On Media and the Alteration of Art

In the article, On Media, the author discusses the phenomenon of hybrid media, combining different types of media together to create a new type. Some examples were silent films with text on the screen and an orchestra playing music along with the movie. This type of art is important because every single new hybrid form breeds a new form of artwork. Media changes and evolves constantly, and if different types can be used together, the new form can become more convenient, perhaps easier, and perhaps more elegant in its design.  Now with the digital world, there are so many ways to produce new media and mix and match whatever one has available. This can be dangerous in some instances, such as photoshop being used to add, delete, and edit parts of true photographs, and claiming the edited photograph to be true. However, photoshop can also be used to enhance, add interesting effects, and create impossible but hilarious situations. Because of this, having a medium like photoshop is necessary for the progression of art and media. Another media that uses this manner of changing reality is film and the use of green screens. In fact, anything and any scene can be created and changed with the green screen, which can confuse our perception of what is real and not. This is extremely effective for films, however, because they do not need reality to be created, and can rely on a false reality made possible by the digital age.

http://vimeo.com/83910533

This video does a brilliant job of capturing different styles of art and putting them together to create something beautiful. The fact that we have the means to take an older style of painting and  digitize and make it move and change is incredibly powerful. The power of art and technology intertwined has come so far, and will continue expanding into the future.

On Media Reading Response

The constant progress of media advancement brings about a logical side-effect that certain aspects of culture (especially media culture) and societal influence by media are changing as well.  With advancement, ultimately comes the dis-use and discarding of old technology and old methods. The article names several instances of media advancement and what new benefits were brought and what “old” practices were cast aside.

With the invention and widespread implementation of photography, for example – the painting of certain scenes is no longer a celebrated art form. And this is, in my opinion, a bit sad. The article names battle paintings as something that has gone as a result of the photograph which just shows the blunt, bloody, and factual side of war instead of highlighting the glory and heroism of painted artwork. This is also an instance where mass production/printing has changed society’s interaction with such media. In the past, an artist would paint a mural or a painting depicting scenes of battle and great victories (perhaps glossing over the massive loss of life) and then people would gather to see one or maybe two reproductions of the painting – celebrating the battle and interacting with each other. Now, we can just pull up the images on websites or in newspapers without ever having to collectively honor and glorify the actual art of war.

The ongoing debate is whether or not these changes should be categorized as good or bad… or a bit of both? While one can always argue that the invention of new modes and methods and discarding the old is a travesty to history and we should stay with the traditional ideas – it is inevitably a consequence of “moving with the times”. Perhaps then, we are better off not confronting new ideas and methods with hostility and doubt, but rather embracing them and focusing on the future – while also maintaining the ways of old into our museums and historical archives, so that proceeding generations can learn where we came from and how we got to where we are today.

On*****Media Response

As indicated in "On*****Media," media, in all of its forms, is constantly striving to improve and to reimagine itself. To support this claim, the author cites the transition from paintings to photographs. Another great example of endless progression in a medium can be seen in film. Caroline, with her discussion of Wall-E, already touched on the notion I am about to address. Specifically, the creation of Pixar is a perfect example of the tireless efforts to revolutionize a medium as technology progresses. Before Pixar, animated films consisted of mostly 2D animated films, which had been around since the first release of a 2D feature film (Disney's Snow White and Seven Dwarfs). Pixar then revolutionized the animated feature. Pixar originally formed as a section of the Computer Division at Lucasfilm. During their time at Lucasfilm, the team developed a new animation program (I am pretty sure the team was given permission by Lucas himself to develop such a program). This creation then evolved, as computers did, into the Pixar Image Computer. Unfortunately, I do not have a large amount of knowledge in relation to computer animation and the way in which these programs work (otherwise, I would provide a much more colorful explanation in relation to this medium's progression). At any rate, even an individual with little experience in computer animation, such as myself, can understand the transformation Pixar films have undergone, starting with Luxo Jr. and finishing with Pixar's latest release entitled Monsters University (not to mention the progression from 2D to computer animated features). Even the most simple difference, such as more defined textures, is noticeable when the two aforementioned Pixar works are compared. To have a fuller understanding of how computer animation and Pixar has progressed, I highly recommend watching The Pixar Story. The documentary provides its viewers with the understanding of how the development of technology greatly impacted the creation of computer animation films.

