Final Project WIP (The Stars Are Projectors)

My project is Based on a song called 'The Stars Are Projectors.' It's about stars literally being the things that project our life onto earth. The thing I'm posting isn't actually all the work I've got done. It's just the base of my picture. For some reason My other one wouldn't save for web.

I plan of putting a bunch of pictures of myself behind this so that all one can see is the image through the stars.

Proposal for the Final Assignment

In the final project, I want to make something not of this earth, but has the sentimentality that would be found here. Basically, I want to do something on space exploration or entertainment, I have an idea now that I'm particularly fond of. I was inspired by a Modest Mouse song called "The Stars are Projectors" I want to show a correlation between star gazing and entertainment.

Communication

In this picture I wanted to show two people right next to each other but completely oblivious. It's mainly a critique on the overuse of cell phones.For a while now, I have been kind of interested in creating something that shows how people can be living in the world but not actually living in the moment. People seem to always be interested in something that is happening somewhere else rather than what is around them. I think cell phones are a miraculous technology and they are make life much more convenient, but I don't think that they can replace actual human contact.
To make this I used very simple procedures in Photoshop. I simply took two photos in dark rooms and pasted them together over a black background. I hope it delivers the message I was wanting it to. I still have thoughts about using either only one picture or if I had the time, a lot of pictures like this creating a collage.If I ever use this idea again I may experiment with different subjects.

Living with Technology proposal

In this project I want to focus on people's face when they're looking at their phones. I mainly want to do this because I get annoyed when I'm talking to someone and they can't put their phone down (and I especially hate it when I catch myself doing it). This photo is really just a sample, the quality is obviously poor. On my actually project I plan on either having a slideshow of pictures similar to this one, each with a different person, or several people in a social situation, but all buried in their smart phones. The main thing that interests me about this is that people are fully able to submerse themselves into their own world were ever they go. That's why I am emphasizing the darkness around the light cast by the phone, it makes it seem as if nothing else matters.

Proposal for Assignment V

Like I said in my other recent blog post, I enjoyed 'Digital Nation's' exploration of the positive and negative qualities of technology. I love the idea of creating an ironic piece that shows someone being liberated and entrapped by technology. Like people who can fly but are always in cages, or people who know everything but can't remember any of it.

I haven't figure out exactly whether my project is going to be a gif, JPEG or video, but it shouldn't be hard to figure that out once I know exactly what I want to do.

Analysis of 'Digital Nation'

One aspect of Digital Nation that I particularly enjoyed is its exploration into the dual nature of technology. It showed that technology is severely effecting education, for kids from grade school to college. Some people are trying to incorporate technology into education and some are trying to go back to a simpler system. I liked how the documentary shows that technology has freed us and entrapped us. We have been able to more easily experience the world and interact with people ever since the start of the digital revolution. Everyone can know everything with in a matter of seconds, but it's not real knowledge. People don't bother to memorize things, and without memorization and actual knowledge that people store in their actual brains, they can't make connections. Making an assertive and specific correlation to two different thing is important in creative and logical thought. But that's becoming too much to ask of people because everything they know is only in their mind for a few minutes after they complete a Google search on it.

I think art is becoming more available to the masses, take myself as an example: before I started taking a class on digital manipulation, I never would have considered myself any sort of visual artist (I still don't), But now I can see that it's not so crazy for me to say I have some artistic skill. Of course, when something becomes accessible to more people there are positive and negative consequences. Now there are more artists who can spread their work around and gain a larger audience, but there's also more people who are witlessly filling the world with tasteless dreck. Like me.

Rocket Man

Rocket Man

 In this gif, I wanted to create something that gave a nod to space exploration. I used several images, both real and Photoshopped, as the background. I found the picture of the retro spaceman in a blog of vintage space exploration pictures. I wanted to show a contrast of technology, I featured a horse traveling through space extremely fast as a sort of absurd spacecraft. I also wanted to touch on the relationship of man and machine and how that has evolved from man and animal.