Outside Events

Artist Talks: Olga Koumoundouro
Notorious Possession

Notorious Possession is an art piece make by Olga Koumoundouro, which features an unused house that she broke into and turned it into a living, breathing art space.
What I found interesting about this piece was the fact that Olga didn't in fact own the house at all, she just saw that it was not in use and just sitting around, so she decided to paint the exterior gold, and the inside rainbow. Whats so interesting about this piece is the message of home foreclosures and economics, which is one of the reasons Olga decided to paint the house gold. Olga also reminds me of the Occupy movement, and her ideas and art reflect a lot about current affairs and the distribution of wealth.

Olga's usage of unused spaces and making them her own is interesting to me since we live in such an organized society where we all are governed by our wealth which tells us where we eat and sleep. Olga however broke normal conventions of possession and trespassing rules when she saw this unused home, and decided to make it her own studio for art.

Rapture Tourism Project Update

Rapture.kmz

Download Link above for .kmz file


Hephaestus
This is the main power generator for Rapture, run on geo-thermal heat from the volcanic activity beneath the ocean floor.

Arcadia

This is the main source of oxygen for the city, and vacation home for the residents of Rapture.

 Olympus Heights
This is the main residency building for all the high class and wealthier citizens of Rapture.

 Medical Pavillion
This building is where you would go for medical emergencies, but ever since Rapture discovered the plasmid, it has been primarily used for facial reconstruction surgery due to side effects.

Rapture Tower

Here is the tower of Rapture, found at the very of the beginning of the game in Bioshock. Made using Sketchup.

Rapture Advertisements

Landmark Ideas

Entrance to Rapture

Arcadia

Fighting McDonagh's Tavern - A classic example of Rapture ethics.

Bathysphere Metro Monument

Rapture Bathysphere Metro Map

Rapture Tourism Update

Current version of the Bathysphere poster for tourism to Rapture.

Tourism Ideas

 My idea for a tourism spot is the fictional underwater metropolis called Rapture, which is featured in the hit video-games, Bioshock I & II. Tourist attractions would be the freedom to practice any experiments without moral restrictions and the sights of the underwater. Main attractions would be the Rapture Metro, which transports citizens around the city via bathyspheres and underwater vessels. Monuments I would choose the Rapture tower, which towers over the North-Atlantic ocean, marking the location of this fine city.

Things that attract me to this tourist destination is the dark imagery and mysterious nature of the buildings, which inspires a sense of wonder to the viewer, making them want to know more about this underwater world.

Mapping Artists

Hong Kong Diorama Map - Sohei Nishino

Sohei Nishino makes these beautiful diorama maps of cities showing the major landmarks and beautiful countryside and is put together in a collage. What I find interesting about this work is that it it realistic like a regular map, but instead of seeing useless tops of buildings, you see them at a better angle giving the impression of layering making it seem 3D.

Nishino's technique for acquiring these pictures of landmarks was by walking around and taking the picture himself with his camera. To think of how long it took to get all of these photos and walk around the whole city is astounding and shows dedication to his art.

 

 Map Roadways - Matthew Cusick

 Matthew Cusick uses old maps and cuts them out and pasts them together to create highways or modes of transportation for getting places. What I like about the use of maps to create and image is that it makes the highways symbolic and meaningful since maps represent a space that we can inhabit or explore and the way we do that is by driving on the freeway or on highways. It reminds me of a dream I had where I was in China on the run from the police for some reason, and I was driving on the highway really fast and it just kept on turning and turning while at the same time going higher and higher up into the air. I'm not sure what happened next but I always thought of that dream as an exciting adventure, or escape from normal life which is what a vacation should be.

Topographical relief carved into a roll of tape by Takahiro Iwasaki

What I like about this piece is the sheer intricacy of the cuts and ways Iwasaki cut the duct tape to create a 3D landscape. Perhaps this 3D sculpturing has potential in creating 3D stickers, since all you would have to do is cut of the piece of tape the landscapes stuck to and stick it anywhere! Whether or not this is an actual city my best bet is that it isn't, but the fact that it's carved from duct tape makes it awesome.

Tourism Examples

Here is an example of a nice tourist post-card / poster which sells the beauty and convenience of the San Francisco land scape. I notice that they show boats and a car displaying how easy it is to get around and see the sights in San Francisco, while at the same they are advertising them. Key aesthetics to this picture is the cool rolling waves of the ocean contrasting the bright white clouds in the sky. The time of day being around sunrise or sunset also helps with the bright orange light that really brings out all the colors.

Here's an example of tourism for a town called Nice. It's Nice! The poster shows a classy lady lounging on a sunny colonnade gazing at the cool, hip suburbia and blue ocean. I have no idea where Nice is exactly but looking at the picture makes me think that people who would want to vacation there and stroll around in your finest evening-wear. Again this poster has the cool blue ocean contrasted by the brilliant orange which is reflected off the surfaces to attract the viewers attention, like a city of gold. My best guess is that this place is most likely Los Angeles or something due to the palm trees and high class theme they sell to the viewers.

