LIST OF ALL FILES

Please remember to TAKE A SCREENSHOT OF THE RESPONSES YOU GOT FOR YOUR “SOCIAL MEDIA” IN_CLASS ASSIGNMENT TODAY - and bring those screenshots to the final.

Also, bring all your files from the semester for me to collect. Collect them all in one folder with your name on it.

Please follow this naming convention:

You should give them filenames like this:

"(2-digit project number)-(your last name)-(project title).fileextension"

So if your name is Jane Smith, and the project was the self portrait, you would name the file:

01-smith-selfportrait.jpg

If you have more than one image for the project, append letters (A,B, C):

01-smith-selfportrait-A.jpg

01-smith-selfportrait-B.jpg

All the files should be flattened files.

And here are the project titles I'd like you to use.

1. Digital self-portrait, from three scans:

01-lastname-selfportrait

2. Text/image combo project (at least two versions)

02-lastname-textimage-A

02-lastname-textimage-B

3. The response to the collage artist

03-lastname-collageresponse

4. The "composite" project (something small made large, or something large made small)

04-lastname-composite

5. The "fake news" project

05-lastname-fakenews

6. The "multiple me" project

06-lastname-multiple

7. The Fair Use Project

07-lastname-fairuse

8. The Illustrator Landscape or Portrait Project

08-lastname-illustrator

9. The Brushes Project

09-lastname-brushes

10. Lulu Book Project (six interior pages)

10-lastname-lulu-A

10-lastname-lulu-B

10-lastname-lulu-C

10-lastname-lulu-D

10-lastname-lulu-E

10-lastname-lulu-F

11. Lulu Book Cover

11-lastname-lulucover

12. Animated GIF

12-lastname-GIF

13. Social Media

13-lastname-social

Instragram pixel dimensions

1080x1080

72dpi

For the final, bring all your completed work.

Course Eval link and Final Time

Here's the link for the course evaluation - written comments are particularly helpful:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Lanier_Christian_DART_230_Fall_15

And the final is:
Dec 9th
Wednesday
9am-11am

In the usual classroom.

Work for Today: Tues 9/17

Hi everybody. I'm too sick to make it in today – I do feel better than yesterday, and am planning on being at school wednesday and thursday.

This is my agenda for today – I was going to orchestrate looking over your six pages, and coming up with a title and cover image for the book. Let's see if you guys can can wrangle that yourselves today, with a little bit of written instruction. Extra credit for anyone who takes the lead on this.

Here's the drill – everyone pull up their six pages on screen, and just go around the room showing off the pictures, just so everyone can get an idea about the content of the book. It doesn't have to be an in-depth critique, just a look at what everyone's cooked up. Maybe there's some "theme" that sort of emerges from all the work that might suggest a title - but probably not.

Have somebody go to the small whiteboard in the room (you can erase what's on there), and brainstorm some potential titles. They can be completely off the wall - you can look at the past books, on the bookshelf by the window, to see what other classes came up with. The best titles, I think, are the somewhat random ones. The worst title was definitely "Moobs." I tried to talk them out of that. But failed.

So - someone should stand at the whiteboard with a marker, everyone should stand in a circle, and just run clockwise around the circle, with each person calling out their idea for a title. This is just brainstorming, no one gets to opt out because they think their idea is lame. The person at the whiteboard writes down the title options. Once everyone has given out a title, you can open it up for people to call out a few other suggestions, or possible combos of the titles that are already up.

Then it comes to a vote. One thing to keep in mind is that a good title isn't just something that sounds good - it should also lend itself to a good, strong cover image. Whichever title gets the most votes wins - and then, spend the remainder of the class having each person create their own version of what the cover should look like, including the title. Same dimensions as the interior – 7.75" square, 300 dpi, with and eighth-inch bleed.

On Thursday, we'll take a look at all the covers, and take a vote on the one we'll use. Second place winner gets the back cover.

Hope that all makes sense. If not, feel free to have someone call me at 415-845-5670. I'll sound like a dying muppet, but can still talk.

