Project 5

For my final project, I made what I wanted to be an incredibly lame wanted poster for myself. So many of the projects that we've/I've done this semester had a more serious approach; with that in mind, I wanted this last one to be light-hearted to reflect on me preferring to be a goofball and enjoy taking the sails out from under myself. So I guess this is a more accurate self-portrait in a meta sense, since most of what you see on the poster is truth-embellishing (eg., Don't have Tinder, never been to strip club. I do sarcastically call myself Papa Bear on occasion though). I used Photoshop for the poster and my handsome mug, and illustrator for everything else. 

Homework 9

The "Copy Rights" article intertwines with Steal Like an Artist because much of what Kleon was talking about in Steal revolved around how it's okay to "steal" from an artist you admire, and that there's a difference between doing that and blatant plagiarism. The article mentions how that frame of reference has begun to butt heads with the notoriously litigious American copyright law system in recent years, specifically art, and how the attempt to find middle ground has come along.

Artists who appropriate are in both an advantageous and disadvantageous position as compared to those from centuries earlier. On one hand, work is easier to discover than ever, and consequently it is easier than ever to appropriate work. On the other hand, artists who have their work appropriated are subsequently more able to provide proof of their work being stolen/taken/sampled/appropriated with digital time stamps, electronic complaints in regards to it, etc.

Marcel Duchamp (Which of course in his native French is translated as "From Champ",) has another famous example of appropriating, which is the L.H.O.O.Q., a recreation of the Mona Lisa with a penciled in vaudevillian moustache and chin strap painter beard penciled in. The title is also a French-based pun, not unlike my hilarious example in the aside at the top of this paragraph.

The difference between "high art" and "low art" seems to be more based on perception than anything else. High art has a greater aesthetic emphasis placed on it, while low art is based more on more widespread accessibility and understanding. I think there are examples of what I would consider to be "low art" being appropriations of high art, in particular the Richard Prince "paintings" we discussed in an earlier homework and that the article mentions as well. I'd consider that low art because it featured deliberately crude additions to someone else's higher art.

For me personally, I find "appropriation" more in line with the term "homage" in modern culture, which tends to see someone replicating or nearly replicating someone else's work under the guise of respect or tribute. Sampling, at least in music where it is used the most often, is more of acknowledging a piece of work that is someone else's, giving proper compensation for it monetary wise, and then incorporating your own work around it.

I'm fine with Walker being a white person commentating on this type of subject matter, because I believe limiting an artist's ability based on their race is a very slippery slope and unnecessarily restricting. I'm also fine with the works themselves. I do think that Walker added enough of his own stamp on the established work, and that they make enough sense with provided context, for it to be labeled as individually creative.

I suppose I agree with Lichtenstein's feelings towards reappropriation, although that's a bit of a cynical/narrow way of viewing it, kind of along the lines of someone who says that everything is art. Perhaps technically everything can be appropriated, but only a few people can appropriate a select few things and make it into worthwhile art.

From the list I chose Sherrie Levine, because I really was interested in how she was borderline parallel to the aforementioned Prince, who I previously described as being akin to a tick on the neck of human life. The biggest difference to me is that unlike Prince, Levine seemed to have somewhat of a sense of human compassion, because after she "appropriated" the Walker Evans photos and was chastised for it by the Evans estate, she at least gave all proceeds from her work to the estate. But even so, I still find myself amazed at the success of artists who take others work and put in (sometimes literally) no effort into their "appropriation" and are still able to become rich beyond my wildest dreams.

Project 4

So for Project 4, with the theme of "Thoughts at 3.a.m", I decided to incorporate journal entries about what would be keeping me up that late. For creative purposes, I decided to gradually make the entries more and more unhinged until the end where it all goes to Hell in a hand basket. There are certainly elements of truth here, especially early on, about what would be going through my head for something like this, but I took creative license with the last two entries, considering, you know, I don't have any murderous or suicidal thoughts or anything.

