Paper Art

Emerging artist Jenny Stark creates art in this original way by cutting cheap and colorful construction paper into sculptures. All her art seems chaotic but is unified by the variations in color of the paper. The work that stands out to me is the one where an indent into the paper stack, is folded outward. This idea of cheap material goes way back on the blog “creativity without” where artist find whatever they can to make creative work. Stark takes her idea and runs with it by making all these piece of art relating to the colorful construction paper.



The pieces where Stark cuts into a plain block of paper, shows that there are more to objects than just the surface of it but also the colorful insides. As I look at the art it almost hypnotizes me with colors similar to the colors of the 70’s. The colors almost represent a hallucination a person can help but look at. Some of the pieces also relate to nature in that it blossoms out in a colorful flower-like hole. The patterns she cuts in are an example of repetition that then make a three dimensional sculpture of paper.
The pieces are all visual but can even give a movement or a sound to it. The colors can be bursting out of the paper with a sound of an explosion. The pieces give the viewer room to think of what could have happed similar to comics juxtaposing panels. No matter what the interpretation, Stark’s art creates potential for future pieces.

Compare and Contrast

Things to compare and contrast are the design of video game characters over the years from the company Nintendo. These designs are made from different artist throughout the years, but all try to show the same original character. The pattern that all the characters follow is that every character gains more realism over time. This is due to the technological advancement in hardware to animate the characters. The growing realism of characters shows that game developers are trying making more interactive games to engage the audience.

                Every new evolution of a character has more pixels and more colors, eventually becoming three-dimensional. Not all of the evolutions work in this exact trend such in the “Legend of Zelda” where the green character Link goes through a cartoony style in the “Wind Waker.” But even Link becomes a realistic human character over time. The transformation in games is a lot like the transformation in company logos over time. They both try to shape their product according to consumer demand. All logos are now realistic and simple, similar to Nintendo’s characters.

                The consistent simplicity of these characters are no accidents, they are simple to give the audience imagination that the character can be in almost any situation. The pink character Kirby is the most simple. Kirby is a symbol of what humans generally look like. These generalized characters are to provide a link to both gamers and games. Most of these characters do not have recognizable voices because the players are meant to be the characters and not a guide.

                The evolution of Nintendo characters from pixilated to realistic, shows Nintendo’s intention of building a relationship between game and player. Gradually until now characters have become virtually real but embody no personality or background. The realistic graphics are increasing while the character personality decreases.  

Design as a Conversation

An example of design as a conversation, is this video I watched a while back about the late John Lennon, though the interview is very insightful and philosophical, it was the visual animations following the interview that made me admire it. The overall work was a group effort made by director Josh Raskin, illustrators James Braithwaite and Alex Kurina. The style is almost collage-like, showing ideas Lennon talks about relating to society. The short film uses many different art styles from photographs, 3d objects, and illustrations as means of emphasizing Lennon's speech. Almost every word gets own segment in the film. Therefore the main meaning of the animation is to emphasize Lennon’s view of our current social status.

                Design in this case relates to conversation; in that it amplifies the conversation already there, and makes viewers second guess at their own thoughts. As I viewed this video I became more aware of Lennon philosophies and almost felt like I was in the room with him during the conversation. The animation shows Lennon’s possible imagination as he is being interviewed. Although the animation is very detailed, it cannot communicate the same way without the interview’s audio. This shows the unity the animation and audio have with each other. The audio provides the words and then the film provides the context. The animation is unified by these pen strokes that connect all the ideas together. The animation has a sketchy feel to show sort of a brainstorm on paper. Soon after it’s make this film was nominated for a academy award and won a emmy.              

Zoom Quilt

http://zoomquilt2.madmindworx.com/zoomquilt2.swf



There’s this thing I saw a long time ago called the Zoom Quilt, and basically it combines different illustrations of different artist and makes it an infinite zoom of them. It’s interactive by letting viewers on the web adjust the speed of the zoom. The quilt is collaboration like most quilts because each zoom leads to a different artwork by a different artist. Even though the artworks are from different artist they flow together in the zoom almost like it is one artist. The work as a whole reminds of stone soup by having different artist work together to make this quilt flow. Although it’s from the artist’s creativity, not surroundings, it is still an example of the power artist have as a group.

The illustrations are mostly abstract and random images, but really overwhelm the observer with thought. They are very colorful and full of different characters that do awkward actions. Also some M.C. Escher can be identified in the art as people walk on loopy staircases. If attention is taken to look at the illustrations, they hold mass detail and texture that immerses the observer into a world. As technology continues to grow we can see that more artists will use it to not only make object of use but objects of design. This art goes beyond the frame and interacts to develop a heavier bond with its audience. Soon even digital art will be replaced by interactive art similar to how digital art has replaced traditional art. Designs like these really invent new ways how we can present our work.

Creativity from Without

An example of design without creativity is this artist in New York who uses the air from subways to inflate these sculptures made of trash bags. He utilizes the environment around him to make something creative. His sculptures, mainly animals, show them as sleeping and when hit with a gust of air from the subway vent it comes alive and animates to the wind. Creations like these can be like the urban version of Andy Goldsworthy art. The artist uses the useless things in his environment and makes art that is aesthetically pleasing. It is also temporary like Goldsworthy's art in that people could just tear it down or the trash man would dispose of it.
Similar to stone soup this artist made use of what he had in his disposable and made something innovative from old things that others would never use. It characterizes creativity by looking like it’s a piece of trash scrap but then transforms into an almost animate being. The creative process is important in these kinds of art, because mostly they are visually pleasing to catch people’s eyes as they walk down the sidewalk and unlike still art it moves to call attention to its self. It usually reminds me of the air people from fans that businesses put outside to attract customers. This is for the art alone and is purely original in idea of what the environment has to offer to artist. This art inspires other designers like me to look at what’s around us that we can modify to create something eye catching.

