still alive and kicking but more out of habit than anything else

hey all
i just wanted to post to try to get back into the habit. i have to kinda restart a project that is due on monday. so i am a little upset about that. i asked some of the university donors what they thought of the junior senior painting show and they said that they thought it was one of the better shows they had seen from the university. so i guess that is a good thing. i am terrified of applying to grad school. not because i am afraid of getting rejected but more out of a realization that this means that my undergrad is over, which in and of itself is not that upsetting but i am gonna miss seeing these people on a daily basis . enough rambling for today! i will be back

interactivity without all the technobable or the tech which provides said babble

hey all
i guess i need to push forward and do this homework.
i am gonna talk about this one project from conrad bakker(who happens to be a teacher of mine). the project is written about here http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/004308.php
apparently he hand crafted replicas of small objects that he found on the street (or objects that he likely would have found on the street) and he then placed them back on the street and documented them. but he also left them there like their forebearers. so he made like wood rubber band sculptures and left them on the ground like the rubber bands would have been that inspired the sculptures.
these pieces may not come off as overly interactive but the idea of leaving the artworks floating around brings up a potential for public interaction. it does not seem to be the largest factor in making the work but can not be ignored. if something is left anywhere it is likely to be found by someone else and then they may do something amazing with it but that may not be documented.
this reminds me of a piece that ryan thompson(a grad student) was showing the studio class documentation for. he was in russia and left these white washed unarmed toy soldiers everywhere and he too documented them. he was not solely interested in what happened next but it was at the back of his mind.
people leaving things behind allow for the interactive magazine found to be in existence. without people within our society being interested in what other's leave behind no one would bother with that magazine but it is fairly popular. i for one am immensely intersted in odd things that i find discarded. this fascination with leaving items and then sharing our finding of them cereates a unique interactivity between artists who purposely leave art behind for the public to do with as they please and with the public who will actually notice the things that are left behind. it is not the most obvious means of creating interactivity but it is one of the few methods that create a lot of possibilties without necessarily any culminating results being made aware to any of the people involved be they artist or public.

Bye, bye Lucky

i found out my dog died. we had had her for 13 years and she died this weekend. it put a whole downer on my weekend (which actually was not that bad other than loosing my dog) . i dont know what killed her other than just being old. apparently she had been eating odd things not that long ago but long enough not to think that that is what did her in. also she may have had a tumor in her stomach so that probably did not aid her health. i will miss her greatly. i no longer want to do anything because of the grief but that is not what she would have wanted. my dog was all about happiness and being as happy as doggily possible. bye bye lucky. i love you and will miss you dearly
robbie

ficitonal game

so for this fictional game i want to take a look at tag removed from the sense of touch. lazer tag does this in a way that shifts the game to relying heavily upon the sense of sight. i was going to see if i could think of a way to shift the game into relying heavily upon the sense of sound.
i know that in ordinary tag the sense of sound comes into effect when you are listening to see if the person who is it is running up behind you to tag you. now i was trying to think of a way to create a version of tag that used sound waves like how the lazer travels to hit a sensor in lazer tag.
so in sound tag you where these suits that are full body suits. this suits allow full mobility so that you can run at full speed and duct and stuff like that. they have sensors in them that monitor the sound waves for key commands that are prerecorded before each match. this is so that the monitors could be able to grab a hold of your vocal patterns. the suits also have a visual sensor so that when other suits pass in front of yours your suit will notice.
the prerecorded command is a command that tells the suits to prohibit movement but the recorded command only works with the suit that is on the visual monitor tha is on your suit. so the visual monitor would be on the chest of the suit and if you spoke the prerecorded command when another players suit was within the path of your visual monitor they would be frozen. the combination of these two monitoring devices woould be key to getting past the ability for people to just yell the command. this also creates an emphasis being placed upon the language of the game. tag you are it or i got you becomes as crucial in this form as it was in the orginal form of tag. the importance in lazer tag falls heavily not on the auditory or language used. it is more upon the line of sight of the lazer light and monitor. this new version combines the element of sight and hearing. i dont know, but it was fun to think of new ways to play tag. (too bad i'm stuck inside)

