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/