The concept of my vignette project was to contrast video games and drone warfare. My 3D model was a joystick, which is an item used by both video games and drone pilots. The video was projected into a corner with the game half on one wall and the drone half on the other. I then placed my model in the middle.
In the game footage I made a machinima where the character flys a military vehicle, both a helicopter and a jet. Right before crashing them he wakes up falling from the sky, when he is about to hit the ground he is put back in the cockpit of a different vehicle. This draws a parallel to drone pilots who are not in danger of dying regardless of what happens to the drone. Finally on the last sky dive, he hits the ground and the iconic "wasted" message pops up. In GTA no matter what happens to your character, he will walk out of the hospital in a day, regardless of whatever trauma he endured. It's impossible to die in the game and it's no different with drones. The difference is the drones targets actually die, and what might feel like a game to the pilot has real consequences and takes real lives.
In my research I found out that US Army recruiters use war video games as a recruitment tool to lure kids in to joining. They pursue gamers as young as 12 as potential drone operators. I may have became too journalistic in my approach to this aspect of my piece as the narrative became driven by the people in the found footage more so than my own voice. I do want to use what I learned to create a projection mapped piece for my final.
For the first assignment I attempted to create a machine in response to Heidegger's essay. I was interested in making a machine that dealt with the futility outlined in the essay, in hopes that I could use technology to criticize itself. I wanted to build something that was difficult to turn off once it is turned on. I thought it was interesting in class when we brought up that if we wanted to go back to a time un-entrapped by technology, we would either need to stop using it or reveal its true nature. Heidegger seems to state that technology is man's way to dominate nature to his will. This was not the true purpose of technology and it was the duty of artists to begin revealing that truth. I wanted to make a machine that would be as difficult to stop as it is for society to give up their selfish use of technology. In hopes that this would show a Heideggerian form of art and and an object that shows how technology can be manipulated to critique itself. My machine spun around in circles symbolizing the futility and self serving nature of technology. The idea was that the machine would spin the more light was shone on it, the more it was "revealed". I didn't intend for it to destroy itself but during the gallery presentation the batteries became intensely heated due to a wiring issue. This suggests the only way for the current uses of technology to subside is for them to run their course, or to destroy themselves in the process. Practically this project was one of the most difficult to create, I spend twice as long if not more on this project than any other in this class. The work didn't show and my piece looked largely incomplete and didn't function properly in class. This was my first conceptual work and it was challenging being as my artistic focus is largely visual or sonic in all of my past projects. Responding to Heidegger is no easy feat and I'm not sure my project said much about technology other than it's unmanageability and futility.
I attended Mahsan Ghazlanzad's exhibition for my artist exhibition. Her work focused on paper airplanes. All her work was in an abstract style and done with paint on canvas. Meaning aside, all of the pieces were very aesthetically pleasing. They utilized muted colors and lots of negative space surrounding simple forms.
Besides me wanting to hang any of her paintings on my wall at home, I noticed all of her work had much more serious undertones. Perhaps it is because of her heritage but I believe all of her works dealt with issues in the middle east or at least with American imperialism, and it's force as an international police power. I took two meanings from her pieces. Either the planes were symbols of hope, crushed and crumpled in forgotten piles, or they were symbols of the US drones that bomb without discrimination, that had corrupted the blue sky to a object of fear.
They could have both meanings, or neither and just be a more innocent and personal obsession with paper planes. I think of paper planes in art usually as a symbol of freedom or hope, but when I saw her piece where the planes created a fence, it changed how I viewed all of the other pieces. They are critical of US militarization and involvement abroad, taking something innocent associated with hope and freedom (paper planes and the USA), then corrupting them into drones, symbols of the American war machine.
Her works were very successful visually, and if I interpreted them correctly, then also successful in getting the message across.
I attended Melissa Milgrom's talk, Adventures in Taxidermy, for my artist talk. I was skeptical going in because I have always found taxidermy very creepy. The way the animal's eyes watch you while in poses that are a bit too unnatural. There is a sort of uncanny valley. The more realistic they are, the closer they get to creepy, and paradoxically unnatural.
