Photoshop Contest

The Dressing Room

Burroughs' Cut-ups

These readings introduce the different methods known to be used in the cut-up techniques of the surrealists. The process of the cut-up method is described as the cutting up and rearranging of old prose into new poems. The key debate in the first reading was whether our not it is acceptable to use computer software in the rearranging of prose, and how much this method is reflective of the subconscious. The other reading just gave us some basic information behind the process of the cut-up method. Overall I think the reuse and rearranging of words as a form of creating new poetry and ideas is a good one, but I still think in order for this method to work it must be consciously done by an individual in order for it to reach it true potential and creative merit. I'm still kind of unclear of the exact role William Burroughs played in this whole endeavor?

Healing and Patch Tools

Dada... Johannes Baargeld

The Dada artist I chose to write about was Johannes Baargeld... In the two examples of his work shown he has use the techniques of photomontage and collage in his work Ordinäre Klitterung: Kubischer Transvestit vor einem vermeintlichen Scheideweg and overpainting in his work Le Roi rouge.

Ordinäre Klitterung: Kubischer Transvestit vor einem vermeintlichen Scheideweg

In this work Baargeld cuts up different photographs to form a photomontage. In this process Baargeld also uses the typical techniques that form a collage, not all of his images are photographs, in fact many of them are paper clippings like you would find in most regular collages.

Le Roi rouge


This work uses mostly just the technique of overpainting since he is painting or drawing over and incorporating different aspects of the original piece or scrap and creating a new work of art. He also uses a slight bit of typography, but that is some what over shadowed by the drawing aspects of the work.

Audio Journey Project

Here it is... Languages, my journey audio.

This three minute audio clip is designed as a quick journey through my childhood starting out from my birth and running up until I was about 15. There are two different components in this piece that work together to recreate the first 15 years of my life.
One of these components is the on going narrative of my life that I have bouncing around between the background and the foreground of my piece. This narrative quickly summarizes some of the most important and memorable experiences of my life; the birth of my brother, moving from country to country, helping name my sister, and similar occurrences.
The narrative aspect of this piece consists of two different levels; that of the basic matter of fact narrative that just gives us an overview of my childhood, plain, simple, and straight to the point and an overlapping of comments and details that a reflective of the basic narrative.
The narrative was also done in Spanish, the language that dominated most of my childhood, with an underlying of English that for the most is covered up by the Spanish. Much like how English was always in the background of my childhood, but never a really prevalent thing.
The other component of this recounting of my childhood is the layering of various noises that remind me of specific moments or periods of my childhood. Each of this sounds triggers a memory or an experience that has a more of an emotional tie to my childhood then the matter of face and basic principles highlighted in the narrative. These sounds consist of air planes flying overhead, gun shots, an open air market, and the rain forest.

Sounds Accridited:
Freesounds Project
Rain By sazman (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=5726)
061224-chongnangnyi-market1(edit).wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=28250)

Plane By FreqMan (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=92661)
weirdplane.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=24272)

Gun Shots By WIM (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=22241)
gunshots.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=26141)

Birds By genghis attenborough (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=205108)
Boat trip edt.wav (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=28107)

Market By jenaber27 (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/usersViewSingle.php?id=111582)
interlochen-06_thunder1.aiff (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=30619)

Janet Cardiff

I had head of Janet Cardiff’s work before, and the one thing everyone seemed to describe it as was spooky, now I can see why. Her use of the three-level spatial structure fooled your mind into hearing and believing in noises that were not even there. I was not even on one of her guided walks, and there were some points where I didn’t know if what I was listening to was real or just a part of the audio piece. She uses the three-level spatial structure as almost three different levels on which to disorient you. On one of the levels you can hear Cardiff’s voice guiding you, and your mind initially focuses in on this level as the level on which she is sending you different sounds, the fake level, but as she adds sound to the background and foreground you realize that you can no longer distinguish from what is real and what is just sounds she is feeding to your mind. Some of her comments I found extremely wired and I couldn’t place them, but I imagine that is one of the things you would pickup and understand better if you were on the actual walk.

Ectoplasm - Lance Winn

I went to Lance Winn’s lecture on ectoplasm, or the tactility and form of art. What really struck me about this lecture was how well he described his process and intent for his artwork. He came up with all these different and crazy ideas and then worked them through for results that he would later build off of and improve on. He just took stuff he was curious about and went for it. At first I was a bit skeptical, I mean I found the lawn ornaments were a bit, well, out there, but as I saw him build up his though process and explore these different areas of art that we usually ignore or take for granted I was sucked in. Some of my favorite pieces of his were the landscapes he built out of his mistakes. He just kept on cutting away at the paper until he found something he was happy with. This idea of just working on a piece of art with no preemptive design or motives is sort of refreshing, you just work on it and work on it until you get to a point were you are comfortable with it. That and I, for one, have in the process of making of my own work encountered several mistakes of my own, that I have had to work around, and for the most part the results that occur from fixing these mistakes invoke creative solutions and usually an unexpected result that on many occasions turns out to be better then the original idea.
Lance Winn’s combination of the 2D and the 3D aspect of art, PBS art tips, and name tracing took simple ideas and applied them in new and creative pieces of art.