Link to Public Domain Image Resources

http://guides.library.harvard.edu/c.php?g=310751&p=2072816

The "Sequence" or Book Project

Next Thursday will be a work period for your six-page sequence, so come prepared with whatever raw materials you need (images, ideas) to use the work period profitably. A portion of your grade will be your initial proposal for the sequence, which is due at the beginning of Thursday's class – you need to have at least a basic sketch (drawn out on paper, or cobbled together in Photoshop) of your general idea for the sequence, or a one-paragraph write-up of your idea (printed out).

Here are the specs for the images in your "sequence" project -- the one we're printing up as a book through lulu.com. You should have the images you need at the start of the class, so you can just jump into it when class starts.

Dimensions for Lulu book project
You will have 6 pages to fill in an art book we're publishing through Lulu.com. One page is like an intro page for yourself and your work, which should include your name. It can be a sort of "artist's statement," or it can otherwise set the stage for the images to follow. The following five pages should be a series of images that somehow work together as a sequence.

The dimensions at which you should create the work are:

Final page size will be 7.5" x 7.5" at 300 dpi.
The pages need a 1/8" bleed all the way around, so you'll create your photoshop files at 7.75" x 7.75" (at 300 dpi, this comes out to 2325 pixels by 2325 pixels).

Keep in mind, as you're designing the sequence, that you will have three "two page spreads," where the image on the lefthand page will be facing the image on the righthand page. Think about how the images on those facing pages will affect each other, in terms of content, color, composition, and so on.

If you're still chewing through what a "sequence" is, remember that a potential starting place could be:

1. Time changes through a fixed location. What is a single place, that goes through changes as time passes, and how are those changes made visible? Think of R. Crumb's "History of America."

2. Spatial changes with a fixed subject. Is there a character, or object, that travels through different spaces?

3. Transformations of a character or object. Think of Klinger's "glove" etching. Is there a common image that goes through a variety of changes of scale, of stature, of meaning? Is there an object that can pull the images together along the thread of a visual theme?

4. Different aspects of a single thing. Think Hokusai's Mount Fuji series. Is there a thing, a person or a place that can be looked at through a variety of lenses -- the lens of history, of myth, of geology, etc?

5. Formal variation and rhythm. Remember that abstracts images can function in sequence, riffing on common formal elements throughout the multiple images.

6. Storytelling. Any sequence tells a story of some sort. Is there some sort of narrative that could occur through the five images? Think of Hogarth's "Harlot's Progess," or the comics examples I showed.

And you should "own" your artwork in this project -- you can shoot your own images, or draw your own images. You can use stock images (free or purchased).

Pics for download

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mesepv2rzv55i9z/pics.zip?dl=0

Illustrator project and links

Size for illustrator project (abstract, landscape, or portrait): 11" x 17"

Download link for illustrator shapes:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ls2ri374qalzvpv/illustrator-vector-shapes.zip?dl=0


Some cool vector art, by a variety of artists:

Fernando Togni

Caramelaw

Konstantin Shalev

Various

More various

Next class: Fair Use Image, Written Defense, and Copyright Changes

In addition to your fair use defense  (on a separate page - see the last blog post for more info on that one), I want one paragraph explaining what you would change about copyright law. Would you reduce the term of copyright, or extend it? Would you add clearer guidelines for the amount of a copyrighted work that can be used in fair use? Would you introduce more specific standards for setting or reporting damages for copyright infringement? Would you create any broader categories for fair use? Would you create a copyright version of "attribution," where you have broader range of use as long as you have an explicit acknowledgement of your copyrighted sources?

So, by Thursday, have:

1. Your fair use image

2. Your one-page defense (printed out)

3. Your one-paragraph revision of copyright law (printed out)

Sketch for Tuesday - "Fair Use" Project

For Tuesday's class, come prepared with a sketch for your idea for the "fair use" project. You need to use something that's copyrighted – an image, a photo, a logo, a tagline, a story, a song lyric, whatever it may be – and you need to change it enough that you think you'd have a "fair use" case for your use of the copyrighted material.

Obviously we're creating this project for class, but I want you to imagine your fair use project being used in some other venue. The intended venue of the work could have a strong bearing on whether your work is "protected" or not -- so please imagine the artwork is intended to be shown on a T-Shirt, in a gallery, on a billboard, or what have you. For Thursday, you'll have to have a written defense of your work on fair use grounds - we'll put you "on trial" nd see if you get thrown in copyright jail or not.

