Maggie's Animation Practicum Blog

I really love the concept of taking over the screens in Times Square with art even if for 3 minutes. The overwhelming proliferation of screens adorned with advertisements makes Times Square a truly iconic symbol of capitalism/materialism. Having that space be interrupted with art is pretty cool (ignoring the obvious truth that the art world is as extremely intertwined with advertising/capitalism as most things in America). Formally, I really like the pieces in the past that would present a variety of videos on different screens, rather than just showing the same video on every screen. The latter, weirdly, is the majority of the pieces. A couple years ago, I drove into Times Square with a couple of friends and caught the tail end of Ryoji Ikeda's "test pattern" and he had used the space really effectively, having different video playing across screens interacting with each other: http://www.timessquarenyc.org/ times-square-arts/projects/ midnight-moment/test-pattern/ index...

Understanding Comics Sometimes it stresses me out how exacting and scientific McCloud is about comics / art in general. I understand the need for analysis in all art forms and the idea that this much theory legitimizes comics to those who scoff, but sometimes I just roll my eyes and wanna just be a believer in "if you've got it, you've got it. If you don't, you don't" re: a person's ability to me an impressive cartoonist / artist in general. I would be interested in seeing how he breaks down more experimental art comics since the rules he ascribes and patterns he notices apply greatly to highly commercial comics (though he'll give a nod to people like Spiegelman once in a while). Aaanyway, I do like the bit in this reading about see vs. say, how you may be drawing what was just written in the narration box, but the illustration specifically highlights an emotion or setting or some other detail that is missing from the text but also important to the to...

What is an Author and Death of the Author This is the second or third time I've read these two essays (for school, definitely not independently, ha). I'm going to respond to these two pieces in conjunction with one another rather than separately because What is an Author is somewhat of a follow-up to Barthes' original Death of the Author. I find Barthes a lot more readable than Foucault, at least in this instance. I think this might be because Barthes examines an actual phenomenon and succinctly crafts a conclusive stance on the subject--that the meaning of a text is independent of the author's intent and lived experience. On the other hand, Foucault's essay leaves many more hypotheticals (the entire last page is a series of rhetorical questions). Although having a more direct conclusion makes Barthes' writing more understandable to me, Foucault's ambiguity is probably more in the right from a theoretical standpoint (in my opinion). When engaging with medi...

Understanding Comics This is the second or third time I'm reading Understanding Comics . I think I will always find it a little goofy just because of how much Scott McCloud's analysis of symbols/icons in relation to reality always sounds a little bit like a freshman stoner in art school. BUT, I do think there is a lot to learn from it. I really like the bits about comics that have realistic backgrounds and iconic figures, how words are the most abstracted symbols we have. I think it's important to think about the ratio of iconic to realistic in comics and animation in order to figure out a style that is dynamic and a story that is not see/say. The "picture plane" is an interesting concept and probably a good way to measure where exactly your art must lie to be meaningful but also interesting to look at/digest. Ways of Seeing John Berger's Ways of Seeing is one of the first influential texts to analyze the roles of the female figure in art history, a...

Medium is the Massage It is really amusing/strange to read this as a PDF on a computer. Besides the fact that the current-day iteration of computers did not exist at the time of this text's publication, and besides the face that it completely destroys the intended medium and therefore meaning of the text, I had a funny interaction with Adobe Acrobat Pro. When I opened the file, I was clicking around to find a “full screen” mode to read in, and saw an option to “read out loud.” Out of curioisty, I clicked this option. For some reason, the application was only capable of reading blanks in the page. There would be silence and then suddenly a robotic voice would announce the void it came upon, “Buh-lank.” The idea that “Innumerable confusions and a profound feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transitions” basically proved itself to me. Beyond this experience, I really enjoyed this reading. I am 99% sure I have read this before at some oth...

Phoenix Perry Gah. I'm never really surprised by any discussion about sexism in programming or video games. This talk was no exception, but I appreciate it for existing because there will always be people for whom all of this *is* shocking. Though I agree with Perry that advertising is part of the problem, I think it's reductive to suggest it is the only thing contributing to the declining percentage of women programmers and developers in the work force (especially in the age of ad-blockers, the dying off of print media, and the steady trading in of cable televisions for on-demand streaming services with limited commercials). I think she could have made a stronger case by detailing the toxic masculinity in gaming/programming blog threads (see: Reddit), the rape and death threats women gamers/developers receive via social media, and tales of misogyny in the workplace (both subtle and overt) that scare off potential women employees. Regardless of my oratorial advice, I think Per...