Here it is

enjoy.

Final Thoughts

For this project I wanted to explore symbols and the meanings that we attach to them based on their environment. My project starts out slow. It allows the viewer to fully comprehend and contemplate the images. As it progresses, the pace quickens and the animation becomes more dissonant. This forces the viewer to make quicker judgments and form their ideas on an ever increasing visual environment. In this way, I feel that my project comments on contemporary life without being too direct.

Objective

At its core, this project is an exploration of pictograms, icons, their implied meaning, and how the meaning can be changed based on semiotic relationships and environment. There is a surreal element in my work where the icons change seemingly from one scene to another with no overall general theme. This is intentional, because I want the viewer to develop their own interpretation and find their own semiotic relationships between the scenes.
Topics of love, greed, hate, and consumerism are all hinted at, but not necessarily overtly displayed. Symbolism can be found in a lot of the scenes, but it is not essential.
I only want sound effects, no music, for my accompanying audio tracks. I think this will help keep the focus on the images instead of the music. Plus, I think that if I had background music it might look too much like a cartoon montage.
Visually, I want everything except the icons to be rough and loose with a strong analogue feel.
The very last composition is the iconic fake gun shot. This is an existential dissertation of sorts that plays with concept of using loaded imagery without any specific intent. kind of.

Story board

Final Project Thoughts

Subtlety and surrealism are the keys for this project. Basically, I want to create a weird, surreal picture of a strange world doing even stranger things. My imagery is going to be analogously derived. This project is going to be a direct allusion to our society in a hopefully non obvious and non angsty way. Now I need to make a storyboard, and figure out all of my aesthetic decisions.

10.24.07 Project

This project was really helpful for me because it refined my direction for the class and gave me a lot of interesting are to conduct some further research.
I based my idea for this project the essay "Body ritual among the Nacirema." This essasy describes american traditions of hygene from a purely anthropolicical viewpoint. It focouses on magic and a general sense of absurdity that surrounds a lot of our rituals of our body.
I chose to work in more a direction that is more consumer oriented for this project. Secondly, I was wanting to work on transition points between compositions, because I feel that I am weak in that aspect.
This project seeks to point out how many of the promiment activities of our culture can be reduced to symbols, and when the become these symbols there meaning is condensed and instantly clear. I rendered these symbols with the word "magic" repeated continously. On each symbol is also a label that simply states "i believe in magic"

This project made me realize that I am really interested in the customs, rituals, and symbols that surround us, how they are formed, and what they say about us a society. In fact, I feel that all of my projects this far can fit under this concept.

So Ive been absent, but in case if you missed it........

Text Project (Now With Video)

I chose to use text from poet/musician/visual artist adam drucker. Basically, he writes these strange, stream of consciousnesses poems that use a lot of really abstract metaphors. A lot of his subject matter is about how weird our society is, and while his work tends to portray the negative aspects of our society, he also manages to touch on some nice things too.

It too me a while to get a handle of the path text tool, but i got it figured out. Mostly, I just really tried to interpret his text with my text and emphasize line and phrases that I thought were important.

Machine Post

I really wanted to experiment with repetition in this piece. I am more pleased with the second scene than the first. All in all, I think that this project could make a good starting point for another, more fully developed, piece.

The basic idea behind this piece is that our society is oversaturated with medication. The pills move intricately from hand to hand showing how hyped these medications have become. The smiley recepticale catches the pills, and beings to glow, but he can only take so much. After a while the smiley looses his shine and becomes grey. After this point, no matter how many pills are stuffed into the faces, they can not smile anymore.

Story board

There are still a lot of visual issues im working on with this project but concept wise I have a direction going.

I want to make a machine(s?) out of body parts, and have all of the various limbs acting as a kind of conveyor belt. They are going to be moving various icons into vacum tube looking things, and at the end all of the icons are going to be show popping up and making somthing or filling something. I like me some specifics.

Other artists

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+way+things+move&search=Search

this is pretty cool. I really like how the animations transition to each other, and the industrial atmosphere is nice too.

http://www.radio-guy.net/

here is some weird stuff to look at.