I handwrote the entries, with the first one being VERY meticulous considering how mediocre my penmanship is. The illustrator element is the "grading" of the work by an unknown entity. It's taunting and unimpressed. Maybe it's my inner voice? Maybe it's God? I left that deliberately open to interpretation. The ending was inspired by the album Encore by Eminem, where he ends by shooting various members of his audience before turning the gun on himself (Spoiler alert!), and even blatantly reference the CD cover at the end, which also helps leave what I/alternate me did open to interpretation. I photoshopped a variety of elements into the pages just to kind of add a visual to certain words, mostly on the first page: Admittedly, this probably makes it too cluttered, but I also didn't want to just half-ass the photoshop requirement, plus I could artistically argue that since my brain's cluttered at that time with a variety of thoughts, having the page reflect that could make sense. The photoshop at the end is the aforementioned Encore CD text under my handwritten version, while also placing a shattered mirror next to it. The tailing of that text actually blends in with the glass, which was a purely happy coincidence.

But yeah, again, for the record, I'm good. I just wanted to take my idea in an interesting direction.

Homework 8

Kleon's suggestions in Chapter 9 actually spoke to me very relatable...ly. I can live a relatively boring lifestyle (Not drinking probably being the chief contributor to that), but I do so in order to benefit myself in the long term. I'm good at saving money while also keeping odd jobs here and there to stow money away until it's needed. And going to GMU was actually part of that plan, because I went to NOVA after high school before I ended up here, and because those were cheap options for my parents, I will have little-to-no student debt once I'm done here.

When I'm gone from GMU and move into the real world, my hope is that I'll be able to keep a level headedness and consistency to my financial planning to make sure that I don't live beyond my means and that I'm always comfortable at home with money.

The most important thing to me in my creative work is making something that I can at least smile about knowing that I put effort into it. If I found something I wrote funny, my hope is that someone else will at least derive a chuckle out of it. If I found something I wrote informative, I'd hope someone could take that information to heart. As far as non-creative work, my biggest goal is always to be reliable. I've never been the best at any job I've had, but I'm always on time (Shoutout to Ashanti) and always do the work required. I can hang my hat on that fact.

I often try to cut out/tone down the amount of odd/irreverent humor in work where it's not expected or required of me, because I find that too much of it can be grating and annoying to the reader. I also try and edit and condense my creative work more than I used to for the same reason. I used to kind of just throw a lot of shit against the wall and see what sticks, while now I try to have a clearer idea of what exactly I want to say and the best way to say it.

I'd say my limitations in any line of work always stem from my lack of drive and determination. Just getting started on work, whether I want to do it or not, is always a major hindrance for me. I'd like to think that as I get older I'll be better at being able to light a fire under my ass, but who knows?

While I would have loved to look at the suggestions Kleon gives at the end and choose "Take a nap", my ADHD medicine makes that a mere pipe dream, so I instead chose to think about my already set-up music reviews (Which is kindasorta a blog) and what I'll write next and when I'll write it. Because while those tend to be more difficult to write now as I find it harder to find fun in the work they provide, I always often occasionally end up enjoying the completed product.

Homework 7

1. My plan to do good work is simply do something I like, make money off of it, and provide entertainment or a solid response from those who come across it. Ideally, I would like to be a sports broadcaster when I'm done at Mason, and there will be an inherent amount of creativity that must go into that if I want to be any sort of success. You have to create your own identity, your own voice. You have to resonate with your audience and know who you are. And that would be good spot to display my inner-voice.

2. I suppose I always wonder at how seemingly so many people have such a determinant drive within that allows them to reach high levels of success. There's a reason I'll be an undergrad here until next year when I'm 24. I often lack that ambition and determination about so many things about life that I need to do, I guess I wonder how those people constantly buck the desire to not go all-out.

3. This is a Reddit post from last month that really helped me gain a new perspective on the stress I often applied to myself in life and how to gain a new perspective from it. It really helped me mentally calm down.

4. Since my goal is to be a broadcaster, there's no real right or wrong place for me to be. Having said that, I love this area. If I'm able to achieve my life goals while remaining in the area I've grown to love, then I'll consider that to be a success.

