Next assignment: Collage Artist/Presentation

Write a three-page (doublespaced) paper on a collage artist, choosing from the list below. When you've selected your artist, post the artist's name in the "comments" below, along with which section of the class you're in -- morning or afternoon (and make sure no one in your section has already claimed that artist by checking out the comments before you). This is first come, first serve, so the quicker you pick and artist and comment, the wider choice you'll have.

Your paper should include some biographical background, to put the artist's work in context, and you should also choose two specific collage works by the artist, and give an aesthetic analysis of those works. You can talk about content -- what is the "meaning" of the piece, and how does the artist articulate that meaning? What sort of sources did the artist draw the collage material from, and how does that inform the meaning of the work? Also analyze its formal properties: how has the artist used color? Composition? Variation - of size, of light areas/dark areas, etc? Negative space and positive space? Rhythm? Texture? Is there a foreground and a background -- and if so, how do they relate to each other?

The central message of your paper should be a summary of the particular methods the artist uses and the effects the artist achieves through collage. You can break down the three-page structure like this:

Page 1: Central message and bio
Page 2: Analysis of one collage
Page 3: Analysis of second collage

You will be presenting your paper next Thursday. Bring a printed-out version of the paper and visual materials (the two images you've chosen, and anything else that will help in explaining your chosen artist and his/her work -- for the presentation, you can make a powerpoint and/or bring digital images to project). You will also be making a digital collage that is in some way a response to the artist's work; we will be working on that assignment for a couple classes. This is not to be a copy of any of the artist's work -- but take some principles that the artist embodies, and apply them to a work of your own making. For instance, Max Ernst used illustrations from 19th-century popular illustrated novels and science books and combined them to make a kind of disjointed story. What would a collage-story look like if it were assembled from science books of today?

So - due this coming Tuesday - the paper (which you will present), and an idea for your "artist response" collage, which you will begin working on in class next Thursday.

Use the MLA guide for citing sources for your bibliography, for the paper:

http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/mla_examples.cfm

Citation help:

Citation machine

Easybib

Here is the common writing rubric, which I'll be using to grade your paper:

http://www.sierranevada.edu/assets/SNC-Common-Rubric-Written-Assignments-4-columns.pdf

And here's the list of collage artists. Not all of them were primarily collage artists, but all used collage:

Jean Arp
Romare Bearden
Umberto Boccioni
Mark Bradford
Georges Braque
Joseph Cornell
James Dawe
Arthur G. Dove
Marcel Duchamp
Dan Eldon
Max Ernst
John Heartfield
Hannah Hoch
David Hockney
Lee Krasner
Kazimir Malevich
Neck Face
Man Ray
Henri Matisse
Pablo Picasso
Ad Reinhardt
Allison Renshaw
Mimmo Rotella
Kurt Schwitters
Bernie Stephanus
Jonathan Talbot
Cecil Touchon
Marnie Weber

Image & Text: Assignment for Thurs

Image and text project. You will be making two different pictures, working from the same initial image. Produce an image that can relate to text in an interesting way. Create that image either by shooting it yourself (it can be a staged image, or an image "caught on the fly"), or it can be an image that is collaged from at least three sources (if you want to make a drawing as one of your sources, that's perfectly acceptable -- otherwise you can cull images from Google images and so on).


Using that image as a base, make two seperate treatments of the image, with legible text in each.


In treatment #1, use text that has a sense of "interior monologue." It doesn't literally have to be an interior monologue, but it should have that interior quality -- as if we're listening in on the thoughts of someone -- perhaps the thoughts of someone in the picture, perhaps the thoughts of someone looking at the scene (as if we're looking at the scene through someone's eyes, and hearing their thoughts).


In treatment #2, take the same image and place text in it that has a quality of "exterior commentary" -- the type of commentary one might find in a news caption or textbook, explaining what's happening, or somehow passing judgement on the scene. It should be as if the words are coming from a source that's not participating in the scene -- but commenting upon it from some sort of remove.


Each treatment of type should be distinct, utilizing different fonts and different layout strategies. Think about how the text relates to the image both conceptually (in the manner of an idea) and formally (how it sits on the page, how the shapes of the letters relate to the imagery, etc). Try to be as radically different in your font treatments as possible. For instance, if you have one treatment where the text is all one font, horizontal, small, and in one color, the other treatment might mix different fonts, run the text vertically, large, and in various colors.


You will have class time to work on this project on Thursday. But come prepared with an idea, and with your text and images already selected.

Tuesday's assignment

There's a short reading and response due for Tuesday's class -- "To Thine Own Selves Be True, A Review of Sherry Turkle’s Life on the Screen." Write two short paragraphs in response -- print out your response and bring it to class. We will be discussing the article. Though the article is of a book that's "old" in terms of the development of the internet, I think it brings up some insights and issues that are still relevant (and the author of the book under review, Sherry Turkle, is still writing about contemporary digital culture). The article is partly about the way people negotiate or change their identity in terms of online or "digital" culture, and since we're creating a digital self-portrait, I thought it would be interesting food for thought. There are a series of questions at the end of the article you could address yourself to; I'm most interested in your position on the "ominous" scenario and the "positive" scenario -- which do you think is closer to the truth?


http://www.emcp.com/intro_pc/reading16.htm

Here are those two scanner animations:

Memoirs of a Scanner (Martinibomb Version) from Damon Stea on Vimeo.

Otters Making Music - Elements of Time from David C. Montgomery on Vimeo.

Welcome – and some links

Hi there -- and welcome to the blog for the Digital Darkroom Class.

For next class :

Assemble personal materials for scanning to create a digital self-portrait -- be sure NOT to include photos or other images of your physical self. Give some thought to objects and textures that somehow say something about you, your identity, your sense of self. Make sure to bring at least three seperate things (all of them have to be able to be placed on a scanning bed, of course).

Please remember to acquire a jump drive, if you don't already have one -- it would be good to have it for Thursday.

And here are some links to some of the artists whose work I showed in class:

Jill Greenberg
Flickr "Brushes" gallery
Chris Jordan
Alberto Seveso
Andrea Innocent
Emily Eibel (Tomby Illustration)
eBoy Pixel Art
12:31 and the Visible Human project

Visible Human Project source:



Finding Paths through the world's photos:


The Most Photographed Barn in America

Links to syllabi:

Section 1 (10:00-12:45)

Section 2 (1-3:45)