Milgrom's main point was to address this common belief and hope to change people's minds about the art of taxidermy. For starters, just like any art, there are good and bad examples of works. The best taxidermists take extensive care to replicate their subject exactly. They will observe their specimen alive before killing it. Milgrom was somewhat hazy about whether or not they would kill the animals, and which animals were recently deceased before being preserved. She said they never would kill an endangered species and that taxidermists are in fact animal lovers.
Milgrom is a photographer that gained an appreciation for taxidermy while photographing to a book about the subject. She kept emphasizing that it was an art, again and again.
She discussed some artists that used taxidermy in absurd and unrealistic ways, such as a cow hanging by a noose. This was the only part of the talk I found as "art" since it creates a feeling that isn't inherent to the animal.
One interesting point brought up was that our society is in nature much less today that ever before, and taxidermy may become more popular since nature is becoming a novelty. While this is true, I think this won't overcome the fact that taxidermy has a negative connotation in the public eye.
I still don't have much of an appreciation for this art, the taxidermists are just freezing a moment of what can be found in nature. The natural beauty is lost to me when the corpse of an animal is put up on display, it is entirely unnatural and if its art then its an art of illusion. Art usually requires creating something, or viewing something creatively, taxidermists just reuse what nature has already created. They are not artists in my opinion. Milgrom is passionate but I don't think she is in the majority, taxidermy will likely dwindle as a hobby or "art" form. It has a negative public view and is only effective in art if it makes a statement about something outside of the stuffed animal.
For my final project I knew I wanted to do a project with circuit bending. After watching the circuit bending video in class I was very inspired to try and bend a circuit myself. Like any circuit bent electronics, my work was inspired by Reed Ghazala.
I originally bought a cheap piano toy and had anticipated adding more functionality to it. However, during my experimenting I ended up damaging the part of the circuit that made the keyboard work. For a few days the toy made no sound at all so I tried connecting all of the points in any combination I could think of. Luckily I finally found a solution that created the sounds used in the final product.
I found 3 points that in combination could manipulate oscillating noises, one point controlled speed, one controlled pattern, and the other combined the original "guitar" and "piano" tones from the original instrument. This circuit also began picking up other frequencies, it is possible to pick up radio waves (which was very startling when the amp started talking unexpectedly), fluorescent lights, cell phones, and the musician's proximity. It is possible to manipulate the sound without touching the instrument, just by hovering close to the circuit.
I wanted to have these sounds playable as an instrument, since the keyboard wasn't working I did the obvious which was to put the board from the toy into a guitar. Being a guitar player I had all of the parts to do so. My first guitar was in pieces in my closet so I figured I could resurrect it as a sort of sound experiment. I added a switch to turn the circuit on and off while the guitar remained fully functional. The guitar was a simple circuit with just a bridge pickup and volume control (with a knob that goes to 11 of course). The volume pot has a a push-pull switch to turn the toy part on. The toughest part was trying to find a space on the guitar for the circuit board to go. Due to some time constraint, I just taped it to the front of the pick guard. Ideally I would want to route some space out of the guitar to make it fit inside the body with the contacts still exposed. The wiring ended up being very complicated compared to normal guitar wiring. The batteries replaced the neck pickup since there was no room for them anywhere else.
Visually I think the instrument turned out exactly how I imagine a circuit bent guitar would look like. I chose to leave the cover off the batteries to make them obvious and I like the DIY look of the taped on circuit board. The board does get in the way of the high frets and is a bit to fragile to withstand how I treat my guitars. I have always hated the yellow paint of the guitar which is why I didn't mind possibly destroying it, it was also the reason I kept the video in color. Normally I would make most art videos about music in black in white because color makes the video attract more attention than the music and I just like the aesthetic. However I thought a guitar with such audacious sounds should have the brash color to match.
For my video I just made a demo video with little concern for it's artistic qualities, I just played what came naturally, since the added noises made me play differently. I didn't write a score or have anything I planned to play. I just wanted to show the sounds I could make. I think the sounds are very usable and I would like to use this instrument in a musical setting. I am planning on making the systems more stable and ergonomic and using this guitar whenever I'm feeling uninspired or want some more adventurous sounds for a project.
I have always wanted to incorporate some of the normally unattainable sounds of electronic music into an instrument I can play. This guitar is a step in the right direction and is maybe the only art project that I have use for once the due date has passed. I was hooked instantly when we watched the circuit bending video in class. I am interested to pursue it further and combine it with music and modify other instruments.
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