5. I'll actually give an example of someone I've unfollowed recently on Twitter, and why I felt the need to do it. He's one of my best friends but he's an incredibly, deliberately, rough around the edges kind of guy. His online presence in particular I often found to be loathsome and tiring, acting like a troll, or just generally an asshole. So I unfollowed him because I found it unnecessary to put so much wasted creative energy into getting mad at someone when I'm trying to get to a more positive outlook on life. And I'm definitely not the first person to complain about this to him, and I don't regret it for once second.

6. If I want to disagree with someone or something online, I do so in a relatively cordial manner. I find that adding caveats, emphasizing that something is my opinion and why it might not be right just because I think it is, and providing a well-written out reason as to why is better for everyone involved. People are less defensive, and even if they don't agree with what you say, it's much more likely to be productive than simply responding to a comment with "lol u suk". Or make it humorous. Someone once responded to a seemingly obvious tongue-in-cheek post on Reddit about something music related, I just responded "To be fair, my post was dripping in sarcasm." To me, it didn't insult him or escalate, but I was able to fairly address it.

Project 3

I used Airelle's posting. I originally attempted Karishma's, but was not able to get the results I wanted, so I went with something simpler.

Homework 6

"Write what you know" often leads to terrible stories because it doesn't necessarily mean there's a correlation between how much you know it and how much you like it. If you're not 100% engaged and enthusiastic about the topic at hand, the more you write about it/work on it, the more it will begin to feel like a tedious chore. The best stories are the ones from a place of love, not the ones that are simply the most technically efficient. Being a COMM Major can help lead to good forms of storytelling because many of the required classes have a form of leeway into what you are able to write about. The English classes in particular are good at this.

I'm actually surprised at the fact that I agree to a degree with Kleon about utilizing non-digital mediums to help expedite the creative process. On the surface I didn't find myself aligning with it, but I was able to draw on past experiences and find an example that works in that favor: I've written music review on the side for fun for many years, but over the past few years, the number of them have been far less frequent. I figured out that a large reason for that was because when I sit down to write them in a Word doc, they're so long that they often amount to a five+ page paper equivalent, and subsequently in a Pavlovian manner, my mind began to disassociate the fun aspect of why I did them in the first place and instead mold them in with college essays that I put off and generally dread writing.

Which leads nicely into the subject of procrastination. The Jessica Hische quote at the beginning of chapter 6 is exactly what I've long said about myself: I can do anything in the world as long as I'm avoiding school work. I to this day procrastinate most school work, and it's something that I try to work on but I am rarely able to quell.

Project 3.5 (Template)

So here's my template, a black and white version of the Los Angeles Lakers alternate logo. I... tried.

Here's the template I used if you want a better sense of what it looks like.

Homework 5

For the first batch of questions, I'll give short answers to each of them.
1) I decide if something is worth "stealing" if I know I can make it different enough to call my own, and good enough to justify that feeling.
2) Seeing as how postmodernism tends to reject the notion of old rules of art from previous generations, the first two chapters seemed to buck the notion that art must be fully original. Kleon is saying the opposite; the since that's impossible, embrace taking from others.
3) "No idea's original" is actually freeing to think about it, especially since I have always worried far too much about being original in that regard. It's good to understand and accept the natural limitations that come with that mindset, and instead to feel compelled to study those I admire.
4) As Kleon stated in the text, hoarders collect a variety of junk because they feel they have to, while artists collect only those things that interest them.
5) Duchamp meant that it is easier to study and model after one person who you admire and find intriguing rather than try to take on that person's form of art as a whole all at once. It will be far too overwhelming to be successful at.
6) Smith and Mapplethorpe were friends who decided to move to New York, and became artists by simply pretending to be artists. "Fake it 'till you make it" certainly worked for them because their efforts to succeed by merely acting as if they already had garnered them successful results.
7) Practice is to observe something, learn from it, and re-apply it in your own voice. Plagiarism is blatantly stealing someone else's work and claiming it to be your own.
8) Much like #7, imitation is directly copying something/someone you saw, while emulating is taking what you have seen and putting your own unique spin on it. ("Remixing" is another way to describe it as Kleon referenced many times throughout the first two chapters.

