Thursday, March 31, 2011

how inconvenient

This is a very uneventful post. However, it will be marked with blatant honesty. I am rather discouraged about everything creative I am working on, including this project. I'm psyched about all of my concepts and the visuals are in my mind but I'm plugging away with nothing to show for it. Not to mention I have a jam packed Friday which allows for no progress tomorrow.
Therefore, I will be taking a personal day of letting my frustration go to focus on work, and then I shall hopefully be in a better place for production over the weekend. Blah. Sleep sleep. For the record, this is the earliest I've gone to bed since I can remember. White. Flag.




Wednesday, March 30, 2011

photomontage

first of all, this guy's stuff makes my heart race http://www.robjoe.com/
second of all, my dear sonja sent me all sorts of fun inspiration links for the photomontage direction. It could be softer, but it could also be creepy and eerie so I'm working with that in mind. Here are a few things that I grabbed through inspiration. enjoy.











Tuesday, March 29, 2011

direction

"But Kurzweil would spend much of the rest of his career working out what his demonstration meant. Creating a work of art is one of those activities we reserve for humans and humans only. It's an act of self-expression; you're not supposed to be able to do it if you don't have a self. To see creativity, the exclusive domain of humans, usurped by a computer built by a 17-year-old is to watch a line blur that cannot be unblurred, the line between organic intelligence and artificial intelligence."

-This is the direction. To communicate in my image an actual combination of organic and artificial intelligence as one. 



So it's now time to make it real:

Monday, March 28, 2011

to add or not to add? that is my question

I found the entire article on Ray Kurzweil. Here it is....
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2048138,00.html

As I usually do, I'll be going over the original article for a critical assessment of how on target my illustrations are before tomorrow morning. More work has been done on manipulating the illustration and color application. I have one version that I'm pretty happy with at this point, but I'll do a few more versions this evening to compare across the board for which solution is working best.


***The questions that arose today were type - do I need it, and what could it be? That's why I figured a critical review of the article would be helpful in choosing to add type or not. At first thought, I wanted to bring Ray's name into it, but that might not be as helpful in addressing what is making me angry. I'm sure he's not the only one who enjoys this concept that he is introducing, so it would make it more of a personal attack to address him individually rather than doing something satirical about the concept of  putting our brains in robot bodies to become immortal. I think addressing the concept could be more impacting.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

progress

I've switched to putting my sketches on the computer in an illustrator file. That way I can use it as a reference when applying the drawing fluid on the screen. I turned down the opacity on the robot layer over the brains for now just for the see through effect but I'll be dropping it in photoshop and playing with the overlays more before printing. That way I have a better idea of color combinations.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Waco Day

Not exactly in one place for a convenient blogpost. But here are some on the road photos. Some sketches of the combo robot and brain, a rock under a railroad track that looked like a brain, and a painting on a wall with awesome color application. I've decided to do a drawing fluid process to wear I'm creating the image by hand when it comes down to it. About to start some more sketches while listening to a show at common grounds.










And before we left FW, I put one of Shepards' stickers at the gas pump next to the 24 hr surveillance photo. Perfection.



Wednesday, March 23, 2011

IT'S HUGE!

Today, I got a giant screen to print the poster with. I am so so so so pumped!!! It is large and beautiful. It probably won't be able to bleed to the edge on a 24x36 dimension poster, but I have a lot of inspiration that has backgrounds with hints of texture and rough edges that don't bleed so I would be totally cool with making it work.
And I've discovered from beginning my sketches that starring at brains makes me somewhat sick. Also, the perspective of my current bot my need to be altered to work with the brain imagery that communicates well. More to come later, but I won't be able to get to it until later - DSVC! Finally.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

my bot

Here is the beginning of the roboman. I definitely looked for a lot of inspiration today on faces that didn't communicate too much emotion other than brain dead pretty much. I think this one makes a good neutral decision, but I'm just working with the brain being at the same exact perspective with the spinal cord and some nerves hanging from it in a jagged manner. ewww.

Monday, March 21, 2011

fear of expression

In the beginning stages of my development of the look of the robot, I have already hit a road block. I have realized my fear of how much a face communicates, even if it's robotic. So, I think it is best to maintain minimal develop of the expression and to keep it as mechanical as possible. I want to have it framed portrait style from an angle. The robot will be an outline drawing, and the brain will be a full illustration with the veins hanging into the neck and body of the bot. The lines of the illustration will be jagged, but will imply continuation. Sketches shall be uploaded in the morning post classtime and more development.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

mind break

the wrap up of my spring break has consisted of life organization. progress postponed for one more day.