And while I do agree greatly with what "On*****Media" and my classmates have said about media and its development, I cannot help but think of the viewing of The Wizard of Oz I recently saw. This showing was not typical in the sense that I just streamed the video online or popped a DVD into my computer and watched the classic. Instead, I attended a symphony concert where the Pops orchestra accompanied the film. Specifically, the film was stripped of all music and all orchestrations were instead performed live [1]. In the past few years, this type of showing has become very popular across the country; symphony halls show classic films and provide the live orchestrations. Thus, I cannot help but wonder how this relates to "On*****Media." After all, my classmates (myself included) and the article agree that media is constantly developing. So what does it mean that an aspect of media has now reverted back to the time of silent pictures. After all, "On*****Media" even mentions the presence of orchestras during the original screenings of silent movies. The article does say art is mimetic, but does it mean in the sense that art can revert back to a dated form? Is it possible that this transition backward could only have been made as a result of technological advancements (the conductor does have a computer that provides time markers to pace the orchestra)?

Post-Media and Pissing on Art

"The artist is a not great creator—Duchamp went shopping at a plumbing store. The artwork is not a special object—it was mass-produced in a factory. The experience of art is not exciting and ennobling—at best it is puzzling and mostly leaves one with a sense of distaste. But over and above that, Duchamp did not select just any ready-made object to display. In selecting the urinal, his message was clear: Art is something you piss on." - Stephen Hicks

Up until the very late 19th century, Art was mostly a manifestation of aristocratic societies. The artist, whether an Egyptian slave carving the Pharaoh's tomb, or Michelangelo painting for the Pope, or Monet painting for some rich socialité, art was a consequence of social inequality, and for most people, a luxury. The advent of state socialism, the general improvement of everybody´s lot, mass communications and production...all that changed the scope of art and consequently, its very nature. It is no longer a superior material expression of society. Duchamp killed that notion. He killed art as humans knew it for 10,000 years or however long we've been doing it. He was against it, against art. He wanted to tell everybody how ridiculous this concept that people had of it was. 

Today, everybody is an artist and nobody is an artist. We do have people who earn a living out of it. But most of us have also made a 6-second Vine video and some of them are pretty good too. We like them better sometimes than the current media exhibition at ROCCO. Make a .gif, a website, buy some flower stuff at Michael's and do something for your grandma. Is is art? Wrong question. There is no such thing as art anymore, I think. We have people who paint really well, people who pretentiously or not paint something abstract, we have filmmakers and singers, etc, etc. And of course, there's everybody else with a pencil or a laptop. What's good art? What's not? 

......

Media is a wonderful curse. Everybody gets a shot. Greatness is gone too. There are no more masterpieces. They are just too difficult, and there are too many art critiques to agree on one. We want it easy. More people can create their own concepts and do something to represent them. Its valid. In a society where everybody is equal, the name of the game is mediocrity. No matter who or what you are, you can still be somebody. You do get the occasional star, but it will hardly shine by producing videos of cats on YouTube. Take a look at Tom Hanks' speech to the Yale graduates. 
"My appearing today at Yale University is surely one of the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse...Please, DO NOT turn off your electronic devices. Take the speech and set it to music, and maybe insert some crazy cookie graphics, posted on the web, and if it becomes a viral sensation, you'll be equal to any cat playing with a paper bag, as popular as a cute girl that sings about Fridays...hey! you can be the next Sam Tsui!...Boredom has been vanquished! That same technology has allowed for a surplus of celebrities, and that is nothing to cheer about."
Welcome to the "playback" culture Hivagimyan talks about. 

Post-media has the potential to break this pattern, (or perhaps make it worse). To bring spontaneity, originality and less of a standardization of culture and media. Computer algorithms making art? Maybe, but certainly new and unexpected things can come out of them just as we have seen with the advent of photography, video, and .gif art. We could stop reproduction and iteration, or at least contain it. And we will still keep doing those things that we have been doing for a while, like cat videos, and funny videos, etc., just as people keep sketching and painting and playing acoustic guitars.We might stop pissing on art for a while. Or maybe that's exactly what we should keep doing. 

There are many great artists out there today. Great pianists, insightful directors, etc, whether they are recognized or not. But there's a lot of shit out there too, I think. Or too many art critiques. Not sure which one.