Revisions

Basically, I just tightened up my animations, replaced the main character, and tweaked a few small timing issues.

Project one write up

This project is about our society and this false sense of individuality that we have. If we all experience the same television shows, and wear the same clothes, can we really be that different?

I spent 16 hours in a car this weekend and it really helped me solidify in my mind what kind of work i want to make this semester. Unfortunatley this led to me deciding to start over and I guess overall my project was a little rushed. I learned a lot and am now pretty comfortable working with in the timeline in AE. My biggest challenge for this project, and most others still remains not being satisified with something when it is 90% done. After all, god is in the details.

Perceiving Perceptions

As an artists I am interested in perceptions and how they are formed. I
always find myself thinking about how other people view the world
around them, and how these opinions of the world are often extremely
polarized. I want to examine how good can exist in evil and evil can
exist in good. Essentially, instead of trying to separate issues into merely black or white, I want to display both the black and the white of social issues simultaneously, and doing so will expose the social constructs of our society and encourage the viewer to ponder the morality and ethics of our world.

There is a psycological theory called selective attention. Basically it states that we can only pay attention to a limited amount of all of the stimuli around us. In other words, it is impossible for us to fully experience any experience. I
find thistheory very interesting and want to appropriate it from its psychological roots and apply it to a more sociological role. In other words, instead of focusing
on physical stimuli, I want to look more at ethics and how they can be
skewed and taken out of context when we start to rationalize things.

There can be good in evil and evil in good. Take gated communities for
example. We build beautiful house and try to make them safe and
exclusive. In doing so we inevitably create not only safety, but also
isolation from our surroundings destroying a sense of community. So,
safety is good, but at what cost? On the flip side of this idea, we
could think about drug addicts. In their situation they have a terrible
addiction that has the potential to ruin their life and the lives of
those around them. However, even crackheads still get that occasional
moment of bliss. I am interested indepicting these types of duality in my artwork.

Essentially,my work is about duality of perception, and how we perceive cultural
issues around us. Instead of taking an issue and polarizing it to make
social commentary, I want to show both the positive and the negative of
an issue. The scenery really depends on the view.

Its Idea Time!

I.
Contrast
Juxtapostion
Conflict
Intersections
Differences
Change
Transformations
Colissions
Inequalities
Stange beauty in the unexpected
similiar differences
assemblages
processes
evolving
combinations
exageration
narrative
unconventional
criticism
not angsty
II.
static
boring
passive
isolated
normal progressions
standardized
processed
12 step programs
infomercials
point a to point b
cordinated
un imaginative
simple
plain
straightforward
modernism
original intention
unmodified
in context
synergy
the party line
III.
child being turned into a model employee
assembly lines
normal people suddenly famous
child instantly becoming an adult
fantasys and boredom crashing together
insatiable consumption
images from old engravings engaged in modern debacuhery
unconventially displayed items moving majestically
inanimate objects being conducted
rusty cans being builidng block for a castle
a vulture dragging near dead prey to a water hole
the sun and the moon fighting for sky timeshares
the urban and suburbanite merged in specific ways
burning money
children treating guns like toys
nature being controled by machines
trash finding value through volume
fashion coliding with practicality
Ridiculously small cell phones
IV.
Natural progession of nature
The water cycle
Socialism
Pictures of paradise
urban decay decaying
normalness
an inequalityh graph showing everything to be equal
a half empty glass with a hole in the side
birds migrating to where there supposed to go
soldiers following orders
a reliable low mileage car sold by a nice used car salesman
mortals not wanting to live forever or fly
a sober wifebeater
inbred philosiphers conducting townhall assemblies
high school legacys
a train that derails onto antoher set or rails
graffitti cleaning a city
churches spending all of their money on poor people
a cheerful person crying in a room full of strangers
a braggadico excercising humility.

P O S T T W O

I still like baby donkeys, but tractors are cool too.

First Post: A baby donkey dissertation

baby donkeys are cute. maybe too cute.