SMP Critics

Rhina- Rhina's work was a sculpture built out of multiple sized rectangles which worked together to created a space or almost grid-like area around them. She used the color red to highlight and accentuate these rectangles and draw the viewer in. One of the main points brought up during her critic was on the directional lines within the piece. There was this whole discussion about how the lines draw you in, but then they don't extend back outwards and don't allow a continuity. A lot was discussed about how Stella and some other artist who's name starts with M, and my minds completely blanking on it for the moment, was meant to influence her work and in what ways.

Ashley- Ashley's work consisted of three distinct works that didn't share much in common aesthetically or in form, but where connected through subject matter. The most extensive of her works was her button collection. There was a brief discussion about how her paper shadow-boxes didn't really work well towards accentuating the work, and how the work itself came from her memory or imagination in terms of the type and form of the buttons showing up. One of her other pieces that didn't seemed to be as problematic as the other two was her spoons piece. This piece seemed pretty straight forward and within context. Her oil can piece though brought out a whole other set of issues since the size of the piece didn't really play into our associations with oil cans and initially the piece was mistaken for a muffin try, which it happened to be made of, and a collection of hangers.

Tom- Tom's work seem to undergo the least amount of critiquing. There was some discussion on whether or not he should enlarge his photo book or if he should leave it in its smaller size. The rhythm and spacing of his images within the book was also discussed. There were some places where the subject matter of the photos drew the viewer in more so then others and this effected the pace of the whole overall book.

Vanessa- Vanessa had her fox thing going on, but rather then depicting her foxes in her usual hunting scenes she uses the character of a fox to poke fun at Cosmo. and context by which it is viewed by girls and women alike in today's society. To do this she uses her fox character as someone that takes the messages of Cosmo. all to seriously, and ends up following Cosmo.'s four tips to success, or whatever. In the end all this tips backfire on the fox just in time for fox to receive the next edition of Cosmo. and make all the same mistakes over again.

Postcard Plan

So for my postcards I have decided I'm going to be doing a series of three postcards, each of which will be connected to a verse from Edgar Allen Poe's poem Dream-Land. I decided on Dream-Land because it is a poem about a dream-like landscape that reminded me a lot of a creepy version of Historic St Mary's City. With this in mind, I decided that I was going to create a series of postcards that take the form of a dream-like journey between the St Mary's landscape at the time of Caecilius Calvert and Anne Arundel and the St Mary's Landscape today. In order to do this I'm going to take pictures of the current St Mary's landscape and overlap them and change them to come up with a different landscape that is reminiscent of the one we are familiar with but that at the same time is completely different and almost unfathomable in it placing in time and context. Into these landscapes I will incorporate and scan images from both the past and the present, interacting in surreal like ways.

Here are the sketches of my initial plans, unfortunatly my roommate's scanner does not really like pencil, but the basic idea is still there.

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)