On Media Response - Remediation Rocks

Media is constantly changing and getting recycled, that is what makes it so cool! With the invention of new technologies come new ways to create art, and new ways to disseminate information. As McLuhan says, the medium is the message and with that, the message is constantly changing through which medium we decide to send it through. As Hovagimyan writes, painting completely changed with the arrival of photography. Suddenly, the photograph was capturing a moment in time with exact details, and there was less pressure on painting to convey realism. As we see today, the arrival of photography didn’t cause painting to go extinct, merely transform. This is remediation. Remediation, according to Bolder and Grusin, is “the representation of one medium in another” but it is also the historical process defined by the ways new media refashion older media and the ways in which older media refashion themselves to answer challenges of new media. For example, there are artists who specialize in painting scenes that look hyperreal, as if they were photographed. There are many ways to look at remediation. Remediation can be seen as a new medium offered as an improvement, the new medium is still justified and seeks to remain faithful to the older medium’s character; the new media projects itself as progress. Remediation can be viewed as a new medium aggressively trying to replace the older one; refashioning the older medium or media entirely while still marking the presence of older media and maintaining sense of multiplicity or hypermediacy. The third way to view remediation is the new medium trying to absorb the older medium so there are not as many discontinuities, the entire act of remediation ensuring that the older medium is not entirely erased – it is replicating the way of the older medium. For example, Edward Hopper’s New York Movie Theatre painting is a painting representing film. My favorite example of remediation is the end credits in Wall-E. The end credits of Wall-E are a remediation of art in general from cave paintings to hieroglyphics to Mediterranean mosaics to pointillism to Van Gogh to a video game. The creators are secretly saying, “Look! The digital age can create an image just as good as Van Gogh complete with pixels and the ability to zip it up and send it through cyberspace. Wall-E is an example of Remediation II, the new medium trying to replace the older medium, refashioning the older media while maintaining the sense of multiplicity and hypermediacy. In the end credits of Wall-E, the digital is superseding and taking over – it is an homage to past mediums with a hint of aggression. While watching the end credits we are reminded that we are engaging in both the older medium of painting and the newer media of cinema (specifically digital cinema) because we can see pixels move – we are completely conscious that the new medium (cinema) is conveying an older medium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuR8uq9J7gw - Wall-E end credits

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpqut_the-revolution-will-not-be-televise_music - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Response to "On Media" -- Harris

In this article, ON*****Media, the writer give us a general idea of what is the "Post Media", which he believe is the "current climate of the arts", and "there is only dynamic iterations of form". The iteration of form somehow lead me to think of the how advance in technology like video, video editing software, has change the media.  the iteration of form, the repetition, the copying and remixing of an art piece is what illustrate the "current climate of the arts".

In the series of video " Everything is remix" pretty much summarize in a world where all media is being mass produced at an impossibly fast rate, it seems destined that anything "original" will end up copying some existing piece of work, even if that is unintentional (i.e., the moment in "Everything is a Remix" featuring George Harrison's 'subconscious' copying of an early Motown tune.) Even when unintentional, many artists display copying, no matter how minute it may be. This copying may not manifest itself so obviously as George Lucas' shot-for-shot matching of Kurosawa in "Star Wars," but may instead take shape in terms of form and style. I am not entirely convinced by "Everything is a Remix," of the fact that we all stand much to gain from copying.

Hollywood has created a formula for all movies, and the entire art of film has been com-modified and standardized. We all crave this universal movie formula, and the culture industry understands it can make money off of that formula by reusing it again and again. Our cultural experience is thus com-modified, and, subliminal or not, all artists are susceptible to this standardization of culture. This makes it impossible to create anything that is truly "new" or even "art" for that matter, since (at least according to A & H) art should be art for its own sake and not have any monetary value.

While this seems a bit extreme, I think there is some validity to it. "Everything is a Remix" even references this point during part two, when it points out the fact that 74 out of 100 blockbusters from the past year have been remakes of or sequels to existing films. "Transforming the old into the new is Hollywood's greatest talent," claims the narrator. He goes on to explain that the remaining "original" blockbusters were all genre movies which "stick to pretty standard templates." (key word there, STANDARD). The narrator seems to be ragging on Hollywood here for its incessant use of copying which, of course, serves the main purpose of giving audiences what they want. Hollywood has determined that what audiences want (or, at least, what they think they want) is what they're USED to. The narrator says that directly at some point in the video, but I couldn't find the actual quote.

This is the one hiccup that I personally find with the video's argument. He' all in favor of copying, but here he seems to be ragging on Hollywood for doing just that. He even admits that indie art films, the holiest films of the film world, are susceptible to standardized formulas, thus making them nothing more than elaborate money-making schemes. Given this, it would seem that not all copying is good, especially copying that is used to take advantage of the public, but he never seems to make that admission.

