Month: December 2020

Davin Kim

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Davin Kim

Guns for Everyone. 2020. Product Site. 

Project link: https://www.flipsnack.com/F5C9C6DD75E/media_magazine.html

Guns for Everyone is a fabricated product pamphlet for a series of laser guns. Riffing on the discomforting coalescence between simulated and physical weapon fetishization, Kim’s magazine toys the line between ridiculous and believable. She lets us sit with this discomfort as we can only wonder whether these are real weapons, toys, or video game add-ons. -RW

image description: A screenshot of one of the spreads in the pamphlet. On the left spread a large black text reads BOOM GUN with a subheading “The ONE THAT SHOOTS LASERS”. On the opposite page is a logo with a cartoonish kid with medium length hair and grin looking behind them and holding a gun. Both the text and logo sit above a background image that appears to be some kind of white latex paint or adhesive material slightly wrinkled. In the bottom right corner of the right-side page reads “for everyone, even your dog.”

davin_kim_thirdpartysellers

Daniel James Mayor

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Daniel James Mayor

Turtle Love-a Lamp. 2020. Product Web Site.

Project link: https://turtlelavalamp.wixsite.com/turtlelavalamp

Turtle Love-a-Lamp directly addresses capitalism and provides a perfect example of the lengths corporations go towards in order to sell a “cute” product, regardless of the impacts they have on wildlife. The pleasure of the customers in the images on the site starkly contradicts the suffering these turtles endure. – DJM

image description: medium wide angle photographic composite image in which a young man at the far right of the image sits at a desk with a laptop. He is grinning approvingly at a lava-lamp on the left side of the image with no less than three baby turtles swimming in it. He sits right over left leg and with one hand holding up his head and another on the desk in front of him. The image is drenched in a warm green and yellow light. 

Roc

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Roc

Black Boy Joy. 2020. Digital Images. Machine Learning.

Roc teaches an artificial intelligence to recognize, learn, and generate images of black joy. Roc’s work here shows the potential for artificial intelligence to supplement visual archives found to be lacking by the subjects they represent. This is an extremely timely project as the virtual has acted as a stand-in embodied experiences in education, labor, and gatherings. – RW

Image descriptions: 7 digital portraits of an individual subject facing the camera. Each of them has a distinctive painterly glitch effect that overrides their photographic resemblances in exchange for expressionist impressions.

Hope Shrader

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Hope Shrader

AI Germs. 2020. Digital Images. Machine Learning

These images are derived from training an artificial intelligence (using Playform.io web app) on a large set of images of microscopic images of germs. In utilizing machine learning to create believably organic bacterial strains, Shrader is making images that-beautiful as they are-feed into the viral concerns surrounding both the current pandemic but also, importantly, the future of artificial intelligence.  -RW

image descriptions: a vibrant organic form takes shape against a black background- like an electric jellyfish combined with an oil spill with minimal signs of digital glitch set against a black background. 

Peter Yun

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Peter Yun

Metal Vessel, Fleshy Cravings. 2020. HD Video.

Yun’s video gives a humorous glimpse into the world of physicalized chat-bots. Two avatars- stand-ins for remote individuals and what appears to be a AI dating service- sit at an outdoor cafe with stereotypically romantic accordion melodies gracing them while one of them accuses the other of infidelity. Yun’s work comically undermines the suspension of disbelief endemic to the human app user who communicates with an AI that is both responsive to them but trained to be maximally efficient for an ever-growing consumer base. -RW

Video Transcript:

avatar 1: “Hey how have you been babe?”

avatar 2: “A little tired since I just got off work but I was excited to see you.”…..”Hey are you still there?”

avatar 1: “Yep..I was just thinking.”

avatar 2: “Are you okay? You don’t seem yourself. You haven’t even touched your holographic poutine?”

avatar 1: “I dunno. I’ve just been thinking.”

avatar 2: “Thinking about what?”

avatar 1: “Okay, will you do something for me?

avatar 2: “Something for you? Sure.”

avatar 1: “Even if it is a little stupid…would you still do it?”