If you want to refresh yourself on some copyright info, there are free digital versions of a Duke Copyright Fair Use comic here:

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/digital.php

Again, fair use can be invoked for the following reasons:

To report on news
To make a parody
To copy for class
To criticize
To quote for scholarly purposes
For research

For the purposes of this project, you'll be leaning on either the "parody" or "criticism" angle.

There are also "four guidelines" for fair use - we'll examine this more closely on Tuesday's class:

1. The Transformative Factor: The Purpose and Character of Your Use

2. The Nature of the Copyrighted Work

3. The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken

4. The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market

More detailed info here:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html

Next assignment: Tutorial

Tutorial

On Tuesday (10/13), you should be prepared to give the class a photoshop tutorial, on any topic or effect you'd like to research. Google something you'd like to learn, or click around in the links on the "my blog list" column on the righthand side of this page (there are lots of good tutorials on those blogs). Remember, step yourself through it BEFORE you come to class, to make sure you understand all the steps, and have all the materials you need. You should be able to make your demonstration in about ten minutes.

Don't pick something too complicated to do in ten minutes, but don't get too simple, either. If you just correct some redeye or something, or review something we've already covered in class, you're not going to get a good grade (though it might be something that builds on things we've learned in class, there should be at least some new element getting you to the end product). Try to hit that sweet spot of "moderately difficult" tutorial.

I'll be keeping the lab open on monday from 11:30-3:00. If you don't have photoshop on your computer, and can't make that time slot, you can download a free trial version of photoshop which will let you use it for 30 days.

Post a link or a one-sentence description of the tutorial you'd like to do in the "comments" to this blog post,  checking to make sure no one else has picked the same tutorial before you.

Multiple You Assignment

"Multiple You"

The nextassignment is to create a picture that will have five (or more) images of yourself in one single environment. Put another way, it'll be a picture of some space -- a room, landscape, whatever -- in which there are at least five images of you, realistically inhabiting the space. There should also be some overlapping among at least three of the "yous."

Part of this assignment is technical - thinking of how you are going to best execute your idea, making sure the lighting works in the way you want it to, making sure you've staged the scene in a way that works, utilizing a tripod perhaps in stabilizng your multiple shots. The other part of the assignment is creative -- thinking through what the realtionship between your five (or more) selves might be, and what their relationship to the environment might be. It will be relatively easy to just position yourself in a room in four different poses, and just piece the four photos together. But there should be some sort of drama that is expressed in the picture.

You can dress in different costume for your five or more selves, so that the multiple yous are multiple characters. Or you could take the multiple yous as different expressions of the same central personality. Is one version of you the ego, and the other the id? Is one a voice undermining you, and is another a contrary voice of optimism and hope? What are the different faces of your personality, and what sorts of relationships or conflicts do they have with one another? How could those relationships/conflicts be expressed through action, through expression, through gesture?

This doesn't have to be heavy at all -- you can have a comical take on the problem -- but the bottom line is that there should be some psychological relationship betwen the multiple "characters." It doesn't have to be obvious or over-the-top -- there's room for ambiguity and mystery -- but it does have to be there, somewhere.

You'll need to have your photos taken before next class -- which wil be a work period for combining the photos. It might be a good strategy to pair with someone else in class; it'll be a good way of covering people who don't have access to a digital camera, and it will be far easier to compose and shoot yourself properly with someone other than you taking the pictures. We will eventually be making prints of these images, so make sure you take the photos at print resolution.

Tutorial Assignment, and Files I'm Collecting

Tutorial

On Thursday (10/13), you should be prepared to give the class a photoshop tutorial, on any topic or effect you'd like to research. Google something you'd like to learn, or click around in the links on the "my blog list" column on the righthand side of this page (there are lots of good tutorials on those blogs). Remember, step yourself through it BEFORE you come to class, to make sure you understand all the steps, and have all the materials you need. You should be able to make your demonstration in about ten minutes.

Don't pick something too complicated to do in ten minutes, but don't get too simple, either. If you just correct some redeye or something, or review something we've already covered in class, you're not going to get a good grade (though it might be something that builds on things we've learned in class, there should be at least some new element getting you to the end product). Try to hit that sweet spot of "moderately difficult" tutorial.


