Mike Brown's Blog

Project–Virtual Site Parody

20Apr10

Here is a link to my virtual site parody of Taco Bell. It is a pretty straightforward parody of the gross food they are known for, exaggerated greatly using thisiswhyyou’refat images. I hope you enjoy it!

GrossTacoBell

~Mike

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Sketchbook–Net Art Mapping

18Apr10

My theme for this week is mapping–net art pieces that incorporate maps and locations in a way not possible offline. Enjoy!

1. “Infrasonic Soundscape” by Hidekazu Minami

While not obvious from the image (its a more flash based/interactive piece), this work is about mapping of sounds in Manhattan. Viewers are able to move and manipulate the sources that come in from different spots on the NYC island and use the map along the side to change location.

2. “San Francisco Emotion Map” by Christian Nold

This piece is a digital construction (though printed also available) of a map that represents emotions towards different places in the city of San Francisco. The artist had participants wear a monitor as as they walked around the city that measured location and emotion. The result is a mapping of feelings towards different parts of the city in a zoomable “google maps-like” experience.

3. “Star Flights” by Jeremy Wood

Similar to the more complex GPS drawing of the face using UPS, this drawing is a GPS construction of a star created by taking carefully planned out flights. Documenting the images outside of the window in another unique piece, artist Jeremy Wood’s work reflects a more personal experience documented via maps.

4. “Google is not the Map” by: Ceci Moss

This artworks is a creation that challenges how maps now use symbols to represent nearly everything. While difficult to navigate, it is very unique and conveys the artists feelings about internet mapping quite well.

5. “lolcat Map” by Matthew Williamson

This work by artist Matthew Williamson is a documentation of the cats in his neighborhood and the lolcats images that he feels the individual cats look like. This very unique and comical use of mapping to pair location and online images is a creative use of the technology.

~Mike

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Sketchbook–Net Art Theme

12Apr10

My sketchbook theme for net art for the next week is: maps.

I think that this could lead to some very interesting intersections of digital and analog works. Bringing digital art and map-making/cartography together, I hope to find interesting art works that take advantages of the internet while still incorporating location-based information.
An example of this is the lolcat map that artist Matthew Williamson made of his neighborhood: lolcat map

Until next week,

~Mike

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Portrait Revision

12Apr10

I have revised my portrait and added 5 links in response to class feedback. Building upon the strengths of my body-part portraiture, I’ve added links to ears, eyes and arms. The ear-link also plays music from youtube, adding a sound aspect to my site. The eyes link to sites about vision, etc. I hope to expand on the body as a site.

Enjoy,

~Mike

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Project–Portrait Website

07Apr10

Here is a link to my most recent project for class, a self-portrait website.

Enjoy!

~Mike

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Sketchbook–Portraits

31Mar10

http://rhizome.org/editorial/2062

This “portrait” by Carlo Zanni was actually a photograph taken by the google streetview vans. In the link, you can launch the google maps link that shows exactly where this artist was caught on camera walking his dog.

http://www.rhizome.org/object.php?o=48703&m=1046170

This software, developed by artist Rui Filipe Antunes takes real-time video and applies a set of effects to the image to create a chameleon-like appearance of one’s self.

http://rhizome.org/editorial/1

This is a self-portrait by artist Michael Bell-Smith showcasing himself as a waldo-like character in his rapidly moving hometown of NYC.

http://rhizome.org/editorial/19

This animation, by artist Kevin Bewersdorf, functions as a self-portrait as well as a critique on net art.

http://rhizome.org/editorial/3286

This is a self-portrait by artist Aram Bartholl for the “google portrait series”. For this piece, the artist made four images based on “visual representations of a google search for his name” in bar-code form. These images can be scanned and link directly to the image search for his name on google.

~Mike

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Sketchbook–Recycle

26Mar10

This is an image I created for the “recycle” sketchbook topic. I decided to make a collage of favicons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon). These are the small images that show up in the address bar next to the website destination. I wanted to re-use these internet icons that often go unnoticed in everyday internet use and combine/arrange them in a way that forces one to notice what they are and instantly recognize their origin. I hope you enjoy it!

~Mike

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Science/Art Project Ending Point

22Mar10

Now that my final video for my science/art project is rendered and complete, I would like to reflect a bit about the process and how my project came to form. As I mentioned in the brainstorming post, I wanted to approach the expanding technology of automated MRI reading and even just medical computing as a whole, questioning advantages and potential problems. Going through a series of ideas, from wanting to do a lightbox installation much like an x-ray board, to wanting to create a flash animation, I went through many potential forms to represent my ideas.

In the end, my result was an old-school video game-style video that runs approximately a minute and 30 seconds. This short clip pits a human (me) against a computer in a puzzle solving program. Needless to say, the computer destroyed me, and as you can see in the opening, it wasn’t even close. I wanted to use this part to convey the unmatched processing speed and power of a computer in problem solving. In the second “level”, however, I tried to call attention to a potential problem of relying on computers, by making the computer’s puzzle go to a “blue screen of death” displaying a computer crash. In the end, the human competitor wins and there is a happy ending. YAY!

I terms of what is interesting about my project, I think that I was able to capture the advantages and disadvantages of relying on computers quite well, while maintaining (hopefully) an interesting piece. Throughout the process I ran in to quite a few road-blocks. The most major difficulties I had mostly involved the form in which I was trying to convey my idea. I originally wanted to do a more abstract piece using a light box, however it didnt really convey any sort of movement or the process by which problem solving occurs. From this, I moved on to the puzzle idea but was soon left with .swf screen capture flash files that I could not figure out how to edit. I decided to transfer this idea into an animation, but with no knowledge of adobe flash under my belt, I quickly dismissed that idea after some frustrating tutorial experiences. From there I finally reached the product at a movie, focusing on my narrative strengths. This, however, wasn’t without difficulty, as final cut pro was no longer available on school computers, and the express version refused to edit the flash files. In order to accomplish my task, I learned how to use the basic functions of adobe after effects cs4 and assembled a short video. Incorporating classic Super Mario music and imagery, I hope to keep everyone entertained as well as questioning my conceptual ideas.

YouTube Video

Here is my .PDF documenting the process: Brown_Writeup

Thanks,

~Mike

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