AAM's Web Blog

May 7th, 2009

Side Note

Garage band music & iMovie videos are also on scratch incase they don’t come through on here… youtube was weird with the remixes I tried to put up… so check the scratch too!

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May 7th, 2009

Final Class Reflection – it’s alllll over!

Personal Reflection (150ish word version requested)

After going through my entire blog & looking at my work throughout the semester, overall I feel I took this course head-on as a challenge. I wanted to learn about different digital art programs & I really feel I accomplished that. I feeI challenged myself in terms of the work though at times I did get frustrated with the amount of time I would put in and my opinion of the ending results. I do feel I came to class prepared and always had comments to add to class discussions. To be honest actually, I was a little shocked by how strong my voice came through in this class as I’m not much of a speaker in English classes and even psych classes! But I really felt connected not only to the projects but the discussion and reflection aspects of this course… maybe more courses should use blogs?! Though I did struggle at times, I still feel my work reflects myself and I am pleased with the majority of it & my overall class behavior throughout the semester.

Class Reflection

After last night’s final critique, the realization that I would not be spending my Monday & Wednesday nights in the extreme temperatures (hot & cold) of the lab hit me! I came into this class thinking that since I completed all my requirements in my major and minor, I would take courses outside of my fields that are specifically interesting to me. I’m a MAC user, and have a lot of these applications already but had no idea how to really use them. Though learning how to use these programs were my expectations of the course, I learned so much more about the virtual world and it’s effects on me as a 21 year old female, student, consumer, teacher-to-be, and human in general. The discusions stemming from the videos and work were some of my favorite times in class.

Work Reflection

My work I am most proud of are my photoshop square collage piece, my art rage self portrait & apple pieces, and lastly my stop motion & final project videos. In my eyes, I feel I really learned how to use art rage, photoshop, and iMovie and excelled in these programs. I still can learn a TON from photoshop since there is so much in that program, but I do feel I have a good grasp on it. Where I struggled in this course was with the music. I love listening to it, but I am not a tone person. I never know the artists/song names, and fall short of being a good composer. Though I knew this is a personal weakness, I tried my best with garage band. My first attempts were terrible and I got frustrated with the time I was putting in and the quality of what was coming out. My final remix of “survivialism” I was happy with. Yes, it could have been better but from where I started and where I ended, it turned out to be a happy medium for me & GB in general.

I’ll send you my grade proposal via email. THANKS AAM

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May 7th, 2009

Digital Photography Quiz

I knew I did this – but couldn’t find it on my blog. Then I looked at your blog and found it in the comments under your original post. SO I’m not insane (at least with this). I’ll post here now so it’s easier to see… AAM

I find this reading really interesting. Woo hoo digital photography. Parts which I remembered:

+ the part explaining the differences between the traditional photography and digital photography. They compare the developing processes as in traditional we have a negative to store light where as in digital we have a file to store numbers.

+ they also explain how digital processing is more instant… you don’t have to create all of these proves which can take a lot of time to create, instead you can just manipulate what you have on your screen right then.

+ the use of chemicals in traditional compared to pixels in digital

+ Digital we can manipulate more easily.

+ Digital uses maps on a computer. These maps contain the pixels of the many colors in the image.

+ retouching or so called photoshopping has become easy in the digital age of photography (white teeth and no acne CAN be done! most likely at an additional cost though

+ Digital photography processing leaves the mess on the computer screen, not on your hands

+ has given rise to easy reproduction processes

Have a safe trip, AAM

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May 7th, 2009

Reflection on Final Project

AAAAAHhhhh it’s done!! I’m VERY happy with how this project turned out. At first when I was posed with the two videos and the final question: what if anything is better about real interaction vs. virtual interaction, I had a lot of ideas about different aspects. 1. there is the communication aspect 2. there is new technology that keeps getting newer 3. there is the video game aspect and how that is effecting the next generation 4. there is this virtual world where we might feel connected, but is that connection real? After getting the suggestion to free write about this topic, I found myself coming back to how we rely on the virtual world to make connections but what happens when we take technology away – are those connections still there…. are they REAL?? Technology fails, we fall behind with the updates, it’s expensive which makes me wonder – can we all afford to be making these connections based soley on virtual connections? I think we need to rethink how we do make connections and make an effort to make personal connections with others. Though it is convienent & fast, the connections made are seemingly the same when we could make deeper connections with others in the real world. I liked the discusion that my piece brought up amongst the class during the critique. That’s really why I opted to go with the video style. I like knowing how my work effects people and what they get out of it. I didn’t even think about the economy situation and how technology IS a luxury item that people might have to live without. But in this world can they? They should be able to… but that’s not saying they can.

In terms of how I put this piece together, I started by noting some TV ads including the Sprint “Now” commercial and the Nokia “Connecting Simply” commercials and the Macbook “Air” commercial. From there, I found them on youtube and decided I could use parts of these ads in my mash up. Then, I started researching social network systems and found a few projects on youtube that were similar to what I was looking into. Af first, I used these in my original work but then, after seeing that they were dated, I used my own images to create the mash ups for those sections. The text I decided to put in took a little while to get it to be right. Some of hte text came up from the images I found (ie the video of the world spinning in the hands – I really liked that and wanted to include it so I shaped the text to make it work). Once I interlooped the images with the text, I had to fix some of the words but eventually came up with my final statement (which did pose a question to the viewers).

Overall, I really enjoyed putting this piece together. I liked adding personal references (like my sisters facebook profile for the ’stay connected’ part) and thought the images with the text created a strong message, which is what I intended.

As a side note about the project – I LOVED how last night went. The fact that there was a variety of pieces, ideas, and the delivery of those ideas were unique and personal to the artist was AWESOME! It created a great discussion and final critique to wrap up this class.

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