compare contrast a couple of games

hey hey. so on a sensory level tomb raider actually uses more senses than one usually associates with video games. most video games are designed in a way in order to create interesting visuals that the player has to navigate through. tomb raider does this but people often forget the effect that sound has on the players while playing the game. sounds go off when you collect things or fire your games or are even used to warn you about dangers(like bears). also there is a huge impact from the actual language used in the game. lara croft speaks. players get directions from her and helpers and there are also (in some versions) video scenes in between the actual game play that allow the story's plot to be unfolded. this character is an extension of the player. the directions are sent directly to the players through there ears(or eyes if the volume is off). the players develop an affinity for the character and start to feel empowered by her. this and all games like it create a way for players to encourage their own self-empowerment.
the game i want to compare tomb raider to is calvin ball which is a game created by bill waterson's character calvin from calvin and hobbes. this game (while being fiction) is a game that most children have played. it is a game where the rules change everytime you play it. this fact of constant changing rules builds upon a child's creativity and their memory. if someone does not remember how they played it before they are not going to be able to figure out what they can not do. therefor not being entirely sure what they can do. this game unlike tomb raider relied upon playing with at least one other person(for calvin it was hobbes who within a fictional world was even more based in fiction) but for me was my twin brother. somehow, the version of the game i played was called wesleyball and not named after me. hmmm... anyway so this game and its flucuating rules creates a heavy reliance upon being in some sort of creative sync with the other participant. you kind of have to be able to understand what they are thinking when they are adding rules or setting down the guidelines and they need to be in synch with you when you are creatively adding your own rules because if no one is on the same page the question of cheating gets brought up. language plays a huge role because you and the other player(s) need to be able to coherently say and get across the rules to each other based upon your memory of how it was played last.
man i miss playing calvin ball.

brief history of oil painting

hey all
oil painting started way back in the day. oil painting that we think of got its start around the 13th century but did not really develop into what we now consider oil painting until the 15th century. what we consider oil painting was developed by jan van eyck (a flemish painter) who was one of the first people to create a stabel siccative(drying) oil mixture which he could use to bind pigments. this was then fixed by a man named antonello da messina who added lead oxide to the combination which made the paint more like honey and increased the drying properties. i would hazard to say that oil paintings prime was in the 16th through the 19th centuries but it still holds a place as a traditional media in art making today.
information is encoded in oil painting mainly through the mark making the artist uses to depict his/her image. the pigments used to create the images are bonded together by the oil medium. most oil paintings are characterized by multiple layers of paint. this is often done in order to create a sense of realism. some paintings are made with thick layers of paint almost creating a tactile surface. oil paintings usually last hundreds of years but sometimes the colors fade. oil paints are exceptionally usefull if one is trying to get a sense of realism in the image and are actually fairly portabel. not as portable as some media but more so than others. many famous landscapes were painted outdoors while directly observing the subject matter.
oil paintings have the greatest effect upon our sense of sight. they also have a moderate effect on our sense of smell because oil paints have a distictive odor. oil paintings generally fail to captivate our sense of hearing because they are generally flat 2-dimensional images that do not make sounds.
most oil paintings that anyone can see are in a museum setting. this setting limits the amount of auditory distractions and other visual distractions by keeping paintings fairly well separated and on neutral colored walls. this environment is generally thought of as the easiest way to view paintings and get a personal feeling or connection between viewer and painting. most painting now are funded by the artists or grants. used to be that oil paintings were funded by the patrons. these patrons usaully had control over the subject matter being depicted by the artist. now most paintings are controlled by the artist and then are sold via galleries.
oil paintings are not limited to specific creators or viewers. most people when asked to name a painting or a painter will name an oil painting or a practitioner of oil painting.


this brief history of oil painting was braught to you by my brain and http://www.wikipedia.org/, http://www.holday-art.com/, and http://www.encyclopedia.com/

awesome news

hey all
this was just sent to me. hopefully i will be able to partake in this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6967474.stm?whataboutspiderpig

old or new media

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1243837605&size=o
this comic strip of calvin and hobbes is an old media because it was made by hand with a brush and ink. it is also a new media becuase it uses the combination of text and image together to tell a story which is not the most ancient forms of media. the image we are looking at is actually one of the newer forms of media because it is a digital photograph of a printed copy of the comic strip. it being digital removes the viewer ( a little ) from noticing the hand of the creator in it. but it being originally made by the hand forces it's way more heavily to the forefront. the strip being hand made puts it into the old media category because there are ways to make the comic strip images entirely digitally now.

flight of the conchords

hey all. everyone who can should check out this wildly entertaining sitcom from hbo called flight of the conchords. it is about a struggling new zealand folk band.