Showing posts with label Issues in Media Arts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Issues in Media Arts. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Lecture #7, Web Tech #7

Cat, Moon, Fence

Cognitive Dissonance
As the feeling of uncomfortable function from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.

Emotion + System of Beliefs -> a change = Justification (measure of dissonance)
- Importance of subject to us
- How strongly the dissonant thought conflict
- Our inability to rationalise and explain away the conflict

Cognitive Dissonance results in
1) Change in behavior
2) Justify our behavior by changing
3) Justify our behavior by adding new cognitions

If an action has been completed and cannot be undone, then the after-the-fact dissonance compels us to change beliefs.

Theory of Emotion - James Lange
Event-> Arousal -> Interpretation = Emotion (which then starts another event)
Emotion attenuate cognitive processing
Is emotion caused by cognitive response?

Web Tech

Watched Andreas script a website with HTML and CSS for the entire class.

September 16, Tuesday
I was the first to get my name on the list for the choice of our Media Integration workshops and I managed to get into Sound! YAY!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Lecture + Tutorial #6

Photographic Ecstasy
Tame - Realism is relative, tempered by aesthetic or empirical habits
Mad - Realism in absolute

Persistence of vision puts into motion still images

Meaning + Memory -> Stream of Consciousness -> Production of Meaning

Production of Ceaning
1) Semiotics
2) Film Form
3) Cultural Plurality
4) Montage Theory
5) Form and Meaning

Dies Irae - Jean Gabriel Periot
- Event Horizon
- Audience not passive -> Becomes event
- Destination based

3 Steps to deconstructing video
1) Dumb Writing
2) Problematise
3) Provide Evidence

Stereoscopy
- What do they signify as one, as a whole, or as all?

Criteria for film form: Work must be finished
Sound = Add meaning

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Lecture #4

Semiotics & Mythology

Signs - Signifier - Signified


A direct and holistic relationship between signs, signifier and the signified. Rejects the characteristics that are important in a particular context (e.g. colour of pebbles, feel of pebbles) and linking others. All leading to the process of interpreting.

Semiology
Signs + Signifier + Signified = Context + Codes + Interpretation = Meaning
- A sign starts a regular activity, an inference, as it refers to its suitability to its context.
- Signs work because it is repeatable and/or it was done before - implying that it was learned.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Lecture #3, Web Tech #3, Talk - Han Yo Han

Stream of Consciousness

Today I was interviewed for a mental test, where there is a certain meaning for each question that I answer. The questions are:

"You are in a forest, describe this forest?",
"Start walking until you see a path, describe this path.",
"Walk along this path and you suddenly find a key, pick up the key and describe this.",
"Hold on to the key and walk on, you come across a pond. Come close to the pond, what do you do?",
"Now leave the pond and walk on the path again until you see a house, use the key and unlock the door. What do you see in the house?",
"Exit the house and keep walking. You see a road, what do you see?",
"Look beyond the road, what do you see?",
"Turn around and behind you, what do you see?"

The meaning are, as followed:
The forest describes your current condition, path describes your future, key describes how you solve problems, pond describes your desires, house describes your safety zone, road describes your distractions, beyond the road describes your goals, turn around look behind describes your reflection on the past.

Awareness
• Recognition -> Traits
• Projection (of subconscious)-> Behavior of compensation
• Introspective

Co-Consciousness
• The relation of experiences when they are experienced together
• Barry Dainton
• 1st consciousness + 2nd + 3rd + .... = Stream of Consciousness
• Being deductive
• Phenomenology
• Global Cultural Supermarket
o Consumerism
o Over saturation leads to people saying: I have to go away, I have to find myself
• Multiculturalism
• Identity
o What is Identity?
o Who are you? Not what are you?
• Dreams reflecting the ugly self
• Cognitive Dissonance
o Conflict of agreeable thoughts
• Not only what you are but what you're not.

Web Tech #3
News, Gossip, Poem, Art

Exercise 1: Choose one of the above categories, find an article online and choose one text paragraph. Divide the paragraph into 8 parts. Each part will then be represented by 1 web page. Link all the web pages together so that the 1st page links to the 2nd, the 2nd links to the 3rd, etc. From page 8 links back to page 1. Links should not open in a new window.

