Maggie's Animation Practicum Blog

Digital Gallery I am really into this project. I feel like it's a more conceptual extension of "The Palace," which was an online game I played as a kid where you could craft dolls and rooms and spaces and interact with others using it. I've actually seen some net artists (especially on New Hive, a site mentioned in this article) reference it, so it kind of makes sense that a more elevated version of these old-school online games has come into existence. As John mentioned, I also think, beyond being conceptually fun and interesting, this is a way to make the art world more accessible to those with disability, those who don't live near an art scene, those who feel alienated by the alienating, elitist culture of the art world. Life with Extra Senses This was really cool to see after this past week because in my puppet class, we did an analogue version of extending human senses by attaching prostheses to our body in addition to actual puppets to create shadow works. I...

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...