Research Blog Post 5: Downloading Pixels

Downloading Pixels is an art piece by Scott Blake. In his biography Blake "takes bar codes and turns them into art- art that is simultaneously pop and op, intellectual and personal, minimal and ocular. Blake uses the black and white icon of our data drenched existence to simulate thought on topics form consumerism to religion and individual identity. He urges the viewer to consider the limitations of digitized human expression and to appropriate these symbols of  commodity."

The description of this piece on Rhizome.org says "This net art piece captures the flow of downloading images onto your computer. This animation will look different depending on what web browser you are using. If you are using Firefox try viewing this in Explorer or on an iPhone. Internet connection speed and computer processing power will also determine the final the outcome. Experiment with the different settings and unusual patterns will emerge." If you play around with this interactive art piece you can manipulate the download rate and the style of the piece. This makes me think about how drastic the internet has changed in only a few decades. Now the biggest file capacity is in Pentabytes. It makes me understand how impatient I am when the internet is slow or not available. 

I like how interactive this piece is and the versatility that it can be. I felt like an artist changing the style and speed of the formats. I wouldn't change anything. 

Sources: Bio of artist: http://rhizome.org/profile/scottblake1// Rhizome: http://rhizome.org/artbase/artwork/48619/
Downloading  Pixels Art Piece: http://www.barcodeart.com/artwork/netart/downloading/index.html

Research Blog Post 4: Attention Hog

"Attention Hog" is a interactive game made by Chris Basmajian. Basmajian is an interactive artist whos artwork definitely has more of an in depth meaning then what is perceived.

For instance, this game, "Attention hog" was described in Rhizome.org as "The player is cast as a pig whose goal is to capture the love and attention of as many people as possible. The game’s subject reflects some of the social and psychological trends present in social-networking communities, including self-promotion, social anxiety, obsessive need for peer validation, and distraction as entertainment. The game operates on a conventional level, and can be shared with others and embedded on web pages, blogs, and social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace." When i played this game, I thought it was fun in lighthearted, but the inner meaning of this game really made me introspective as to how i view acceptance on social media. 

I wouldn't change anything about this game. It increasingly gets harder to attract attention and stay alive. I love the name and the overall aspect. It speaks volumes towards the "me" generation. 

Sources: game: http://basmajian.net/work/attention_hog/ quote:http://rhizome.org/artbase/artwork/48082/

Research Blog Post 3: Untitled (Pink Dot)

This piece is called "Untitled (Pink Dot). It was created by Takeshi Murata. He is a modern artist who is known for the technique of "data moshing" this is when an artist takes segments of other .AVI digital video files and puts them together to create one piece of artwork. This piece seen here is the final product.

I like this piece because it recycles old material and forms a new work of art. I think Murata is trying to say that anything can be reused and re purposed to make art.

The only critique that I would like to see in this piece is more color. Video files can be bright and exciting. I would like to see another piece of recycled data that is as bright and colorful as the pink dot in the center of this piece. Besides that, I believe that this piece is inventive and fresh.

Research Blog Post 2: Netquake

"Netquake"is an art piece by Waldemar Pranckiewicz. This piece is on Rhizome.com under the Formalism and Glitch section."This collection presents a wide range of works from the ArtBase that fall within the broad spectrum of artistic practices that exploit the aesthetics and formal paradigms inherent both in ubiquitous commercial software and home-brew computing. Two particular creative modes are presented: A) works that embrace and highlight the aesthetics, formal elements, and graphical user interfaces inherent in vernacular software, and B) works that seek to subvert these paradigms. Works that fall within the first category explore the value and joy of the pixel, user interface elements, handcrafted HTML, and ASCII."

The description of this piece describes "Netquake" as, " we might experience it one day; a quake spreading over the worldwide network, millions of simultaneous deformed connections, unexplainable clutter and vibrations on screens" I think this means that  Pranckiewicz thinks we will become so connected to the internet that one day it will fail and we will not know what to do. This "quake" is a visible explanation of what he thinks will happen to our society. 

I think this piece could be better if it were updated from windows '98 icons to todays. Or Pranckiewicz could show the evolution or the dependence of technology and then the result of the break in the internet. Overall it is a thought provoking piece. 

Sources: http://rhizome.org/artbase/collections/6/  
http://archive.rhizome.org/artbase/2406/ico.html

Research Blog Post 1 : Epic Rap Battles of HIstory

Epic Rap Battles of History (ERB) is the brain child of NicePeter (Peter Shukoff) and EpicLLOYD (Lloyd Ahlquist). This is  series of videos that pit two people form history and pop culture in a rap battle. My top three rap battles that they have done are: Sir Isaac Newton vs Bill Nye , Bob Ross VS Pablo Picasso and Dr. Seuss VS Shakespeare. All of these can be found on the ERB YouTube Channel and NicePeters channel.

Their work provides a comedic scenario that produces a "what if this were to happen". The writing of each video is very well done because they use historical facts about each person and also make it rhyme. They also have behind the scenes videos that show their creative process. they use a slot of green screening, keying, and rendering to produce the final product.

I don't know how much better these rap battles could be. It seems like every one that they release tops the last one that was made. They are cleaning up their special effects and they are getting traction enough to have famous rappers come into the videos as well.

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