Exercise 2: Make the web pages link to each other in a non-linear way.

August 19, Tuesday
Attended a short talk by Korean media artist Han Yo Han at F201. The works (videos) that he shown us embodies little aspects of Korean culture, like how almost all his works shown includes blood, knives or violence. I feel that this artist is good at not only video but also motion graphics, an animation technique which is form of video too.

I'm surprised to hear that (if I haven't listened wrongly) video art is not so popular in Korea? As the founding father of video art is of Korean descendant! Or does Han Yo Han mean that it is not so appreciated by the mainstream audience instead of the art audience. Because I think everywhere in the world, the masses welcome the visually or audibly generic pleasure and most of the experimental works are unappreciated.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Lecture #2, Web Tech #2

Classical Narrative
Tragedy (PLATO)

6 key factors
1. Introduction • Accomplish Feel (essence) • Context
2. Exposition • Set a scene • Introduce characters
3. Development (Process) • Situation • Allude to conflict
4. Complication • Lives of the protagonists
5. Climax • The decisive moment of high suspense
6. Resolution • Sore spot : Hanging in the air (something unresolved) • Cultural: Matters are solved • Counter-cultural: Bad ending -> People cry (Appeal to emotion)

Generic Pleasure
Folklore or Horror or Slasher films • Ghosts have long hair and wear white (SEMIOTICS) •Visual Pleasure • Creative, inventive ways to make people die • Saw • Final Destination

Chronological VS. Chrono-logical
• Chronological o Linear – A to B to C, etc. Time in relation to space, Sequential
• Chrono-Logical • Challenge the logic of time, eg. Flashback

Takahiko Iimura
Blinking (1970)
Time Tunnel (1971)
Man and Woman (1977)

Gary Hill Blind Spot (2003)
• Flickering video art, Affective • irritation
• Conceptual art - Concept more important than content

PRE – Fantasy – AFTER
• When does fantasy and reality begin?
Realm • Subconscious/ Unconscious • The dreams unconscious

Fantasy
•Escapism, escaping reality
•Reminiscence – past events, revisit
•Desire, Lust, the DEVIL, Oedipus Complex

Response • Emotional • Intellectual

Abstraction
• Take the essence from different parts and put them together • A million hints = a single sensation • A single sensation = a million responses

Methods of Montage
1. Metric 2. Rhythmic 3. Tonal 4. Intellectual 5. Overtonal

Other notes:
Negativity reverse = positivity • Content delivering the concept • TEXT = what you can read (from a film, etc.) • "When the ‘want’ (desire) is fulfilled, fantasy dies" Persistence of vision • Persistence of memory • Time displacement

August 12, Thursday

Rashid's lecture = A lot of things learnt!

In web tech class, we watched a short video on TED.com, and did a short exercise where we had to gather information about various topics about Web 2.0 and thats it :/

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Lecture #1, Web Tech #1

Art = Form + Content
The second day of school, sunny day. Had herbal chicken soup at Bugis food court. Mmmmm... School starts at 9pm and ends at 6pm! But I managed to stay awake of course, I'm always in low energy consumption mode. Today I actually feel that I'm learning something from lecture, because Noora's lecture last year was just a whole bunch of theory to me

August 5, Tuesday

  • Introductory lecture for Issues in Media Arts by Rashid
  • Screening of a video (forgot the title >_<)
  • Examples of ways of seeing and interpreting an artwork
  • Group tutorial with Rashid
  • Learning how to judge an artwork
  • Web Tech class with Andreas
  • Created a blog for school documentation
7 factors to look out for in an artwork
  • What? Where? Why? Who? When? What happened before? What happened after?
Form - Visual aesthetics
  • Elements
  • Principles of design - balance, contrast, emphasis, proportion
  • Actual materials used - paint/brush, video, film, etc
Content - What the artist wants to say
  • Semiotics
  • The medium is the message - Marshall McLuhan
  • Metaphor
  • Cultural Plurality
  • Consciousness
  • Stream of Consciousness
  • Culturalism
  • Multiculturalim
Effect vs. Affect