One of my favorite creative heroes is Conan O'Brien, and the biggest reason I have enjoyed his work so much over the years is because he manages to do very dumb, absurd comedy brilliantly and without a trace of intellectual superiority. One of my favorite examples of this is when doing audio commentary for a documentary about him, and they see a shot of his sidekick Andy Richter wearing a white cowboy hat, O'Brien quips that Richter looks like the guy who failed to protect Lee Harvey Oswald from getting shot by Jack Ruby. It's such a silly joke, but it takes a creative genius to be able to think of that on the spot, and to do so while laughing with someone rather than use it to displaying their mental prowess. O'Brien has talked about many of his comedy idols growing up including Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Groucho Marx. Marx's sensibilities rub off on O'Brien because he often acts very vaudevillian or physical in his routine, and interestingly enough, Kleon specifically referenced O'Brien's relations to Carson and Letterman in the book.

Being a COMM major at GMU lends itself to being lost in the field, as I'm willing to guess that a solid 90% of the student body is doing the same thing (Kidding...I think.) But the key for me has been trying to find my own voice out of that group, and try to take my angle on it (Broadcasting, preferably sports broadcasting) and carve my own niche out of it. I also have to learn to not be afraid to fail as Kleon mentions in the book, because if I don't, then I'll get nowhere in life.

Homework 4

For the record, I generally find myself siding with appropriation and fair use. I find the relatively recent trend of over-litigiousness from certain major corporations (Looking at you, Disney), or many record companies to be burdensome, and frankly annoying. When certain YouTubers are being forced to edit audio because a song playing in the background, or even properly licensed to play in a video game, might cause the site's auto-detector to shut it down, it's gone too far. When creators of The Simpsons mentioned that it is much harder to get the go-ahead from Fox on song parodies, which have long been established as an exception to copyright, due to concerns over legal battles from the originators, it's gone too far.

Having said that, Richard Prince absolutely sucks. To the nth degree. What he does is not only plagiarism thinly veiled as art, but he's potentially jeopardizing the future for those who have legitimate connections to the concept of Fair Use. Prince doesn't even try (Relatively speaking). Taking well-crafted photographs from a photographer and putting a silly blue guitar over it is not original art. At best, it's lazy, and at worst, it's stealing, and in neither case should it be considered art. None of the pictures shown in the various articles (The New York Times one specifically) showed any sort of legitimate effort to change Cariou's original photography, nor is there any real artistic merit to it. Neither is taking somebody else's Instagram posts that you left a creepy comment on and hanging it on a damn wall.

To me, Prince is doing nothing but hurting concept of Fair Use by selfishly profiting from others hard work. Going back to Disney, if you wanted to take the copyrighted image of Mickey Mouse, and demonstrate that you feel Disney is evil by creatively incorporating it into a poster or a background, then I am in full support of it. In fact, I encourage it. But pretending to make the same point by taking a copyrighted image of Mickey Mouse, going into Photoshop, drawing a vaudevillian mustache on him and then saying "Give me money" is a slap in the face of  anyone who considers themselves an artist (Which, for the record, I absolutely do not). I'm willing to bet that at least half of the people in this class could do what Prince did to those Cariou photos in about ten minutes. Leaving a creepy comment on a woman's Instagram page? Hell, I could do that. And it doesn't help that Prince behaves like an ass. If you're going to be a dismissive dickwad in court when asked a simple question of how you changed someone else's and subsequently banking millions of dollars by doing so, then you should absolutely lose your right to claim Fair Use. So to summarize my position on Richard Prince, in case I hadn't made it clear, he's a tool.

Also, this is why I often don't understand art. Who the hell's paying $90,000 for a blown up picture of someone's Instagram photo with a creeper in his mid-60's leaving a cringy comment? How about saving yourself that money by just leaving the comment yourself and bringing the screenshot to Kinko's for a substantially lower rate?