 

 This poster shows the union terminal in Cleveland which advertises the train company. The building is shown in a bright heavenly light giving it the larger than life scale, which the people on the ground being extremely small. By having the tiny humans with the huge building in the background it amplifies the magnificence of the building giving it the impression that it was a holy or important landmark in Cleveland. The color scheme gives it a strange nostalgia, like you're touring Cleveland, seeing the sights, and after a long days of exploring the town of Cleveland, home of Bone Thugz-N-Harmony, you go back to the train station and take the train back home to your house to rest and get ready for a new day. 

 More examples of tourism posters I found:

 

Virtual Intervention

Location: Buckeye sculpture in front of the GYM building, San Francisco State

Randomly Generated Art: Bouncy Balls

Partner: Derek Macario

In this exercise we constructed a 5x5 inch foam board cube using tape. We rolled dice to determine how long we would shake the cube, for this case it was 3 minutes. Two bouncy balls covered with black and red ink are inserted through a slot cut into the cube and then the cube is shaken, bouncing the ink covered balls on the inside of the cube. Each side of the cube is given a number and arrow indicating its order and orientation in the final composition when the cube is opened and split into 6 squares. 

I enjoyed the results of this project and think they kinda look like blood cells moving around. The feeling of motion and movement made from the bouncy balls can be seen clearly by the ink, which seems to create a chaotic narrative. The borders created by the cube is also a nice effect.

Predictions 60 Years From Now

In Vannevar Bush's article, "As We May Think" he talks about all the scientific advancements mankind has achieved, and he predicts what technology will come 60 years later. In my opinion, in the future be it 60 years from now or longer, man will become one with machine, in what is called the "singularity" by futurists. Our brains processing speeds will become exponentially faster with every coming year until we stop communicating by sound, and communicate through brain waves for efficiency. Singularity

Bush predicts that in the future people would use microfilm to store data, but with the invention of the hard drive, virtual memory is possible and we're storing a lot more information than we would on microfilm. My prediction for data storage in 60 years is that we will be using our own DNA to store data since we will be cyborgs essentially. DNA Storage

Bush predicts that we will be having cameras the size of walnuts attached to our faces, which is true
when you look at the GoPro or the upcoming Google Glasses. Google Glasses I think will be one of the inventions of our time period which will further bridge the gap between technology and biology. The new Google Glasses will be replaced in 60 years for the internal version, where I imagine it will be completely built into our systems, combining man with machine. Google Glasses

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In terms of new inventions, the watch will most likely be remade in the next 60 years, possibly as a new interface for daily use or a remote controller. Apple has been heard of recently working the iWatch, a new wristwatch which can be used as a smartphone, possibly to replace the iPhone in the near future. The possibilities are endless, however I feel in the growing world of knowledge, speed and efficiency will be the most important factors in deciding what new invention will break the barriers of convention. iWatch

Chance Operation Ideas

1. Multiple Spinners: By utilizing the spinner from Twister, it can be used as a random variable generator. One spinner will have multiple colors on it determining the color of every brush stroke, direction, and duration of brushing. Painted on a big piece of butcher paper.

2. Blindfolded Walking: Someone will be blindfolded and wearing shoes with paintbrushes attached to them placed in a random place (determined by a dice rolling) on a big piece of butcher paper. The color of paint used will be picked from dice rolling.

3. Music Painting: A speaker turned upwards will be covered by ceran wrap and paint (color determined by dice rolls) will be applied on top of the wrap. Paper will be hanging above it on a rotating mobile looking thing that will be blown by a fan to increase the randomness.

bonus. Bullwhip Idea: Someone will be blindfolded with a bull whip that has paint brushes attached to the end and will be told to whip wherever they think the canvas is. Keep people in close proximity for added hilarity.

random idea typing exercise

Random typing:

Mousetraps
birds flying into the sunset with a robot
the many different uses of peanut butter and jelly
rorschach
a robot that draws things based on your feelings
telepathy using machines
having a conversation while not saying anything
images evoking different emotions
wilderness survival robot
emergen-C gun: a gun that instantly injects 1000% of your daily dosage of vitamin C
shoes that count your footsteps which applies it to an online fighting game
shoes with a built in gps
explosion art

3 Art-Icles I Found Interesting..

Mr. Jones Watches

From owning my own time-piece, I know the many uses and how handy it can be at knowing the time and date from just the flick of my wrist. Mr. Jone's watches tell you the time and more! There's a lie detector watch, a humility watch, personality watches all for the sole purpose of bettering oneself and those around them.

What I found interesting about these interesting watches was that instead of improving the wearers image it could actually make them seem worse, which forces them to be more honest with those around them. The best watch to do this would be the lie detector watch, which says 'LIE' whenever the wearer is untruthful, which is useful during poker I imagine. These are the kinds of time pieces I would imagine people from a dystopian society would like to were.

Perpetual Storytelling Machine

This cool device reads any story and produces pictures detailing the story. What I found interesting about this device is the power of creativity that you have when using this is quite vast. Any story can be put to life and told through the patent pictures drawn by this machine. In some ways this machine is very intelligent that it can scan through the patent database and choose the picture that best fits the story.

Saving Myself

In this contraption, a bonsai tree is in a controlled environment using a machine and a UV light. They manually control the weather and they take pictures of the tree and these pictures are inserted inside the rings of the tree, so that it can only be seen when it has been cut down. In a way its quite poetic how the tree has pictures of itself inside to remind it of what it used to look like, which is a very human thing to do. I can see this technology benefiting plant or botany research in perhaps in cataloging plants or endangered species.