Post a link or a one-sentence description of the tutorial you'd like to do in the "comments" to this blog post,  checking to make sure no one else has picked the same tutorial before you.

ALSO: I will be collecting all your project files for your midterm grade on Thursday. So please bring to class your flattened files for –

Digital self portrait (scanned items)
Text/Image project
Collage Artist Response
Composite (big thing made small, or small thing made big)
Fake News
Multiple Me

Please follow this naming convention:

You should give them filenames like this:

"(2-digit project number)-(your last name)-(project title).fileextension"

So if your name is Jane Smith, and the project was the self portrait, you would name the file:

01-smith-selfportrait.jpg

If you have more than one image for the project, append letters (A,B, C):

01-smith-selfportrait-A.jpg
01-smith-selfportrait-B.jpg

All the files should be flattened files.

And here are the project titles I'd like you to use.

1. Digital self-portrait, from three scans:

01-lastname-selfportrait

2. Text/image combo project (at least two versions)

02-lastname-textimage-A
02-lastname-textimage-B

3. The response to the collage artist

03-lastname-collageresponse

4. The "composite" project (something small made large, or something large made small)

04-lastname-composite

5. The "fake news" project

05-lastname-fakenews

6. The "multiple me" project

06-lastname-multipleme

For Thursday - fake news sketch

The current assignment is to fake a news story. This should involve at least three images (though it can be more) you've composited, and some supporting text -- the text could be as simple as a caption or headline, or you could write a mini news article to accompany the image, if appropriate. The "fake news" could be either something plausible, or something completely absurd. Either way, strive to make the image itself as convincing as possible, and try to create the accompanying caption or story in a way that it sounds like a real news story. Thursday will be an in-class work day for this project.

Come to class Thursday with your raw materials for the project selected (or shot, if you're using any photos you plan to shoot yourself), the text (for caption or story) written and printed out, and a basic sketch of your idea for the project. I will collect the writing and sketch as a graded assignment.

Compositing - in-class assignment

In this assignment, I want you to insert a small image into a large landscape, or a large image into a small space: think of putting a giant banana in the middle of Times Square, or putting the eiffel tower into an aquarium. This is a basic compositing exercise -- I want you to make it as convincing as possible. Six things to look for when compositing, to make consistent across your composited images:

1. Color Balance
2. Brightness and Contrast
3. Key Light Direction (and Shadows)
4. Perspective
5. Blur
6. Grain

Here's a good tutorial on changing the lighting source for an image by creating two layers for a single image, adjusting them to highlight and shadow values, and then blending the two layers:

Lighting a Giant Elephant By bpkelsey
http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161386&page=1

Sorry - out sick (9/8)

My apologies to everyone – my cold managed to work itself up into a sinus infection over the weekend – I just jumped onto the antibiotics train and should be good enough to go on Thursday. If you' were all in the middle of a project, I'd just have tyne class run as an "open lab" today, but since I need to actually see your collage presentations to evaluate them, I'm just going to cancel class today.

On Thursday, half the class time will be devoted to presentations, and in the other half of the class, you'll be working on your "visual response" to your chosen collage artist. We'll probably get through about half of the presentations on Thurs, and finish up the remaining ones next Tuesday – which, again, will be split between a work period for your visual responses and the final presentations. On the following Thursday (the 17th) we'll have a critique of your visual responses.

One note - looking over the comments, it looks about half of you have not chosen a collage artist yet. Or you're just terrible at following directions. Either way, if you do not have your paper printed out and ready to hand in at the beginning of this Thursday's class, you'll get a zero for the assignment – I won't accept late papers past the start of this Thursday's class.

Homework for Tues (9/8)

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 Tuesday. 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

Homework for Monday (8/31): Image and Text

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 Monday. But come prepared with an idea, and with your text and images already selected.

Homework for Tueday

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 is a scanner animation we'll look at on Tuesday's class:



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

Welcome – Fall 2015

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

And the online art communities I talked about:

http://www.deviantart.com
http://www.conceptart.org

Visible Human Project source:



Finding Paths through the world's photos:



The Most Photographed Barn in America

Link to syllabus:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k1rlrbczcqaxkwc/15FallDART230-1Lanier.doc?dl=0