Friday, March 18, 2011

austin outdoor gallery

This work is the largest installation in austin history. It's on Baylor st between 11th & 12th. Two guys who work for Shepard were there putting it up - apparently that's a full time job. They were pretty much pro's at it. Tons of strips of poster, glue, water, and some brushes was all they needed. The homeless guys hanging out called them glorified wallpaper dudes. It was entertaining. I really feel like I'm going to develop both ideas - the appropriation of monopoly and the robot brains since I have the same assignment in screen printing. Then I'll be able to decide which to use for each.
Here are some snapshots of the process yesterday. Meanwhile, I'll start sketches on my own stuff.
















Thursday, March 17, 2011

thursday morning

Sitting in atx. Camera is ready to go and we're an hour and a half before shepard & his crew are supposed to arrive. Through a sequence of events, I ended up as a camera assistant. Some students from the art department near by are doing a mural to the right of where the center mural is too. More updates lata.






Wednesday, March 16, 2011

hands free

Going through the notes in my phone, I ran across a random intense thought I had that fits into this project. It was based off of the term "hands free." It was an interpretation of a lack of employment opportunities in America due to machines replacing jobs that humans would normally do. It fits into my freak out mindset from the Times Magazine article, so it was a nice surprise.

And side note - I love going to flickr to find inspiration of imagery at a moment's notice. Here's just a little visual to pair with this post for your viewing pleasure-

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

shepard at sxsw

En route back to austin before the crack of dawn and through some friends, found out about shepard & co landing in atx Thursday morning to tag a wall. So pumped. I'm not planning on being creepy but I did put a request in for some stills of the action and am planning an incognito drive by. I'm psyched.



Monday, March 14, 2011

central square records

I happened upon this individual at a record store. I took photos of all of the goodies I got from there today for my other blog, but wanted to specifically showcase him for this blog. Robots make me happy for some reason so in using them in imagery to try to communicate something upsetting will be interesting. I will definitely need to appropriate the imagery to confuse viewers. 
There were also so rad indie band posters that were screen printed for sale in the record store. It got me pumped about talking to my prof about printing my own poster for this assignment in the screen printing studio. That'll just require a bigger screen as far as I can tell so hopefully there's a spare. There were a lot of awesome things going on including some overlays of process colors creating different visuals due to color changes. Just a fun aesthetic I'm really interested in from my screen printing course right now...

Sunday, March 13, 2011

what is value anyway?

So I had one other big thing come up in conversation during a 13 hour drive yesterday that has proved to be a potential other concept for street art. This topic has entered conversations quite a bit with my close friends lately. What is it about? MONEY.
So there is no such thing as the gold standard. We all have bank accounts and hold a certain amount of digits worth. We swipe plastic cards and computers move our digits around between account holders. And we all just agree that these digits are valuable. It's really strange the more you think about it. To me, money is becoming less and less important in my life. It's pretty awesome because I'm able to see the difference between things that are so temporary in this world and things that hold true value which to me is a very personal definition - too personal for this project's blog. 
But anyways this lead me to start thinking of the following images to define this concept. I feel like I've made immense amounts of progress with my other direction, so I was comfortable playing with this one a bit as well.






Friday, March 11, 2011

5 minute brainstorm

Today is the first day of spring break and potential neglect of this blog, but alas - here I am posting, so yay. The best contribution I have to this project today is just a quick brainstorm session of different combinations other than robot brains that can be along my lines of response to the article, without being committed to that one idea.


MECHANICAL THOUGHT
MECHANICAL MIND
FALSE IMMORTALITY
PROGRAMMED THOUGHT
FEAR OF THE UNKOWN
EXPONENTIAL DISASTER 
FEAR OVERCOMES
LOST IN DESIRE
IDOLIZED IMMORTALITY
WORDLY BOUND


that is all for now.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

that banksy kid

Shephard Fairey is not the first name that comes to mind when I think of street art. The individual responsible for Exit Through The Gift Shop, and internationally famous for his ambiguity but consistent work in response to social matters is the one and only Banksy. I will, however, accredit the phenomenon to Shephard. The greatest thing Banksy brings to the table is moving his work to the interiors of buildings as well. He actually took his appropriation of Mona Lisa and put it in the Louvre itself. That takes.... courage to put it nicely. Here are a few of my favorites of his.









Wednesday, March 9, 2011

found

I found the full article from our assignment. Here are a few notes about the obey phenomenon:

-reawaken a sense of wonder about one's environment
-create curiosity
-don't hand over the product of purpose of the ad off the back
-there is no meaning of the poster. crap. I want meaning...
-the sticker is embraced as a sign of rebellion
-causes viewers to consider the details and meanings in response to themselves


I've gathered that the following things are important to consider when I enter execution stages. Ambiguity of message, high contrast color scheme, clear shapes, no overwhelming detail, and a quick headstrong presentation of the imagery so it grabs the viewers attention quickly to cause that sense of curiosity and questioning.