Project 2

During the blizzard back in January, my friend Brandon took a picture of me and my friend Michael as we walked down an empty street going to Brandon's house. I loved the picture, and made it my cover photo on Facebook, in part because it struck me as similar to the cover for Eminem's Recovery, one of my favorite albums of all time. So when this project came up, those two photos immediately sprang to mind.
Initially, I considered editing out Michael from the picture, but then I realized that his presence actually helped the concept of the photo, as he symbolized family and friendship that I value dearly. I already had the Eminem photo, which symbolized my love of music (And he is my favorite music artist). I then looked for a picture of Shaquille O'Neal to symbolize my love of sports, but alas, there were no good full body shots of him from behind, so I instead went with Barry Bonds, my favorite baseball player of all time. I finished it out with a picture of Conan O'Brien, who symbolizes my love of comedy (I haven't missed a show of his since early-2008, for some perspective). It also helped that the picture takes place during a massive snowstorm, something I genuinely love the same now at 23 that I did when I was 13. I faded the three additions out a bit to show that their presence resides within me on a spiritual/mental basis, whereas Michael is fully filled because he symbolizes who and what I value physically.
Notes:
I struggled to shortcut and add snow to the layers, so I decided to simply add the snow manually through the brush tool. That was more tedious than anything.
I really struggled to add shadows. I sort of got one for Bonds, and I got a teensy bit for Eminem, but the copy tool was not cooperating with me.
O'Brien's source picture cut off most of his feet, so I compromised by placing him near where the snow banks on the road had built up.
In the original picture, I was carrying Brandon's cooler. I figured it would be too distracting (And I don't drink anyway), so I edited it out.

Overall, I'm actually pleasantly surprised with how this turned out, since I have no experience/am awful with Photoshop, but I felt that this worked conceptually the way I envisioned it. And if nothing else, I can be proud of the amount of hours of work I put into this.

Homework 3

I found Panera's article to be a relatively fair assessment of the culture at large, despite the "Get off my lawn!" mindset evident throughout. I think there's something to the idea that because we can now quantify what people enjoy and how much they enjoyed it through social media, we feel compelled to document that we were there. I personally try my best not to do that, simply because I too find it off-putting. I'll snap a picture or too here and there, but I don't overdo it, and I don't get the need to take a video at a concert (Horrible quality, no longer connecting to the artist on stage, etc.) But when even though this article is clearly a few years old (As evidenced by him putting "tweeting" in quotation marks), the assessment is just as true in 2016. He's right to point out that with each new technological advent, our attention span becomes less and less. Perhaps older generations took a look at more with an objective point of view, whereas we might instinctively expect to have it handed to us on a silver platter.

To that point, we may become attached to our phones because we have immediate access to anything we want to keep us amused. I agree with the idea that museum art loses interest with the youth because it lacks an entertainment factor, and while my instinct is to say that's not what art should be focused on, I question it more the more I think about it. I personally don't care for art in museums, or often the concept of "art" in general (Except of course for this course and Professor Roykovich), and the biggest general reasoning I can give is that it doesn't entertain me (Keep in mind that I thought MacGruber was a great movie and that Dr. Strangelove was boring, so my opinions on entertainment should be taken with a few grains of salt). And to a small degree, that can impact our "phenomenological" relationship (Which to me means how our relationship to the Earth goes beyond a basic physical one, but one of great psychological import) to the physical world, but keep in mind that the advancement of image quality and access to it can lend anyone a great appreciation for what the world has to offer in the palm of their hands.

And I actually agree with Panera about how our memories are lessened due to the phone becoming a constant life jacket for our memory. It's part of what he calls the "Fascism of the image", where we aren't even aware at just how much we rely on our phones instinctively, which I will support by pointing out how I and many others check our phones the second we get out of class like we were one of Pavlov's stupid pets. So I guess we can become more emancipated observers by using that immense time usually spent checking Facebook or watching YouTube videos of cats chasing a laser pointer and instead use it to familiarize ourselves better with culture, art, and history. It won't happen overnight, but as this technology becomes a great part of our lives, hopefully we learn to adapt along with it for the better.

Also, I have never heard the term "retinal masturbation" before reading this article, but I am considering renaming my blog that.