Stone Soup

 Last week my first stone soup collaboration was very inspiring because of the magnitude of creativity of the design 1 class. All the designs were so thoughtful and creative; it was hard to find any of the collaborations to be the same. My group especially came out of their comfort zone to try to lead each other to make our stone soup tree. Our tree, at first, was just a thought of randomness but soon other group members contributed a personal item to build upon its aesthetic look. At the end we soon had something similar to a Christmas tree, full of ornaments and strings. Our tree was a mix of nature and our human-made trash. It wasn’t well thought out of what it would be, but it was really kind of improved like what jazz musicians do. The wind would knock down our tree but we would just put it up again with more tape. Overall there wasn’t much to say about the tree beside that it was a link to us and nature, using both artificial and natural items to blend into this creation.

Other groups were also very creative in using their surroundings, by turning what was already there into works of art. Groups told stories and made scenes of thought provoking art. From a man sitting on a bench to a colorful lamp post, the whole block was decorated. In the end it was sad to dismantle all the pieces of work and through them in the trash.  

Glen Keane Animation

Watching animation as a kid, made me always wonder how environments and characters could exist on the television. The idea of bunch of drawings, about twenty a second, was even more unbelievable than what was animated. One animator I admired was Glen Keane and his team of animators. Glen Keane didn't only have such amazing character designs but realistic human actions and emotions conveyed through his animations. His animation very realistic also had exaggerations such as Beast's size or Belle's innocence in the "Beauty and the Beast". The Disney animators create a illusion similar to comics in that a bunch of pictures make a story. But the difference in animation is that there is sound rather than words to read. In animation much of the imagination is up to the film makers to decide rather in comics things can be interpreted by the reader.
        Making different animators look like one work as a whole is a challenge. The style of Disney is being very fairytale like and flowing. Disney also has a bunch of cutesy characters that make the animation more children appealing. The film “Beauty and the Beast” is an example of Keane’s balance between realism and fairytale. Every mythical character, from Beast to his minion objects, expresses human behavior and emotion. Beast thinking or a teapot dancing gives the audience a link for them to relate to and become involved with the story. Though Glen Keane is the lead animator doesn’t mean he can do it alone. He can design the emotion and the key moments but the stuff in between takes other animators to make it all flow into one film. As I’m older now I can understand that a animation, though a lot of work, isn’t the most hardest work that can be done if there is preparation and design of what’s to be made. Though traditional animation is being replaced by digital, the passion to hand make a animation from pencil and paper continues to inspire me.        

Takashi Murakami

I think one of the most influential contemporary artist now is Japan’s Takashi Murakami. I was watching the ovation channel when I saw a show called "art safari" which featured his work. Though superficially Murakami's work is cartoon-like but implicitly it empresses Japan's childish social atmosphere which is full of toys and color. The critics of his art are asking the question whether his work is only for commercial gains or is it really passionate art. In the video Murikami talks about the blur between commercial brand and art. His idea is that in the future art and commercialism will be the same thing. The design of his art is very similar to the Japanese cartoons called anime. His artwork consists of all mediums from sculpture to animation. What are consistent throughout his work are the same big eyed smiling characters similar to Japans pop culture. Similar to Andy Warhol, he references characters from what’s popular which is anime and manga (comics) in Japan. His creations are consisting of many colors and smiling faces which can look scary sometimes. Murikami is trying to display Japan’s infatuation with its cartoons and their innocent culture. With the floral patterns he uses a lot, he shows the obedient Japanese abiding with other cultures.
The commercialism that blurs Murikami’s work is the Louis Vuitton designs hidden in his work or the sculptures that look more like manufactured toys. When going to look at his work it’s hard to tell if you’re in a store or an art gallery. His art though highly debated is thought provoking to anyone who views it. It begs the question of society’s culture in the future and whether or not art will be separable from commercial brand.

The Violin

 Photo by Ariadna Ruis 2005

An object's design instilled in my memory is the violin. When I was a child in elementary school I was mesmerized by the design of this instrument. The violin in design is so symbolic of music it often comes to my mind when i here classical music. The design of the violin is so aesthetic from the carved scroll to the shiny varnished wood surface but what I remember the most is how difficult the violin is to play compared to other instruments. As pretty as the violin was, the design didn't make it convenient to play better. When a guitar has frets to play notes, a violin has none and the cello with wide strings to finger, the violin has narrowed. The violin's design is so inconvenient that musicians had to invent the shoulder rest to keep the clunky violin from stabbing their collar bones. Also the violin, made of thin wood, made it easy to shatter dropping from shoulder height. But despite all these problems the violin is one of the most popular instruments in classical music. Its compactness and simplicity makes it easy for someone to pick up and play. It has the balance that other instruments lack in with size and complexity. The violin though very challenging to play is the simplest iconic instrument a musician can fiddle with. 

      When first grasping a violin with my hands, the feeling straighten my body to a sophisticated posture. The sound it makes as you bump with it personifies it to a living thing that interacts with you. After I'd have class the heavy varnish chemicals would stay with me on my fingers through the day and I would be constantly reminded of the object missing from between my shoulder and chin. As much as it was a pain to play, when I became better the sounds would sooth me and when the strings, played wrong, would screech in pain. Eventually the violin becomes a part of you and when gone it haunts the empty space it leaves with ominous silence.