Just like any other creative person, I see the nuisance of copy and patent trolls and wish they would all got discard. I think copying and building off the work of others is the best way we can enhance ourselves artistically and scientifically. It just seems like there's a pretty big gap between what should be considered "good" and "bad" copying that goes unexplained.

On ***** Media Response - Ekin Erkan

Romanticism, often conceptually narrative in the sanguinary French Revolution, depicts a zeitgeist of blaring pioneer-ship of human feats and battle victories. Such chronicles neglected the gray and black despair of humanity often rooted in war, with Lord Byron accentuating the exoticism in drama and history. The tragedy of Gericault's The Raft of Medusa is lost on our hardened generation who recognizes mangled soldiers not as heaving Gods but pure souls making the piece enshrined in "art history's" velvet. While aesthetically and symbolically poignant, there is something far too grand in Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People that strikes current intermedia with a dagger of emotional disparity.

While Eugene was punk for his time - rejecting academic perfection in art with substitution for free brush colors, anti-monarchist art is best set upon a more decrepit pedestal (cue "God Save the Queen").
Robert Capa's bleakly and characteristically monochromatic scenario best slips the dagger to Romanticism's throat - the masculine, Ancient Greek harping and championing of combat is folly. Images of civilians darting during1939 air raids and the contorted bodies of Spanish Civl War soldiers can be described as brute and grotesque - but certainly ever real - as if to blare "War is never beautiful and romantic. Fuck your cinematic autherism." Robert Capa brought emotional poignance to reality in his photography - seemingly rejecting Romanticism.

In his "On ***** Media," Hovagimyan speaks of philosopher Wittgenstien's Logical Positivism - submitting all activity, and, thus, art as cross-lingual communication in structure. This posits much more innocence than Plato, who would grow blush in the face to such preposterous claims (rather Book X of The Republic era Plato would be the ever-wrathful), submitting all art as mimetic. In imagining the  portrait of a chair, the first layer of the "ideal" structure is fixed in God's perfection - for He creates all things - and the second layer in the carpenter of the tangible structure - the chair's furnisher. Thus, the painter or poet knows much less than the "ideal" for she/he only holds a representation of a representation. The artist is twice removed from genuine knowledge. Plato proposed an epistemological argument: all knowledge in art is flawed and the artist doesn't hold any knowledge (such knowledge exists only in the ideal, which the philosopher has access to via the armchair). Plato, hence, submitted art as dangerous and flawed.

Yet, it seems that there is an innately healthy articulation between emotional sensation, symbolic connection, and aesthetic realism in art (which Plato, perhaps, never sensed). This brings people together in celebration - from Paris Fashion Week(s) to Chaos to Couture. The isolation of reality in place for Freudian irrationality is only natural with rejection, hence Surrealism and pre-cursor Dadaism (or, more entirely, the avant-garde). This seems to be the true homeland for our generation's art, a generation a bit destroyed by media influx, economic hopelessness, and systematic dream-burrying. Art of the 1920s saw beauty and celebration of human feats had been substituted for the entirely illogical (a reflection upon human meaningless and animalism), fantastical, and sometimes sexual underbelly of the human psyche.  Take a reproduction of the alphabet - Luis Aragon's Suicide, included in Picabla's Cannibale. Meaning is seemingly lost, like WWI's lost young soldiers.

Fashion photographer Guy Bourdin well depicted the celebration of the surreal with such ephemeral emotional connection in his articling for Vogue France 1955 in his surreal fashion films. Carnal, bare, and fetish-like, Bourdin's early depictions still resonate within the avant-garde fashion forces from Rick Owens to Aoi Kotsuhiroi. The influence can be traced to Dogme 95 films of Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, and Harmony Korine that incorporate Super 8 and 16 mm film to project the bare basics of art - emotional connectivity via the grainy poignance of something aesthetically thwarted.

Aoi Kotsuhiroi Heels

Hence, the vulgarly human art - punk and raw in nature -  requiring no airs and an open mind from the audience is the future. There is no room for romanticizing in the strictly DIY interaction (not meaning half-rate "hipster art"of no technical quality, thought, knowledge or vision for the sake of production - plaintive art requires effort, dedication and altruism). Performance art, as I noted in my previous post, rivets a pang of beautifully human inter-connection. Anything not offered for blatant reaction in a one-layered context (read: Andy Warhol's Piss Paintings - the only artist justified in his canvas-pissing is Jackson Pollock) or under ostentatious silken covers can achieve this - and, thus, thank Plato for the Death of Romanticism.