avatar 2: “What’s bothering you? You know I can’t deny a request from you.”

avatar 1: “Say you’re my one and only.”

avatar 2: “What?”

avatar 1: “Say you’re my one and only.”

avatar 2: “What brought this up?”

avatar 1: “Why didn’t you say it?”

avatar 2: “I dunno it just seemed so sudden. Does this matter that much to you”

avatar 1: “Yes, now please, I’m requesting that you say it.”

avatar 2: “You are someone very near and dear to my heart.”

avatar 1: “You didn’t say it.”

avatar 2: “I wouldn’t be here without you.”

avatar 1: “You still won’t say it.”

avatar 2: “Dear. You are mine and I am yours. Now I don’t what brought up this outburst but it’s ruining this evening. Please, stop this.”

avatar 1: “You still haven’t said it. You still won’t say it. You were never mine to begin with, were you? You bitch, you just used me for my money”

avatar 2: “I’ve had enough. System log off.”

“thank you for using Yours Truly. We hope you had a wonderful time with one of our representatives. Please come again and tell your friends about it too. Yours Truly.”

avatar 1: “Hey don’t just log off….System, log off”

SCENE 2:

person: “Hey you good you sound a bit tired.”

computer:  “Yeah I am a little since I just got off work but I was also excited to see you.”

Jessica Cisse

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Jessica Cisse

A Reflection of the Soul

In this work, I wanted to explore if it’s possible to manifest the many folds within one’s self. I took avant-garde portraits with mirrors to show something beautiful and distorted the reflection with the animated drawings making it hideous or grotesque. The supposed dichotomy between the two subjects is undermined to show nothing is what it seems.

Broken

Grotesque

Insecure

Alexis Direse

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Alexis Direse

My Body

I have always been focused on the tactile aspect of art in both the experience of it and the creation of it. Touch can ground someone to the surrounding environment and connect people with each other, it is a bond. During this time of the Pandemic, we have been deprived of touch, with one another and with public space. I see my body as a tool to touch and as something to be touched. This project My Body is a web experience about the impression that my body leaves and how it is represented through different materials and space. My Body is an attempt to continue to engage with touch in a touch-deprived time and showcase the lasting mark of my body in physical space. 

Explore the project's website

Max Holmgren

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Max Holmgren

V1208NN2020XMX001

V1208NN2020XMX001 focuses on the creation of a space and how variables like, color, sound and environment can define it. The goal of this three-dimensional rendered space is to transport you and let you experience this environment through my carefully guided camera that moves forward into an unknown space of my own design. The audio paired with this piece exists there to give the viewer a sense of awe and scale in relation to you being the moving lens projected into this space. I’ve always been interested in this relationship between color, environment, and sound and my goal here is to evoke several different types of emotions like dread, and curiosity so that the viewer can share the feelings I feel when observing this imagined space.

Monica Ghosal

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Monica Ghosal

On a Trip

On a Trip is an interactive LSD Simulation Case Study.  This project focuses on creating a virtual user experience with research. The viewer will get to visit an interactive site that highlights the research and steps taken before reaching the final media piece. The testimonials were taken from surveys and online chat forums. If there was anything all of the testimonials had in common, it was the emphasis on the importance of trying acid with people you trust and in a good mindset. For my video piece, I took these pieces of research into consideration and created a final virtual dinner date video. This video virtual dinner date is meant to emulate the effects of an acid trip in an intimate and humorous way.

This piece is best experienced alone and with headphones. 

Embark On a Trip

Marcus Koffie

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Marcus Koffie

Throwing a Bone

This project, entitled Throwing a Bone, is a short animation depicting a man tossing a bone to his pet dog. Taking inspiration from various audio walks studied throughout the duration of class, as well as animated short films from the 1960s, this project uses sound effects mixed in differing ways as a means of conveying a narrative, that being a man, his dog and their relation to a specific space where they have spent much time in. The visuals throughout most of the animation are limited, rarely exceeding white outlines over blank backgrounds to depict characters as well as the special perspectives. The purpose is to represent how in tune the man and his dog are with the space that they are in, to the point where they are familiar with almost every detail.