Digital Media SL Final Project

Artist Statement:

This project was fun. Having the face look nice was a challenge though and the second life marketplace is so massive it's hard to find what you want. I had a lot of fun building my Desktop and found the mechanics of SL to be much easier than sketchup. I wanted to go with a digital theme since this is digital media so that's what my second skin is based off of. 

Project #7 3D (Virtual Space)

Artist Statement:

This is such an awful program. Overall, I would have to say that Minecraft would probably have been a better program to use for this particular project. I can see it being useful for other projects that have more round shapes, but not for this one.

I picked a Pokeball because it explains a lot of things about me. First, it explains my love for Pokemon, obviously, Japanese culture, and Video Games. It also represents crafting because I made my pokeball sculpture out of perler beads. Perler beads are crafting beads that are meant for younger kids to use. I used crafting as a way to make income and to pay for college. 

Bonus Picture:

Manipulated View: Images of the West

Manipulated View: Images of the West

                On February 27th, I attended the reception for an exhibit in Sheppard Contemporary at the University of Nevada, Reno. The exhibit was titled Manipulated View: Images of the West and featured a variety of artists and works by them that represented the landscapes and scenery of the American West. Artist who had work on display included Kendra Larson, Emily Nachison, Rosemary Bodolay, Alex J. Pena, and Julia Schwardron. 

                Like most receptions at the university, the attendees were friendly, the atmosphere was positive, and the food was great. While all the pieces on display were stunning, a few really stood out to me. The first of these was "Portal" by Emily Nachison. The work featured a circular disk that was place on the ground with various mushroom sculptures featured around the edge of the disk. Despite growing up in the American West, I haven't seen much outside of the southern desert of Nevada. Mushrooms aren't something that I know a lot about and I've only had a few encounters with ones growing naturally. I'm also a big fan of sculpture and three dimensional pieces. These reasons are probably why I really loved to look at this piece. I'm assuming the varying of the mushrooms around the disk represent the life cycle of mushrooms, although I'm not entirely. Aside from what the mushrooms represent, I believe this piece to be compositionally beautiful. I the size, shadows, and negative space in the center are really striking. I don't believe this piece would have been as powerful if the center had been filled with something.

"Portal" by Emily Nachison

                A second piece that I really enjoyed was "Mt St Helens" by Kendra Larson. When entering the exhibit space, "Mt St Helens" is the first thing most people were drawn to, I noticed. It's quite large and also quite beautiful. During the reception, I was one of the first people to arrive. My boyfriend and I went over to the painting immediately to observe. While doing so, another attendee came over to us and started talking about her personal experiences with Mt. St. Helens. She even described how she had viewed the volcano from the perspective of the painting. I found this experience to be the most memorable of the reception because it showed how art can connect people. I have never been to Washington, but I plan on visiting in the future. Not only did this painting connect me to the landscape of the state, but also to the people who have once resided there.

"Mt. St. Helens" by Kendra Larson

                Overall, the reception was a wonderful experience that I wish I could experience again. The art was beautiful with a variety of different piece from different media, including sculpture, video, painting, and more. The experiences I had at the reception have only helped me develop and even great love and understanding for art and the ways it works. 

Artist Lecture: Steve Lambert

            On February 20, I attended a lecture at the University of Nevada, Reno with my boyfriend. The lecturer was Steve Lambert. Before this lecture, I had never heard of Steve Lambert aside from announcements stating that he would be visiting our university.         

Steve Lambert's "Capitalism Works For Me! True/False"

      
             Lambert opened his lecture by telling everyone to close their eyes. He then told us to visualize what it would be like to be a superhero. The only power we were give, though, was the power to put 3 thoughts into a person's head. It was only the power to put thoughts into someone's head and not make them take action due to these thoughts. Whether they acted upon these thoughts we had placed was up to them.  This activity definitely sparked the curiosity of the audience, but Lambert said we would come back to it later.

            After the introduction activity, Lambert went on to discuss some of his work he had done in the past. He mainly focused on two of his projects: The 2008 U.S. Election with the New York Times "Special Edition" and "Capitalism Works for Me!". Despite these two project being some of his largest and most popular works, some of the smaller projects he had done in the past caught my interest. For example, I enjoyed the fact that Steve created useful extensions and programs that people can use in their everyday lives as a form of art. The two that spoke to me the most were "Self-Control" and "Add-Art". Self-Control is a program for that will clock access to incoming and/or outgoing mail servers for a period of time. Once the timer is set, there is no way to stop these sites from being blocked. "Add-art" is a Firefox plug-in that replaces advertisements with various pictures of art. I already use AdBlock and it's a great program, but I feel like replacing ads with art would make for a more fun overall experience as opposed to a to of white space.  

            Overall, Steve Lambert's lecture was fun, entertaining, and insight.  When I asked my boyfriend what he remembered about Steve Lambert, he replied with, "Is he the guy with the beard and the signs?" and "Uh, he was a pretty laid back guy who had an interesting outlook on how art can affect people in modern day settings." That's high praise coming from a biology major! At the end of Lambert's lecture, he revealed that the superpower we were given at the beginning, is actually what art does every day. We have the power to make art that inspires and provokes thought among the general public. We can't control the actions of the people who are affected by our art, but hopefully it will give them new perspective on life and inspire change in society.