently messing around with Google Earth, a program that allows you to see and navigate the world via satillite photos and three dimensional renderings. I started out at home in the Bay Area and traveled south through the Americas down to Antarctica and to the edge of the Google world, a gray area (since the online program won't let you circumvent the poles). Using the hand tool, I moved across this border to the east for some time and then started moving north again, hitting random Pacific islands, then through South Africa up through the Middle East and into the north of Russia ending at a secluded port town and forest reserve. At any rate, my idea for a tour is to find out alittle something about these remote locations and build a Google Earth trip around them. I'll post locations as I find them...

A Short Responce to Sol Lewitt's Paragraphs

I wasn’t even sure if it had happened to me? A trick of memory, maybe, but while I was thinking of “conceptual art” last week I started remembering about a guy a friend of mine had told me about several years ago. I couldn’t even remember his name, but the image was clear as day, as if it had happened to me. I was sure the visuals I had in my head were connected to me, in memory, by the outrageous idea of watching TV late one night in a half asleep state and then suddenly, between commercials, comes this man in his under ware, bound with his hands behind his back, slithering on his belly, for several seconds, through broken glass! The idea still brings a smile to my face; if not making me break silence altogether. I immediately looked it up on youtube, “man crawling through glass”, no hits. Then over to the Google, adding conceptual art, I got some hits and it became apparent that Chris Burden was my man. I found an article by Roger Ebert, which had, among many other pieces Chris Burden had done, the video in question linked; the full unedited 45 second version, followed by about 2 minutes of commercials in which the actual 10 second piece was sandwiched and Chris talks over. The piece is pretty brutal. Especially watching the full version; 45 seconds to soak up the full absurdity of it all; naked man slithering on the floor. Ok, pretty weird. but it almost reminded me a scene from the movie “Freaks”, it’s TV right? Then comes that stuff he’s slithering through, glass? and, oh, he’s bound as well and grunting. It surly takes a turn towards the disturbing. At the end of it all though, it can be dismissed as Chris Burden’s willing participation to make this video. And besides people walk through fire and sit on beds of nails and shove swords down their throats for entertainment, there’s nothing new of the grotesque as a kind of theatre. But it gets to the heart, I think, of what Sol Lewitt was “striking out” with, that this art form is about ideas and those ideas need to be carried out. There’s no way Chris knows my reaction and it doesn’t matter. Ideas have power. They live with us and inform us and can give shape to things; other ideas- like Sol was saying. I didn't live it. And then I remembered, I had seen a version of the clip before; the two minute one with the 10 second spot. That was plenty enough to get the idea across; less than 5 seconds of a man in his condition and I remembered it; the idea of disruption; that for what ever reason an image as disturbing as that can completely disrupt the passive flow of information that is television; despite, then being completely reabsorbed, like it never really happened. Except for some us, sometimes I suppose, who hold on to it as the face of brutality, making us smile during commercials, the image of Chris Burden, slithering in Black and White through his broken glass.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/10/the_agony_of_the_body_artist.html

first post

unknown territory here...so I took the name of this blog from a book by Werner Herzog called "Of Walking In Ice". Haven't actually read the book, nor do I own it....really, I had the name written down on a scrap of paper...looking for it, in a way. I'm a big fan of Herzog's movies though..."The White Diamond", amongst many, stands out. It's about an inventor making and testing a flying machine that would allow film makers and others to study the top canopy of rain forests, and similar places, with the least amount of intrusiveness; a light-weight, not so silent, hovering machine. Of course the film detours into the lives of the people around the making of the film, long shots of nature and animals, some of which are edited into the film in a way that draw comparisons to the people in the film; all of which, may elude to what Herzog refers to as "ecstatic truth" (?)