Homework 2

It's pretty amazing to me to be able to think of how GIFs have exploded in recent years, because it wasn't too long ago where they were relegated to being weird flame animations on people's MySpace pages that I found to be annoying as hell (I didn't even know what to call those at time, and the various articles helped me understand that's what GIFs were in their relative infancy). But they are important to my generation, as are most forms of communication that we are responsible for creating. They can be used to emphasize or surmise an entire point into one, simple visual cue. It's very common to see someone tweet "When you see two friends argue on the timeline" and attach this GIF to it.

GIFs work because of how hypnotizing they can be. When utilized properly, they trim any and all fat of a moment and instead merely show exactly what the audience wants to see. They appeal to our inherent laziness by automatically reloading without relying on a cue from the user, so we can pay attention to detail uninterrupted. And they serve any and all purposes. Humor, artistry, sports, and (because it's the internet) porn, amongst countless others.

Now, does that make them "art"? I suppose so, since defining art is famously difficult to pinpoint. Do I think people should be paying thousands of dollars for a GIF to display in a museum? No, because I think GIFs were invented with the purpose of ready availability to any and all who want to see them (And have easily placed watermarks for those who want their work acknowledged). But it does speak to just how much Tumblr in particular helped this form of communication reach insanely hot levels figuratively overnight. And it shows that anything that is condensed down to its quickest, purest form will always have a place in hearts worldwide.

Project 1

This gif is a very simple loop of Naughty by Nature's "Hip Hop Hooray", during the chorus. I chose partially as an excuse to insert any hip-hop reference I can into my work, but also because it speaks to something beyond that. That chorus is a staple at sports games ("Hip Hop HooRAAAAAAAAY--HOOOOOOOO"), and everyone is happy to do that move a la "YMCA". It's an anthem. It's uplifting. I know that lately when I've been struggling or down in the dumps, I can put this song on and it'll immediately lift up my spirits. To me, this symbolizes the power music can have on an entire community.

Homework #1

As someone whose knowledge of art is generally limited to Kanye West or Jay Z album liner notes, the concept of attempting to deeply conceptualize the concept of conceptual art will always leave me feeling uncomfortable at best, and equally uncomfortable at worst. But the concept of new media art can be easier to decipher than others for me because I, along with the majority of my peers, are directly involved in it, whether we know it or not.

With the podcast, what stuck out to me is the concept that the hosts discussed following the Sarah Lewis segment where the quality of the art presented is now not as big of a priority in lieu of what will get the most attention. I thought about how relatable that is on even the most basic level. If I make an occasional post to Facebook, rather than spend all of my time worrying about how funny or interesting the post will be (Which, as evidenced by this post, would clearly be “Not enough”), and will instead spend more and more time worrying about what will make it get the most likes, when to post it to get most exposure, etc. That doesn’t mean I completely remove my personality from it and post “Like if you think oxygen is a vital component to human survival”, but in a way, the component of artistic integrity has been compromised because of the ability to quantify approval. It goes along with the excerpt from the New Media in Late 20th Century Art book, where it talks about how rise and advances in technology have led to a tool for art previously used by technicians and engineers. The implementation of what is art is now becoming harder to define as the entire world is now on equal footing with theoretical equal access, and does having more, better looking art devalue it?

That also leads to the Smithsonian piece that caught my eye the most (Not literally; that would be “Monster movie”, which caused me to worry if I had downloaded a virus and feel like I had accidentally taken a psychedelic drug) was “Halo 2600”. This grabbed my attention because I’ve played Halo so much over the past 15 years that my right thumb has a permanent imprint of the Xbox’s A button, and it dealt with an interesting idea that stemmed from a novel concept. Halo’s success stemmed from its tremendous story-telling and expansive universe. It was an artistic accomplishment given what it was able to do for video games when it was released. But when Ed Fries remade the game with Atari 2600 capabilities (re: virtually non-existent), it led to another question to ponder: At what point does new media art become actual art? Does “Halo 2600” qualify as art, and if not, at what point did “devaluing” it lead to it losing its status as such? It shows that new age media art has a higher bar and expectations to reach due to the increasingly limitless possibilities.